US study finds wild birds not reservoir for highly pathogenic flu

[Dr Martin Williams [account from Drupal site]]

Well, should be no surprises to anyone who has followed info in this forum – dating back way, way too long.

Dead Ducks Don’t Fly – indeed!

But here by researcher Robert Webster, who some time ago did his level best to show wild ducks were key vectors for high path flu [and predicted bird flu would kill something like half the world’s humans! Seems to be a big fish in a jolly small pond, when it comes to flu research…]

From article:

The H5 avian influenza A virus that devastated North American poultry farms in 2014-15 was initially spread by migratory waterfowl, but evidence suggests such highly pathogenic flu viruses do not persist in wild birds. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital led the research, which appears online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While wild ducks and other aquatic birds are known to be natural hosts for low pathogenic flu viruses associated with milder symptoms, the results of this study indicate that is not the case with the highly pathogenic flu viruses that are associated with more severe illness. The research suggests that wild ducks and other aquatic birds are not an ongoing source of highly pathogenic flu infection in domestic poultry.

“The findings provide a scientific basis for the decision by officials to use culling and quarantines to stop the 2014-15 outbreak in domestic poultry,” said corresponding author Robert Webster, Ph.D., an emeritus member of the St. Jude Department of Infectious Diseases. “Now, research is needed to identify the mechanism that has evolved in these wild birds to disrupt the perpetuation of highly pathogenic influenza.

Evidence suggests migratory birds are not a reservoir for highly pathogenic flu viruses

Back in March 2006, I’d emailed Webster asking if facts are unimportant to him; he replied about being very busy, to which I responded:

My concern is not provision of info to me, but the disinformation you keep feeding the media (wild birds carrying virus from Qinghai to Africa, from Poyang to Qinghai [never mind actual flyways], Russian wild ducks rife w H5N1, a captive flamingo w H5N1 showing the virus was migrating towards Africa etc etc…)

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