- This topic is empty.
- Posts
Remarkably that it infected also falcons. That speaks at least for its courage.
Quote:Kuwait confirms 20 cases of bird flu Agencies Kuwait City: Kuwait has confirmed 20 cases of the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus in falcons, chickens and turkeys, a spokesman for the Health Ministry said on Sunday. Ahmed Al Shatti said there were no human cases and an emergency plan has been launched. He said the cases were found at the Kuwait Zoo, farms and a clinic for falcons. ..Is it actually usual that migratory birds insert a rest in an clinic for falcons for a medical investigation before the journey continues? Confused, Werner
Hi Werner:
Indeed, clinics not normal resting places for migratory birds.
Falconry is very popular in the Middle East – falcons caught/traded from many places (even Mongolia/n China I believe).
I’d expect, then, that the clinic treats falconers’ birds.
Now H5N1 has reached poultry in Kuwait, maybe also to some of the chickens or whatever the falcons are normally fed on.(Rather as in HK – at least one dead peregrine with H5N1 apparently from captivity [illegal]; I’d reckoned that likely fed on infected poultry.)
Martin
Martin wrote:
Quote:Hi Werner: Indeed, clinics not normal resting places for migratory birds. Falconry is very popular in the Middle East – falcons caught/traded from many places (even Mongolia/n China I believe). I’d expect, then, that the clinic treats falconers’ birds. Now H5N1 has reached poultry in Kuwait, maybe also to some of the chickens or whatever the falcons are normally fed on.That is also always my first thought, if the speech is from infected carnivores. Already in the case of the Northern Hawk Owls in the Rotterdamer Zoo (summer 2006) was the most obvious thought that the transmission must have taken place via contaminated fodder (ie day old chicks, with the ability to conserve an Virus in frozen condition quite over several months). Martin wrote:
Quote:(Rather as in HK – at least one dead peregrine with H5N1 apparently from captivity [illegal]; I’d reckoned that likely fed on infected poultry.) MartinInteresting would be surely also an investigation of the current Russian outbreaks. With Russia the "CHECHENS FOR CHICKENS" affair.
At all it would be to be examined surely very interesting once, which trade relations between the backyard fowl and the poultry industry exist. I have there my own theory, which concerns the exchange of immune-insufficient flocks between the poultry industry and the backyard poultry. An aspect is surely the transfer of contaminated fodder. Another would also be the trade by breeding selection (hope that’s the right spelling for "Zuechterische Selektion"), genetically unstable and illness-susceptible, degenerated living animals. Werner
I’d never heard of chickens for Chechens!
Seen re possible reports of industrial farms kind of dumping (at low prices?) birds that maybe they know to be sick, to backyard farms. Then, when H5N1 infections found, blame wild birds.
Martin wrote:
Quote:I’d never heard of chickens for Chechens!Clinton promised 1995 to shut up because of the violations of human rights in Chechnya, and for Yeltsins presidency candidacy to supported, if the Russians would not refuse any longer to leave Tysons Chicken in the country which were not considered to date as with the Russian food acts compatible. Send you an short article by mail related to this.
Martin wrote:
Quote:Seen re possible reports of industrial farms kind of dumping (at low prices?) birds that maybe they know to be sick, to backyard farms. Then, when H5N1 infections found, blame wild birds.Absolutely. Agreeing with you, and think that we should examine that point more near.
Werner
Post edited by: Werner, at: 2007/02/26 12:51
In addition to the 20 cases reported sunday:
Quote:Source ::: AFPkuwait city • Kuwait has detected 12 new cases of the bird flu strain that is dangerous to humans in poultry at two farms in the emirate, the health ministry said yesterday.
But a first batch of tests carried out on people who had been in contact with infected fowl all proved negative, ministry spokesman Ahmad Al Shatti said. “We have found nine chickens and three turkeys infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of the disease at two locations,” Shatti said.
One was the Wafra farms area on the border with Saudi Arabia, which was one of the places where the strain was first reported on Sunday. The other was in Doha, just west of Kuwait City. Hundred of birds have been culled.
He said that more people who had been in contact with the infected birds were being tested and that the results should be known today. The other cases of the strain confirmed on Sunday were among falcons and captive birds at Kuwait Zoo. The authorities have closed the zoo and the capital’s bird market, and imposed a ban on all imports or exports of poultry products and live birds, including falcons.
There are some eternally repeated phrases spread by the press agencies which makes me very angry (these hollow phrases are everywhere in the world and in each language of same content):
“A first batch of tests™”
Comment: The force of expression of “quick tests” may be doubted. These show usually only the presence of an Influenzavirus. Precise subtyping requires a laboratory-diagnostic PCR as an accompanying serological investigation (also the PCR, due to sequencing, saves error potential). Without laboratory-diagnostic security those “quick tests” are comparable with the crystal ball of a fortune teller. Therefore the blind actionism resulting from it is not to be justified.
“Bird flu strain that is dangerous to humans™”
Comment: Of course, it is. Around 250 people died as an result of H5N1 infection. However this statement is too general. For the sake of the objectivity an exact view of the conditions would be under which the infections necessarily took place.
“The deadly H5N1 strain™”
Comment: The H5N1 hpai Strain is primary deadly for birds. In addition it seems to me as flocks from poultry industry is more sensitively to an infection than free-living, immune-stable wild birds. Still more: Seems that in fact the poultry industry is a cause for the emergence of highly pathogenic viruses. Martin wrote some truth about natural wild bird flus on other place of this forum. In nature highly pathogenic virus mutations arise always only temporarly and mean only a mismatching to a (new) species. Were an stupid situation for an Virus to kill all of his hosts..
“xxxxxxx of birds have been culled™”
(x has to be replaced at will by as large a number of birds as possible)Comment: This “search and destroy” philosophy brings up some collateral damage. The always better method would be “quarantine and watching”. A cause is probably missing realization with many humans. Just like they think that problems can be solved by throwing some bombs on it, they believe in culling viruses. That is foolish: Because either the virus is in nature endemically or not. If it however (when low pathogenic variant) in nature is endemic, then they could culling many chickens as they want. The virus becomes never loose one thereby. Only solution would to kill all birds. Worldwide. But before this happens, I will declare my own, personal war on those who want to do so..
By the way: The IDTVdb (Universal Virus Database of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ICTVdb/ ) contains thousands of several viruses. Because of evolution and mutation – In particular by genetic engineering (“New Science”) – at least a potential risk exists for mankind with each virus listed there. H5N1 is a current, but not the only problem of mankind.
In order to say it again clearly: H5N1 hpai is entirely man-made. To take those poor creatures (poultry flocks and wild birds) as scapegoats which are in fact result (better: Victims) of oeconomic production methods, is the summit of lyingness.
I wanted to have said that once here. Apology if I thereby from the actual topic deviated too much.
Werner
Hi Werner:
I’ve written of wild birds being victims not vectors.
Poultry are vectors of H5N1 – it evolved in them.
But yes, they are victims too.
We’ve taken a bird of Asian forests, and now pack it by the thousand and hundreds of thousands in hideous sheds, for a surely horrible life. (Anyone selling eggs with pictures from factory farms on them? – instead, get bucolic rural scences more likely.) Turkeys hardly having fun in Bernard Matthews’ farms, either.
Then, when get H5N1, mass killings, with not all birds dispatched (read of some chickens getting up and walking from under piles of corpses).Sad; arising from our own, human overpopulation.
Adding insult to injury: free range farms are having problems because of the mythical wild birds spreading H5N1 (the Tooth Fairy Bird): worse for smallholders, for poultry, and for consumers.
But, good for industrial poultry farmers and their supporters and those who benefit from them.Martin
Hi Martin:
AThat’s in fact correct. Only whether the poultry is urgently necessary may be doubted. According to a report of the WHO foods are destroyed annually for 6 billion people because they can not be sold and do give that away “the prices bust would do”. It goes actually not to get the people fully at all with this frightful production method for that, but only around the profit of the producers. But that is another topic (also when it with respect to the origin of epidemics, identical whether BSE, SARS or poultry plague, is absolutely from relevance).
Frightening I find particularly the Lobbyism which one with all means attempts to prevent that the risks of the production method poultry industry objectively judges and in public are expressed.
With this topic I remember an old German industrial standard (In the meantime compensated DIN for by ISO, to be dropped more precisely without being replaced):
(I try to translate precisely as possible)
DIN 31 000
“General guiding principles for safetyfair arranging of technical products.” (applies in the core probably also to biological products)“With the safetyfair organization to that solution preference is to be given, by which the protection goal is technically meaningfully best reached and economically. The safety-relevant requirements have in the doubt the priority before economic considerations.“
Something comparable would be surely overdue regarding the poultry industry already..
Werner
Yes, some considerations re poultry industry surely needed: re safety, animal welfare; whether people really want to eat factory farmed poultry, with crackdowns on free range even tho this is surely healthier.
Just seen a post with info from a birder (in Middle East/Kowait it seems), inc:
Apparently the affected falcons were in the zoo, which has been
closed. Such birds and hunting falcons in general here probably are fed only or mostly freshly dead, uncooked birds, either poultry or shot or siezed (by the falcons themselves) wild birds.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.