Return of the Bird Flu
Great, just what we need on top of everything else.
Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon ordered Thursday the culling of all fowl in a three kilometer radius of the northern town of Binyamina.
Simhon’s order comes following the earlier detection of a deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in a Binyamina kindergarten petting zoo.
According to Professor Shmuel Rishpon, chair of the Health Ministry’s epidemiology and immunization steering committee, the virus generates a fatal disease for humans. However, no one is believed to be at risk at this point.
The strain was detected in the petting zoo of a kindergarten in which 60 children are enrolled. None of the children are believed to have come into contact with the fowl.
Last Friday, the kindergarten teacher found three dead chickens in the coop, and called in a local veterinarian, who took virologist samples from the chickens and passed them on to the Agriculture Ministry.
On Wednesday morning, 18 out of the 25 chickens were found dead and laboratory findings indicated that the cause was indeed the deadly bird flu.
The rest of the fowl were put to death Thursday and the area is currently being disinfected.
The Health Ministry said in response that the chickens were held in an enclosed cage and that no one is said to have come into contact with them, apart from the poultry farmer who removed their corpses.
The farmer, his relatives, and additional workers of the coop who have come into contact with the infected chickens in the past week have been prescribed anti-viral medication.
Health Ministry officials further stressed basic instructions for the prevention of the virus. Instructions include food products that have been bought in licensed stores, washing hands before and after the treatment of poultry, cooking chicken in a temperature of over 70 degree centigrade and eating only hard-boiled eggs.
Of course, this isn’t the first time bird flu has been detected in Israel. So I don’t think anyone should be pressing the panic button just yet.
Meanwhile, it looks like someone over at the JTA is trying to be funny.
Israeli authorities scrambled to contain a suspected outbreak of bird flu.
About the Author
An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.Filed Under: Uncategorized
H5N1 avian flu: Spread by drinking water
There is a widespread link between avian flu and water, e.g. in Egypt to the Nile delta or Indonesia to residential districts of less prosperous humans with backyard flocks and without central water supply as in Vietnam: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no12/06-0829.htm. See also the WHO webside: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/emerging/h5n1background.pdf and http://www.umwelt-medizin-gesellschaft.de/ abstract in English “Influenza: Initial introduction of influenza viruses to the population via abiotic water supply versus biotic human viral respirated droplet shedding” and http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473309907700294/abstract?iseop=true “Transmission of influenza A in human beings”.
Avian flu infections may increase in consequence to increase of virus circulation. Transmission of avian flu by direct contact to infected poultry is an unproved assumption from the WHO. Infected poultry can everywhere contaminate the drinking water. All humans have contact to drinking water. Special in cases of decentral water supplies this pathway can explain small cluster in households. In hot climates/tropics the flood-related influenza is typical after extreme weather and natural after floods. Virulence of Influenza virus depends on temperature and time. If young and fresh H5N1 contaminated water from low local wells, cisterns, tanks, rain barrels or rice fields is used for water supply water temperature for infection may be higher (24°C: virulence of influenza viruses 2 days) as in temperate climates with older water from central water supplies (7°C: virulence of influenza viruses 14 days).
Human to human and contact transmission of influenza occur – but are overvalued immense. In the course of influenza epidemics in Germany, recognized cluster are rare, accounting for just 9 percent of cases in the 2005 season. In temperate climates the lethal H5N1 virus will be transferred to humans via cold drinking water, as with the birds in February and March 2006, strong seasonal at the time when drinking water has its temperature minimum.
Recent research must cause concern: So far the virus has had to reach the bronchi and the lungs to infect humans. Now it infects the upper respiratory system (the mucous membranes of the throat such as through drinking, and the mucous membranes of the nose and probably also the conjunctival of the eyes as well as the eardrum, such as through showering). In a few cases (Vietnam, Thailand) the stomach and intestines were stricken by the H5N1 virus but not the bronchi and the lungs. The virus might been orally taken, such as through drinking contaminated water.
The performance to eliminate viruses from the drinking water processing plants in Germany regularly does not meet the requirements of the WHO and the USA/USEPA. Conventional disinfection procedures are poor, because microorganisms in the water are not in suspension, but embedded in particles. Even ground water used for drinking water is not free from viruses.
In temperate climates strong seasonal waterborne infections like the norovirus, rotavirus, salmonella, campylobacter and – differing from the usual dogma – influenza are mainly triggered by drinking water, dependent on the water’s temperature (in Germany it is at a minimum in February and March and at a maximum in August). There is no evidence that influenza primarily is transmitted by saliva droplets. In temperate climates the strong interdependence between influenza infections and environmental temperatures can’t be explained by the primary biotic transmission by saliva droplets from human to human at temperatures of 37.5°C. There must be an abiotic vehicle like cold drinking water. There is no other appropriate abiotic vehicle. In Germany about 98 percent of inhabitants have a central public water supply with older and better protected water. Therefore, in Germany cold water is decisive to the virulence of viruses.
In hot climates and the tropics flood-related influenza is typical after extreme weather and natural after floods. The virulence of the influenza virus depends on temperature and time. If young and fresh H5N1 contaminated water from low local wells, cisterns, tanks, rain barrels or rice fields is used for water supply the water temperature for infection may be higher (at 24°C the virulence of influenza viruses amount to 2 days) as in temperate climates (for “older” water from central water supplies cold water is decisive to virulence of viruses: at 7°C the virulence of influenza viruses amount to 14 days).
Dipl.-Ing. Wilfried Soddemann – Free science journalist – soddemann-aachen@t-online.de – http://www.dugi-ev.de/information.html – Epidemiological Analysis: http://www.dugi-ev.de/TW_INFEKTIONEN_H5N1_20071019.pdf
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