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from Devlin Kuyek of Grain:
Dear Martin,
My apologies for jumping to the conclusion that Dr. Sims had not read the report. Perhaps I’ve been influenced by all the speculation that surrounds this issue (or maybe it was his reference to Laurie Garrett). I would like to briefly respond to a couple points in his latest posting, while encouraging others on your forum with more knowledge than I to reply to those points that I have left out.
It is admirable that Dr Sims is devoting his attention to smallholder farmers. We too believe that they are most at risk from continued outbreaks of bird flu, not only from the virus but also from control measures that are impractical for them to implement and "restructuring" plans that will wipe them out of the picture. We also believe, from our experience in working closely with farmers around the world, that farmers have a tremendous wealth of knowledge about how to manage disease on their farms, whether for crops or animals, that is all too often dismissed as "primitive" by outside experts. As Dr Sims alluded to in his comments, biosafety requires different approaches for small, mixed farms and factory farms. He can correct me if I’m wrong, but conventional approaches to control Newcastle Disease, for instance, are entirely different for small holders and big operations.
With small farms, Newcastle is treated as a low-level disease that regularly occurs but that causes only minor mortality. But in a factory farm, it can get in through a small breech of biosecurity, evolve to more virulent strains, rapidly wipe out most if not all of the flock and then spread to other factory farms and smallholder farms, where it is now more lethal. That’s why there are massive culls whenever an outbreak occurs at a factory farm (as it regularly does).
In general, biosafety on a small farm focuses on balance and adaptation to the local ecosystem (with outside interventions required only under certain circumstances– vaccines, etc). The goal is to keep diseases in check– an approach that certainly makes sense when the disease is endemic, as bird flu now seems to be. This is not possible for a factory farm, which is why it must be totally enclosed and must take such drastic biosafety measures– which are inevitably breeched at some point. From our research in bird flu and other poultry viruses it also seems clear that a central element of biosafety for small farms is to protect them from the poultry industry.
As we point out in the report, what is most interesting about the Laos case, where highly-pathogenic H5N1 is confined to the commercial sector, is that there is almost no contact between the small holder sector and the industrial farm sector (markets, etc). In other words, small farms in Laos appear to be protected from H5N1 because they are protected from the poultry industry, although the illegal poultry imports coming from Thailand and China are worrying. (Laos also has the lowest ratio of vets to poultry farms in the region and the highest percentage of native chickens, which should give some pause for thought.)
As we also point out in our report, the FAO and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) report that there is "growing evidence that the survival of the virus in smallholder and backyard poultry is dependent on replenishment." But this incredible statement from these top agencies has received hardly any attention! And hardly anyone is considering how poultry biodiversity may be related, even though the same agencies report that village chickens are showing resistance to H5N1.
It seems to us that the key to keeping the virus under control is to keep it from getting out of control. And the understanding that we have gleaned from our research is that this disease gets out of control in the factory farms. It may be that geese and free-ranging ducks were involved in the emergence of the H5N1 strains now stalking the planet, as Dr Sims suspects.
But our view is that the problem only exploded because of factory farming and the transnational poultry industry. Just look at the most recent outbreaks in Nigeria and India. Or look at the massive outbreak in Southern Russia, where the top vet speculates that half a million chickens died on a few factory farms because some wild birds got into the feed preparation facilities. This is why we say that the poultry industry is at the centre of the bird flu crisis.
When I asked Joseph Domenech, the Chief Veterinarian of the FAO, about the Laos case, he said that it was the low poultry density in the country as well as the lack of major markets that prevented outbreaks. Well could it be that small-scale, biodiverse, mixed farming and local markets are the solution to the bird flu problem? Could it be that this is the kind of so-called restructuring that countries like Vietnam and Thailand require?
Enjoying the discussion….
Devlin
Dear Martin/Devlin/Richard,
Quote:Cases of human infection that occurred in villages in China, Thailand, Turkey and Viet Nam before poultry cases were reported, but detected retrospectively, provide the visible evidence of non-reporting in the smallholder/backyard sector. Humans should not be the sentinels for infection in poultry but, repeatedly, this has been the case.In the Turkish case there was a report in a US newspaper (NYTimes?) of trucks arriving in the town where the children died, carrying old broilers from a nearby factory that were sold off cheap. Not proof of anything, but a plausible way people could get infected ahead of backyard flocks.
Quote:In Viet Nam where I am working at present (incidentally, working on ways to protect the livelihood of the millions of households involved in rearing scavenging poultry) the Department of Livestock Production estimates that about 20% of the total chicken population(close to 40 million poultry) is in semi-intensive commercial flocks containing between 100 and 300 poultry. These are not part of integrated operations and are the flocks most at risk from H5N1 avian influenza because of their system of production and method of marketing. Ways need to be found to protect these poultry and some basic biosecurity (and vaccination) help to do so. These are the farms I was referring to in my posting and not the flocks owned by contractors working for integrated companies, which are usually larger and practice reasonable biosecurity.I’m sure Devlin can help here: my understanding was [some at least] contract farms use chicks supplied by the big factory farms?
Quote:Anyone reading the Grain article would be led to your conclusion that The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu is essentially a problem of industrial poultry practices. Its epicentre is the factory farms of China and Southeast Asia . However this statement is not consistent with the way H5N1 viruses emerged in Asia (through geese and live bird markets),See below re Lhasa. Is that market a "wet" one?
Quote:with the lack of solid data on the exact mode of spread across Eurasia,But there’s a perfectly rational and obvious explanation: the pattern of spread goes from east to west following road and railway lines. Avian flus have been moved along railway lines before: 1925 in the USA for example. Dirty carrying crates were apparently the vector then. The spread across Eurasia doesn’t follow any bird migration pathway, nor is there any species that begins its migration in the east in spring and ends up in the west in autumn. Migration is a forward-backward movement: if the disease went north in spring, it would come back south in autumn.
Quote:with the key role of free ranging domestic ducks in the maintenance and spread of H5N1 viruses since about year 2000,But it’s very strange the disease hasn’t crossed from domestic free-range ducks to wild, migrant ducks (e.g. complete absence of the virus in healthy wild birds for the last decade at Mai Po). Shouldn’t wild bird populations be awash with the disease in Asia by now?
Quote:and the occurrence of cases since late 2004 in Asia which predominantly (but not exclusively) involved smallholder flocks (e.g. cases in Siberia in 2005, cases in Thailand in the second half of 2004 – see page 8 of AVIbull029a.pdf).Again, there’s a perfectly rational explanation for this. One of the FAO bulletins reported that an outbreak in Lhasa, Tibet, in 2004 was traced back to Lanzhou, China, 1,500 km away. The outbreak was at the main poultry market in Lhasa. Suppose the birds had been sold to smallholders a day or two earlier at the market? Result: sudden, near simultaneous outbreaks in backyard farms across Tibet – precisely the pattern reported in e.g. the Ukraine. And where was the finger of blame pointed? Wild birds of course. And where is Lanzhou? A "hub" on the silk road, on a major railway line that runs from China to Eastern Europe.
Quote:Have large poultry farms contributed to the spread of H5N1? Absolutely and they have not helped their cause by covering up some outbreaks, but they are not alone in doing so.I’m sure, therefore, you can understand our frustration when the popular belief is that wild birds are the sole spreaders of the virus. Sure they could be playing a part, but a very minor one at most.
Quote:Finally, for your information, I had read the whole report on the day the news article was released. Unfounded comments to suggest otherwise are not particularly helpful in a forum such as this.Agreed.
Regards
Richard
Hi Richard:
Thanks for the post.
Somewhat odd, as I’ve seen re research by St Jude’s (Webster et al), in which the forms of H5N1 less lethal to ducks were excreted in low amounts. Rather as swans in Romania found to excrete low amounts; birds sharing ponds with them not infected.
Dumping dead birds etc – perhaps even selling cheap poultry from or near infected areas – may well be a problem.
Martin
Here’s case – from Japan – where H5N2 (less dangerous than H5N1) was evidently diagnosed in large farms, but covered up.
Have been cases where cover-up for H5N1 in farms/reports on infections only very slow to emerge.Quote:MITO, Ibaraki Pref. (Kyodo) Police arrested four people Monday related to a poultry farm operator in Ibaraki Prefecture in connection with a suspected coverup of an avian flu outbreak last year.Police suspect Ikuo Eguchi, 58, Yoshio Maeda, 53, Takanori Nakamura, 36, all veterinarians at IKN Egg Farms Co., and IKN employee Tomohiro Nakane, 32, violated the Domestic Animal Infectious Diseases Control Law, which requires reporting any suspected contagious diseases in poultry.
They also suspect an antibody test conducted at the National Institute of Animal Health in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, by a veterinarian at the request of the IKN vets showed positive, the sources said.
The Tsukuba veterinarian is an acquaintance of the IKN vets.
The four IKN employees allegedly failed to report a case of suspected avian flu infection to the Ibaraki government late last August.
Polices searched IKN Egg Farms and the Tsukuba research institute in December and questioned the vets.
The vets at IKN Egg Farm are also suspected of obstructing an avian flu test at three farms conducted by Ibaraki Prefecture last August by submitting samples taken from other poultry farms, the sources said.
The prefecture has alleged that IKN Egg Farms committed similar misdeeds at two other poultry farms it operates in Ibaraki, prefectural officials said.
Avian flu infections have been found at 40 farms in Ibaraki Prefecture since June, and about 5.8 million chickens have had to be killed.
Veterinarians held over Ibaraki bird flu coverup
Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/03/01 13:10
from Richard Thomas; works with Birdlife International, here in his personal capacity:
Quote:Of particular importance is the fact that much of the disease in smallholder poultry goes undiagnosed. In countries with poorly developed veterinary services it is only when a case occurs in a commercial farm that the problem is diagnosed and brought to the attention of veterinary authorities.Where’s his evidence for this? There’s circumstantial evidence this is not true in the Nigerian case, and I find it hard to believe in several other countries too.
A clear distinction needs to be made between farms that have in place sound biosecurity systems, which usually remain free from disease, and those where production systems are inadequate to prevent entry of pathogens.
So, an admission that even those with sound biosecurity systems only “usually remain free from disease”. Not always then – and what happens when they get it? They’re the biggest single producers who export the furthest.
Quote:I note that Lao PDR has been used again as an example of a place where all outbreaks occurred in commercial flocks – but these were not high level, biosecure farms.USDA and FAO both used this term to describe them.
Quote:Much of the problem in Asia has been caused by farms developing to service the rapidly growing urban demands for poultry without concurrent enhancement of farm biosecurity (i.e. a backyard flock grows bigger). This is not being driven by the big multinational companies but by smallholders who see the economic benefit of servicing these markets. These farmers grow more birds under fairly primitive conditions and do not implement appropriate disease control measures. The solution to this problem is to enhance the biosecurity of these farms.True, but it’s not these farms that ship their products world-wide.
This article also suggests that the virus needs to circulate in poultry to become pathogenic. This is not the case with the H5N1 viruses circulating currently. These are already highly pathogenic from the moment they enter a flock and have been since 1996.That’s what I understood the article to be saying.
Quote:As I have stated many times this is predominatly a disease of poultry but it is incorrect to blame its emergence on intensive farming.Agreed it’s predominantly a poultry disease – so why this misguided focus on migrant birds? Where’s the FAO reports on the international poultry trade?
Cheers
RichardPost edited by: martin, at: 2006/03/02 11:47
Dear Martin,
Thank you for sharing the response from Dr Sims. Unfortunately, Dr. Sims was commenting on our press release and not our full report, which may have generated some confusion. I hope that, in the future, contributors to your forum, especially those with expert credentials, take the time to read the report before commenting. Nevertheless, I wish to address some of the points that Dr. Sims made.
Dr. Sims writes:
Quote:Of particular importance is the fact that much of the disease in smallholder poultry goes undiagnosed. In countries with poorly developed veterinary services it is only when a case occurs in a commercial farm that the problem is diagnosed and brought to the attention of veterinary authorities.Dr. Sims appears to be speculating here. To my knowledge, there are no studies that show that much of the disease goes undiagnosed in smallholder poultry. To the contrary, what we have seen in many countries is smallholders coming forward to authorities to ask about the mysterious deaths of poultry on their farms, while the commercial farms take steps to cover-up and deny bird flu outbreaks on theirs. In Japan, for instance, authorities only found out about a bird flu outbreak at one of the country’s biggest commercial farms because of an anonymous call. In Thailand, bird flu was denied by the government and the industry for months while small farms were begging for answers. In India, the farm where the first outbreak occurred and which is owned by South Asia’s biggest poultry multinational claimed it was another disease and pointed to testing done at its own labs, which was later contradicted by independent tests. Yet, despite this track record, the industry remains largely self-regulated and, even in Indonesia, where bird flu is killing people, authorities still have trouble getting access to the big commercial operations. All of this and more is in the report.
Let me offer my own speculation: much of the outbreaks on commercial farms go unreported.
Dr. Sims continues:
Quote:A clear distinction needs to be made between farms that have in place sound biosecurity systems, which usually remain free from disease, and those where production systems are inadequate to prevent entry of pathogens.I note that Lao PDR has been used again as an example of a place where all outbreaks occurred in commercial flocks – but these were not high level, biosecure farms.
Much of the problem in Asia has been caused by farms developing to service the rapidly growing urban demands for poultry without concurrent enhancement of farm biosecurity (i.e. a backyard flock grows bigger). This is not being driven by the big multinational companies but by smallholders who see the economic benefit of servicing these markets. These farmers grow more birds under fairly primitive conditions and do not implement appropriate disease control measures. The solution to this problem is to enhance the biosecurity of these farms.
There are elements to what Dr. Sims says that I would agree with, however, it is important to bear in mind that most of the mid-sized farms that Dr. Sims is talking about are tightly integrated into the production systems of multinationals, generally as contract production operations. To suggest that these contract production operations are the result of small backyard farmers eagerly pursuing bigger farms is certainly a “half-truth”, to borrow his words. Multinationals such as Charoen Pokphand and others have pushed aggressively over the years to promote this model and governments have supported its development through agricultural banks and a whole range of incentives and regulations. Look at Thailand, where the Department of Livestock, a major source of chicks in the country, is only selling chicks to farmers in lots of thousands. Moreover, in many countries, such as Laos, Burma or Nigeria, the large commercial farms are generally not operated by your average farmers, but by businessmen and members of the political establishment.
I’d rather not get into a lengthy discussion about how much such commercial operations actually contribute to food security and economic development, but, to quote Hans Wagner, Senior Animal Health and Production Officer with the FAO’s Asia-Pacific office: “The main beneficiaries of the demand surge [for meat in Asia] are large-scale, urban, capital-intensive producers and processors and urban middle and upper class consumers. The overwhelming majority of the poor do not benefit.”
But let’s get back to this idea of biosecurity. Bird flu, whether H5N1 or other viruses, is no stranger to modern, supposedly “biosecure” operations.. In our report we list a few outbreaks of bird flu that have occurred on modern factory farms: Australia (1976, 1985, 1992, 1994, 1997), USA (1983, 2002, 2004), Great Britain (1991), Mexico (1993-1995), Hong Kong (1997), Italy (1999), Chile (2002), Netherlands (2003) and Canada (2004). In the case of the H5N1 virus, outbreaks have happened on plenty of factory farms run by multinationals: India, Vietnam, China, etc.
Which brings me to Dr. Sims’ next point:
Quote:This article also suggests that the virus needs to circulate in poultry to become pathogenic. This is not the case with the H5N1 viruses circulating currently. These are already highly pathogenic from the moment they enter a flock and have been since 1996.– note: see above message from Dr Sims, re emergence of 1996 virus
This is not what we say in our report. We do not say that H5N1 needs to circulate in poultry before becoming pathogenic. What we say is that highly-pathogenic viruses are not generated in backyard flocks but in the crowded, genetically uniform, and highly susceptible flocks of factory farms. It is well-documented that low-pathogenic viruses evolve into highly-pathogenic viruses within factory farms, even in ultra-modern “biosecure” farms. This is the likely source of the highly-pathogenic H5N1 virus. Our point is that new highly-pathogenic viruses (bird flu or other) can emerge from these farms at any point and there’s no reason to think that we won’t soon see a new H5 or H7 virus on the loose.
What we also say is that factory farms amplify the disease in ways that backyard flocks and wild birds do not have the capacity to. On a factory farm the mortality rate is regularly 100%; it is almost always much lower in backyard farms. The viral load that infected factory farms generate can then spread rapidly through the many channels that flow in and out of the factory farm and that flow far and wide– live animals, chicks, hatching eggs, feed, machinery, etc.
Fundamentally, the biosecurity solution that Dr Sims appears to be proposing locks us into a vicious cycle. Breeches happen in the biosecurity of a factory farm, this is followed by calls for tighter controls, leading to new expenses, bigger farms, and more drastic interventions, such as bans on outdoor poultry and transgenic chickens– which researchers at Cambridge University are already pursuing. And as the cycle goes on, the potential consequences grow ever larger, not just in terms of the potential for the release of pandemic viruses, but also on the ground, in the destruction of small farms, biodiversity and local food systems. In our report we point out that in Viet Nam the FAO admits that the implementation of one element of its proposed restructuring plan for the poultry sector (“production zones”) would result in the loss of income of potentially one million small commercial producers.
As experience with other poultry diseases, such as Newcastle Disease, has shown, small farms can effectively manage poultry diseases and keep losses to a minimum. They have the added advantage of being run by small farmers– providing them with a direct source of income, food security, and dignity.
As we write in our report:
“Backyard farming is not an idle pastime for landowners. It is the crux of food security and farming income for hundreds of millions of rural poor in Asia and elsewhere, providing a third of the protein intake for the average rural household. Nearly all rural households in Asia keep at least a few chickens for meat, eggs and even fertilizer and they are often the only livestock that poor farmers can afford. The birds are thus critical to their diversified farming methods, just as the genetic diversity of poultry on small farms is critical to the long-term survival of poultry farming in general.”
Backyard poultry production is far more valuable to the people of the countries affected by bird flu than the large factory farms. Effective measures need to be taken to protect these systems from bird flu, even if this means putting the brakes on factory farming and looking to more sustainable and diverse means of poultry production. Unfortunately governments are doing the opposite– sacrificing backyard poultry farming and small farmers to protect a politically powerful industry.
-Devlin Kuyek
GRAINThe full GRAIN briefing, “Fowl play: The poultry industry’s central role in the bird flu crisis”, is available at http://www.grain.org. Spanish and French translations will be posted shortly.
Hi Les:
Surely Guangdong goose 96 H5N1 was already a product of poultry farms.
With culling etc having not eradicated it, now like genie that’s out of the bottle.Martin
Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/02/28 23:57
"Migratory birds, scapegoats?" [French news article] A "machine translation":
Quote:The role of the migratory birds would be completely "secondary" in the propagation of virus H5N1 of the influenza aviaire. It is at least in this direction that voices authorized in the ornithological medium rise. Principal argument: the migratory roads of the birds really do not stick with the countries or the zones touched by epizooty in the world. For Olivier Dehorter, ornithologist with the national Natural history museum of natural history, "there are great inconsistencies, leaving think that the virus does not travel inevitably with the migrating ones". Certain countries flown over by the migrating ones were not touched by epizooty. "the birds which left at the beginning of the winter Asia of north, passed to India and to Pakistan, but there was very little case of contamination in these two countries, explains Frederic Lamouroux, ornithologist with the park of the bridge of Gau, in the Camargue. Israel, toll of migrating towards the East Africa, was saved, like Australia, place of privileged wintering. Especially, the migratory increase of Africa towards Europe, by the axis Senegal-Mauritania-Morocco-Spain-Portugal, is not concerned. If the migrating ones were the vector of the H5N1, these countries should have been infested and to know a true hecatomb ". Until now, in Africa, the influenza aviaire was detected in Nigeria, and since yesterday, in close Niger. But, the ornithologists notice, it was to it four long months after the arrival of the birds on their places of wintering, and the virus struck domestic poultry breedings, located far from the wetlands sought by the migrating ones. "Since the beginning of epizooty, approximately 150 million domestic birds died in the world counters only 200 wild birds, and on the 2 000 declared hearths of contamination, a score has migrating implied in the perimeter", points out Pascal Orabi, of the League of protection of birds (LPO). Then, which is the culprit? For these specialists, it would be rather to seek side poultry world trade, legal or not.The Grain report on global poultry industry and H5N1 looks excellent to me. http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=194#_ftn31 (see thread here re farming and H5N1)
Includes mention re contaminated feed being thought to be a source of H5N1.
“The global trade in poultry feed, another factor in this whole mess, is dominated by the same companies. One of the standard ingredients in industrial chicken feed, and most industrial animal feed, is “poultry litter”. This is a euphemism for whatever is found on the floor of the factory farms: fecal matter, feathers, bedding, etc.[43] Chicken meat, under the label “animal by-product meal”, also goes into industrial chicken feed.[44] The WHO says that bird flu can survive in bird faeces for up to 35 days and, in a recent update to its bird flu fact sheet, it mentions feed as a possible medium for the spread of bird flu between farms.[45] Russian authorities pointed to feed as one of the main suspected sources of an H5N1 outbreak at a large-scale factory farm in Kurgan province, where 460,000 birds were killed.“So, got me wondering: is it possible that in areas where swans evidently dispersed from, they could have eaten contaminated feed?
Not sure if maybe poultry feed dumped as suspect (what happened to rest of the feed in Kurgan province, after problems surfaced, say?); or are there refuges where birds are fed in winter, as in some UK reserves?Might help explain preponderance of mute swans, if directly fed (for some infections at least).
Just read new report from Grain, an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people’s control over genetic resources and local knowledge.
Looks excellent. Full report at:
Fowl play: The poultry industry’s central role in the bird flu crisisHere’s press release:
New from GRAIN
26 February 2006GRAIN report says global poultry industry is the root of the bird flu crisis
GRAIN PRESS RELEASEREPORT SAYS GLOBAL POULTRY INDUSTRY IS THE ROOT OF THE BIRD FLU CRISIS
Small-scale poultry farming and wild birds are being unfairly blamed for the bird flu crisis now affecting large parts of the world. A new report from GRAIN shows how the transnational poultry industry is the root of the problem and must be the focus of efforts to control the virus. [1]
The spread of industrial poultry production and trade networks has created ideal conditions for the emergence and transmission of lethal viruses like the H5N1 strain of bird flu. Once inside densely populated factory farms, viruses can rapidly become lethal and amplify. Air thick with viral load from infected farms is carried for kilometres, while integrated trade networks spread the disease through many carriers: live birds, day-old-chicks, meat, feathers, hatching eggs, eggs, chicken manure and animal feed. [2]
“Everyone is focused on migratory birds and backyard chickens as the problem,” says Devlin Kuyek of GRAIN. “But they are not effective vectors of highly pathogenic bird flu. The virus kills them, but is unlikely to be spread by them.”
For example, in Malaysia, the mortality rate from H5N1 among village chicken is only 5%, indicating that the virus has a hard time spreading among small scale chicken flocks. H5N1 outbreaks in Laos, which is surrounded by infected countries, have only occurred in the nation’s few factory farms, which are supplied by Thai hatcheries. The only cases of bird flu in backyard poultry, which account for over 90% of Laos’ production, occurred next to the factory farms.
“The evidence we see over and over again, from the Netherlands in 2003 to Japan in 2004 to Egypt in 2006, is that lethal bird flu breaks out in large scale industrial chicken farms and then spreads,” Kuyek explains.
The Nigerian outbreak earlier this year began at a single factory farm, owned by a Cabinet minister, distant from hotspots for migratory birds but known for importing unregulated hatchable eggs. In India, local authorities say that H5N1 emerged and spread from a factory farm owned by the country’s largest poultry company, Venkateshwara Hatcheries.
A burning question is why governments and international agencies, like the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, are doing nothing to investigate how the factory farms and their byproducts, such as animal feed and manure, spread the virus. Instead, they are using the crisis as an opportunity to further industrialise the poultry sector. Initiatives are multiplying to ban outdoor poultry, squeeze out small producers and restock farms with genetically-modified chickens. The web of complicity with an industry engaged in a string of denials and cover-ups seems complete.
“Farmers are losing their livelihoods, native chickens are being wiped out and some experts say that we’re on the verge of a human pandemic that could kill millions of people,” Kuyek concludes. “When will governments realise that to protect poultry and people from bird flu, we need to protect them from the global poultry industry?”
[1] The full briefing, “Fowl play: The poultry industry’s central role in the bird flu crisis”, is available at
http://www.grain.org/go/birdflu.
Spanish and French translations will be posted shortly.[2] Chicken faeces and bedding from poultry factory floors are common ingredients in animal feed.
Just come across woeful article, Unless we act now, bird flu may win, by Laurie Garrett – ‘a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Coming Plague.” ‘ – in International Herald Tribune.
Lays blame for spreading H5N1 firmly on wild birds; yet even though it’s a long article (opinion piece), gives little or no real evidence for this, and has some startling twists of logic. For instance:
“The Lake Qinghai moment was the tipping point in the bird flu pandemic. The virus mutated, evidently becoming more contagious and deadly to a broader range of bird species, some of which continued their northern migration to central Siberia.”
– so, a more deadly virus, somehow leaving wild birds healthy enough to continue migrations. And never mind the timings don’t fit etc etc – yet again, the blame-the-birds scenario somehow doesn’t need details regarding migratory species, routes, timings etc. [heck, those details may prove inconvenient]earlier says:
“We now understand that influenza is naturally an aquatic migratory bird virus that is carried by ducks, geese and a small list of other waterfowl. Influenza infection is usually harmless to these world travelers, but can kill other types of birds, such as chickens, domestic ducks and swans.”
– well, yes, but this means wild influenza; not H5N1 poultry flu. Had Ms Garrett had brain cells operating when she wrote this piece, she might have noticed that H5N1 is highly lethal to these “world travelers”.“For at least a decade H5N1 has circulated among a small pool of migrating birds, mostly inside China, and occasionally broken out in other animals and people.”
– merely an assertion, not borne out by scientific evidence.Asserts re outbreaks spreading to Europe, Nigeria:
” Anybody tracking the birds could have seen it coming.”
– and might that same “anybody” have forecast H5N1 being widespread in migratory waterbirds to east of the Caspian Sea, where instead it’s, err, been absent throughout autumn/winter so far?” It is in the realm of reasonable probability that H5N1 will reach the United States this summer or early autumn.”
– by migratory birds, travelling via Greenland/Iceland, this is.
And, how about the probability of it being in migratory waterbirds in Hong Kong, say? Alas, Ms Garrett sees no need to concern herself with trivia such as facts that don’t fit her story. Instead, she is even asserting migrants could carry H5N1 along “any, or all, of the four primary north/south flyways that span the Americas, from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego.”Ms G suggests we should heed warnings of science, and put poultry indoors. Such as, one assumes, the French turkey farmer, who just had indoors flock ravaged by H5N1.
Hilariously, after playing such a role in the witchhunt against wild birds, Garrett then suggests:
“One of the best untapped resources in this epic battle against influenza is bird-watchers, who are among the most fanatic hobbyists in the world. The major bird-watching organizations and safari clubs ought to work with the World Health Organization and OIE, the World Organization for Animal Health, to set up Web-based notification sites, where birders could report sightings of groups of dead birds, and the movements of key migrating species.”
– just shows that she clearly didn’t bother with doing any research for her article. No need I guess, since she has a Pulitzer, and poses nicely on her website (a while ago, I posted re H5N1 and wild birds on her forum; no reply, and clearly of no use at all).“Ornithologists and climate experts should immediately sit down with pandemic planners and virologists, creating lists of known H5N1 carriers and plotting their most likely global movements. As the birds appear in new regions of the world, birders and professional wildlife surveillance personnel should issue alerts, which should be swiftly confirmed and form the basis of government response.”
– the known wild carriers seem to be pretty much the six ducks with two genotypes from Poyang Lake.
Otherwise, are indeed birds carrying – or that were carrying – H5N1, especially across frozen parts of eastern Europe. But it appears they are dying: killed by starvation, and by a disease created in man’s poultry farms. Premature to say that the virus won’t die away from most places as the birds die (cf Mongolia, say).Meanwhile, not mentioned by Garrett, trade in poultry and poultry products – including smuggling – continues.
What a truly woeful article. :sick:now, a dead common (black-billed) magpie, Hong Kong Island:
Quote:The carcass was collected by AFCD staff on Island Road following a public referral on February 24.http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200602/25/P200602250210.htm
Another corvid (crow/magpie) – ie another scavenger, near the city.Quote:Preliminary testing of a House Crow found dead in Shek Kip Mei has indicated a suspected case of H5 avian influenza, a spokesman for the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) said today (February 24), adding that further confirmatory tests are being conducted.The carcass was collected by AFCD staff on Tai Hang Tung Estate following a public referral on February 23.
As for three earlier suspected cases involving a dead Large-billed Crow found in Yau Yat Tsuen, a dead Munia found on Repulse Bay Road, and a dead White-backed Munia found in Wan Chai, the spokesman said all of the birds were confirmed to have H5N1 virus after a series of laboratory tests.
http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200602/24/P200602240258.htm
– so, H5N1 being spread in mainly urban Hong Kong by wild birds … dead ones, that is! (Any apparently healthy wild birds tested positive yet?)
Meanwhile, South China Morning Post reports Agriculture, Fisheries and Cibservatuib Department saying it’s ok for people to kill house crows and pigeons.
Crazy times!Thanks to a post on http://www.birdforum.net:
article in The Guardian includes:
Quote:iseases have spread from wildlife to humans throughout history but we now interact with animals in a very different way, says Danielle Nierenberg, a researcher with the US Worldwatch Institute. “In the last 40 years the world has gone through a livestock revolution, not unlike what happened to crops with the green revolution,” she says.Since 1961, she explains, worldwide livestock has increased 38%, to about 4.3 billion today. The global poultry population has quadrupled in that time, to 17.8 billion birds, and the number of pigs has roughly trebled to 2 billion. As the numbers of animals bred for food have vastly grown in a very short period, humankind’s relationship with them has changed.
“Raising animals has morphed into an industrial endeavour that bears little relation to landscape or natural tendencies of the animals. Wherever [industrial farming] is introduced it creates ecological and public health disasters,” she says.
Others argue that intensive confinement of animals promotes emerging viruses, stokes the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria and can transform animals into disease “factories”. According to Hans-Gerhard Wagner, an officer of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation based in Thailand, the “intensive industrial farming of livestock is now an opportunity for emerging diseases”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,,1715517,00.html
In above, mentions that perhaps H5N1 spread partly as trucks made return journeys. This, then, of some interest:
Quote:David Halvorson, DVM, a veterinarian in avian health at the University of Minnesota in S. Paul, said today that H5N1 is probably being spread both by the movement of poultry and by the movement of wild birds, but no one is absolutely certain.“The fact is we don’t really know why it’s being found in so many places so suddenly,” he told CIDRAP News.
Halvorson suggested that trains may play a role in the spread of H5N1, as they have in past outbreaks. In the United States in 1925, “People were shipping poultry to New York live bird markets. Then dirty, contaminated crates were being shipped back.” This contributed to the spread of a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreak.
“I think that the trans-Asian railway system fits the temporal and spatial pattern of virus distribution starting in July of last summer,” Halvorson commented. “For us in the Western Hemisphere, it would be extremely unusual for water birds to be migrating thousands of miles in July and August, a time when they are ordinarily taking care of their young.”
Even today it is normal to ship chickens by rail in many places. Birds also can be found on buses and trucks under circumstances that could contribute to spreading the virus, Halvorson said.
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/avianflu/news/feb2106who.html
Quote:HONG KONG, Feb 22 (Reuters) – Virus samples taken from wild birds found dead in Hong Kong recently were closely linked to a strain of the H5N1 virus that surfaced in Japan and South Korea in 2004, but not the one spreading in Europe, a top scientist said.Though – wouldn’t you know it – article includes suggestion this virus is entrenched in wild birds (in Asia), no real evidence is given. Even with Japan case that’s mentioned, smuggling/trade remains a possibility for introduction of virus. Just emailed Dr Malik Peiris, who’s quoted in article: If this H5N1 virus indeed entrenched in wild birds (Reuters, quoting you), why such an odd assortment of species in Hong Kong – all resident (well, little egret likely is), and mainly songbirds; why such tendency to be in Kowloon and on HK Island? How to infect, say, a white-eye or a magpie robin? Why the flurry of cases after around Chinese New Year, when two chickens positive? And, why all the tests of healthy wild birds coming up negative for this strain? Indeed, H5N1 in general appears very rare in healthy wild birds. Very curious, I think. (As Russia, reportedly, prepares to deter wild birds from nesting this spring – at least in Nobosibirisk, as wild birds believed by some to be major H5N1 vectors. Are conservation implications.) – further thoughts (not in the email): Really seems odd notions by Malik P. Based on v scant info, suggests this H5N1 strain is endemic in wild birds, linking Japan/HK. Yet, he’s among team who suggested wild birds have different strain at Poyang, thence to Qinghai, then on to Europe. Even though Poyang surely far more linked to Hong Kong by migration routes than ii is to Qinghai (no direct links known from Poyang to Qinghai?) Too bad that virologists saying stuff re wild birds without taking trouble to learn about them. (Ornithologists now having to try n learn some things about viruses, after all.)
More bodies adding to the puzzle, with H5(N1) now scattered in resident species – mainly songbirds – chiefly in Kowloon and on Hong Kong Island.
govt news release 21 Feb:
Quote:Preliminary testing of three dead birds collected on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon has indicated suspected cases of H5 avian influenza, a spokesman for the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) said today (February 21), adding that further confirmatory tests are being conducted.One of them was a dead Large-billed Crow removed by AFCD staff from Magnolia Road, Yau Yat Chuen [Kowloon] on February 18 upon a public referral.
The two other cases involved a Munia found dead on Repulse Bay Road and a White-backed Munia found dead on Queen’s Road East [both locations Hong Kong Island] on February 19. The carcasses were also collected by AFCD staff upon public referrals.
http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200602/21/P200602210232.htm
govt news release yesterday:
Quote:Preliminary testing of a house crow found dead in Cheung Sha Wan [Kowloon] has indicated a suspected case of H5 avian influenza, the Agriculture, Fisheries & Conservation Department says. More tests are being conducted.The carcass was collected from Lai On Estate on February 20
http://www.news.gov.hk/en/category/healthandcommunity/060222/html/060222en05008.htm
Thanks Ed, just done some googling, and some interesting info to add to the thread on h5n1 in chicken n duck manure inc in fishponds?
After forum post (swans etc thread) from Ed Keeble, including
Quote:quite an interesting post on UKBN today from Serbia, referring to extensive imports from China of poultry-based fertilizer to be used in fishponds. Exact constituents and usage not clear from post, but I assume this means fertilizer to be dumped into water to promote growth of weed/algae.just done some googling, and some info maybe of interest:
Guff here includes big chicken manure exporter on Black Sea coast; duck manure used in fish farming in China, Russia, parts of east Europe.
Fertilizer exporters:
Quote:Dear Sirs We have opportunity to make non-polluting organic fertilizer from chicken and cow manure in volume more than 20000 tons per one year. A place of loading is the Black Sea. There is an opportunity to adjust manufacture near coasts of Pacific Ocean. If you have to this interest we are ready …
from NIKKOM [Russia]http://www.tradekey.com/ks-Bio-fertilizer/
Nikkom site does mention “struction of pathogenic micro flora” – but still, interesting…
http://www.nikkom.onplex.de/fertilizer_eng.htmQuote:Tianjin Yibo Biological Technology Development Co. , Ltd. [Province: Tianjin]
Our company is engaged in producing different types of fertilizer , which include compound fertilizer, organic fertilizer, bio-organic fertilizer, for customers all around the world.and
Quote:Liaoning Xinxing Industry And Science Co., Ltd. [Province: Liaoning]
Our company manufacture organic manure, which is made of chicken dejection. It is use for corn, ripe, coya, fruit tree and so on. Our product is a kind of pure biologic manure.News article, from 2000:
Quote:China’s Largest Organic Fertilizer Plant Opens:
The largest and most up-to-date organic fertilizer plant ever built in China began operations recently in the port city of Dalian in northeast China’s Liaoning Province.
..
The plant was built by Han Wei, a private owner of China’s largest chicken farm, at a cost of 20 million yuan.
… Equipped with technology provided by the Shenyang Applied Ecology Research Institute (SAERI) under the Academy of Chinese Sciences, the plant is expected to turn out 100,000 tons of fertilizer this year, and has already received an order for 20,000 tons from Japan.
…
Han raises 2 million chickens producing 80 tons of fresh eggs a day, but the 200 tons of manure excreted by chickens everyday is a headache, so Han collaborated with SAERI to build the fertilizer plant.http://english.people.com.cn/english/200002/07/eng20000207T101.html
As far as I’ve noticed amidst flurry of info, much of focus re potential role of poultry manure in sustaining (and spreading) H5N1 has been on chickens. But, turns out ducks important too.
Quote:To date, fish-cum-duck integration is chiefly practical in China, Hungary, East Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union. Fish-cum-duck integration has developed into a fixed model of integrated fish farming. In recent years, this model, either on the scale aspect or on the managerial aspect, has been developing very rapidly. This is especially true in areas containing a network of rivers (e.g., Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces).http://www.fao.org/docrep/field/003/AC264E/AC264E09.htm#ch7.3
A paper looking at integrated fish farming on one farm (in early 1980s) includes:
Quote:Generally, one cross-bred duck can produce 50 kg of manure each year. Therefore, 3000 ducks are enough for one hectare of fish pond. Experience on this farm has shown that fish production will be decreased if the number of ducks per hectare exceeds 6000
[poorly reproduced photo below this shows high density of ducks – not typical in wild, and certainly not 365 days a year in any one place]http://www.fao.org/docrep/field/003/AC248E/AC248E00.htm
Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/02/21 14:57
Panic, Losses As Bird Flu Strikes – article in Daily Champion (Lagos) February 16, 2006
Posted to the web February 16, 2006
by John Shiklam
LagosIncluded:
Quote:The outbreak of the deadly bird flu in Kaduna State last week, has thrown the poultry industry into confusion and raised concerns over the implication on the health of the citizenry. Correspondent, JOHN SHIKLAM, who visited Birnin Yero village, where the disease was first noticed, reports.
…
The problem, it was learnt actually started in December last year when Sambawa Farms purchased its day old chicks somewhere in Kano. Several of the birds were said to have been dying off on daily basis, prompting the invitation of experts to investigate the cause of the death of the birds in the farms.Veterinary scientists at the Ahmadu Bello Unversity (ABU), Zaria were said to have embarked on thorough investigations after which the National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI) Vom, near Jos, Plateau state, diagnosed their sickness as the avian bird flu.
…
Among the steps taken by the state government are the destruction of all birds at the Sambawa farms as well as birds in other commercial farms who could have bought their day old chicks from the identified place in Kano.Quote://”So far there is no evidence to link the migratory birds with present outbreak of bird-flu in Dhule-Nandurbar, as far we know,” said Dr Taej Mundkur, an ornithologist and a member of scientific task force on ‘Wild Birds and Avian Influenza’, set up by United Nations.
Moreover, he told PTI, “Migratory birds land in India much early, ie in September-October. So if they at all had carried the virus, it would have been noticed much earlier.” He added though, that “theoretically” all species of birds” can carry the virus responsible for bird flu.
He said that there are various ways in which the virus can spread, but most commonly it spreads through poultry-droppings.
Until now, he said, that movement of poultry and poultry products has been found to be most common cause of spread of virus across the world. “Illegal trafficking of pet or exotic birds is also one of the ways the virus can travel across,” he said.
Another reason, he said, could be illegally made substandard vaccines, which, instead of immunising, may infect the birds.//
A dead common (black-billed) magpie found in Mong Kok, Kowloon on 17 February is evidently H5 positive, being tested for H5N1.
Another urban case in a wild bird (or former cage bird – though magpies are not popular cage birds that I know of).
Close to the main bird markets in Hong Kong.
Yet:Quote:AFCD staff inspected stalls in the Bird Garden in Mong Kok today and found nothing abnormal among the pet birds there for sale.“We have maintained close surveillance of pet bird stalls in the Garden with daily inspections. Collection of swab samples from the stalls will be further increased,” the spokesman said.
More than 200 swab samples are collected from local pet bird stalls each month to test for avian influenza viruses, including those of the Bird Garden. Test results were all negative.
http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200602/18/P200602180167.htm
Just seen on birdforum – link to tv news video from German island with dying swans (on footage):
very sad
forum message says: "This is only hundreds of metres away from the Federal Animal Disease Research laboratory." (as another post mentions, how about chances of that?)
Dr Leon Bennun, Director of Science, Policy and Information for BirdLife International, on BBC website – Reality takes wing over bird flu – includes:
Fuelled in part by alarmist press reports and by the attempts of government agencies to draw blame away from farming, there are now calls for drastic measures against wild bird populations.
I believe these measures would put some species at risk of extinction, without having any effect on the spread of avian flu.
…
If wild birds had been spreading the disease across continents there would have been trails of outbreaks following migration routes; but this hasn’t happened.The “wild bird” theory for the spread of H5N1 also provides no explanation as to why certain countries on flight paths of birds from Asia remain flu-free, whilst their neighbours suffer repeated infections.
What is striking is that countries like Japan and South Korea, which imposed strict controls on the import and movement of domestic poultry after initial outbreaks, have suffered no further infections. Myanmar has never had an outbreak.
In fact, countries which have not yet developed a large-scale intensive poultry industry have also been largely spared. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that in Laos, 42 out of 45 outbreaks affected intensive poultry units.
…
Factor in the global nature of the poultry industry, and the international movement of live poultry and poultry products both before and after the Asian outbreaks, and we have the most plausible mechanism for the spread of the virus between places which are not connected by the flyways of migratory birds.The timing and pattern of outbreaks has been largely inconsistent with wild bird movements; but they have often followed major trade routes.
…
Some of the agencies attempting to monitor and control avian flu, such as the FAO, seem to have been reluctant to draw attention to the role of intensive agriculture, because of the impact on national economies and on access to cheap sources of protein.
…
For this and other reasons, the role of migratory wild birds in the transmission of the disease has been exaggerated, and further sensationalised in the press.
…
In fact, H5N1 outbreaks in wild birds have so far mostly burned themselves out without culls or other human interventions.Some of the world’s most threatened birds may be put at risk. But there is also the near-certainty of damage to ecosystem services on which people and economies depend.
…
BirdLife is calling for an independent inquiry into the spread of H5N1 which gives due weight to the role of the global poultry industry, and maps both official and unofficial poultry trade routes against the pattern of outbreaks.It may also be time to take a long, hard look at the way the world feeds itself, and to decide whether the price paid for modern farming in terms of risks to human health and the Earth’s biodiversity is too high.
From Richard Thomas of Birdlife International:
"Chicken producers gathered in Afyon, the city that meets 20 % of Turkey’s need of eggs, and established a factory that produces organic fertilizers from chicken manure. Established by 9 chicken producers who call themselves the Afyon Union of Forces, the organic fertilizer factory has a daily capacity of 300 tons and is the biggest in Europe."
So, up to 300 tons a day for the last 4-5 months = an awful lot of potentially infected material out there…
Just had message re Kano airport, north Nigeria, being important for wildlife trade/smuggling, inc parrots.
eg, see:
http://forests.org/archive/africa/nigtrapp.htm
in German (different article):
http://www.papageien.org/sts/wptpe/I guess parrots will be in markets (in Nigeria) where also poultry traded – rather as I’ve seen in southern China.
Any measures, then, to look extra hard in case smuggled parrots etc coming from Nigeria?
Quote:SKOPJE, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Macedonia’s president was locked indoors for three hours this week after an eagle dropped dead in his backyard and vets wary of the spread of bird flu were brought in to disinfect the area. … "The bird was taken for further analysis and the location has been disinfected," the authority said. "Preliminary results exclude the possibility of bird flu." A source close to the president’s office told Reuters the bird plunged to earth in Crvenkovski’s garden. The president and his family were told to stay indoors by security officers as veterinary workers checked the area. …Suspect eagle keeps Macedonian president cooped up
Just seen reports re panicked people not feeding mute swans in Austria, Poland
Prompted me to send this missive around:
Wonder if people stopping feeding swans will have helped prompt them to move – especially in freezing weather – and with mute swans mainly sedentary in Europe (?), perhaps they were pretty clueless about where to go, so dispersed widely towards west and south. [While the affected whooper and Bewick’s swans are in more regular places.]
Doesn’t explain how and where they got infected.In east Asia – China at least – swans not normally fed; indeed, can become food for people. Whether this is of some importance in swans in east Asia not being affected to marked extent (only 1 wild swan death reported?), hard to say.
Seen notions from Germany that the virus may have been present for months, only causing effects when temps very low. I’m sceptical about this.
In Hong Kong/Shenzhen – which get chilly but not below freezing – ornamental black and black-necked swans have died of H5N1. Yes, maybe these are more readily cold stressed than European swans (?), but died during outbreaks not cold spells.Virus has now arrived in various places in Europe, in swans.
But, now to see whether it stays there – or will it die with the swans? (Romanian research important here I think: waterbirds sharing ponds with infected swans weren’t infected; swans excreting only low amounts of virus. Hope more research like this is being done.)Here in Hong Kong, no reports of H5N1 infected birds since the small flurry around Chinese New Year.
And, at apparent epicentre of H5N1 of Guangdong goose 96 lineage, no reports or sign of H5N1 in migratory waterbirds this autumn/winter. (All those who believe wild birds readily carry H5N1 – explain this please.)Dear Les:
thanks, yes; I agree. But the Post article brings some balance, which I believe was not present in FAO report (FAO at high levels seems set on blaming wild birds).
Tho as to swans likely causing infections in poultry: maybe wait n see.
Infected swans in Romania didn’t infect other waterbirds they shared ponds with (these birds looked healthy; several tested and negative).
Maybe significant they excreted low amounts of virus.Seen re problems in Nigeria perhaps dating back to Dec, maybe on small farms. (But still, no problems evident w waterbirds)
Martin
