Recent Bird Flu Deaths And Outbreaks

A short update to list the human deaths and new outbreaks missed here in the past two weeks :

Feb. 20 - Fresh Outbreak Of Avian Influenza Puts Vietnam On High Alert

Feb. 19 - China Announces 27th Victim Of H5N1

Feb. 18 - Bangladesh Culls More One Million Birds On 270 Farms In 43 Districts

Feb 17. - Indonesia Reports 105th Human Bird Flu Death

Feb. 17 - Indonesia Reports 104th Human Bird Flu Death

Feb. 15 - Bird Flu Virus Kills Third Person In Vietnam This Year

Feb. 15 - H5N1 Outbreak In Hong Kong

Feb. 13 - Most Districts In Bangladesh Fighting Bird Flu Outbreaks In Poultry

Feb. 12 - Bird Flu Returns To Laos

H5N1 In Thailand Mosquitoes

This dramatic development seems to have garnered little mainstream media attention :

Blood-engorged mosquitoes were collected at poultry farms during an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in Central Thailand during October 2005. These mosquitoes tested positive for H5N1 virus by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Results were confirmed by limited sequencing of the H5 and N1 segments.

Infection and replication of this virus in the C6/36 mosquito cell line was confirmed by quantitative real-time PCR. However, transmission by mosquitoes was not evaluated, and further research is needed. Collecting and testing mosquitoes engorged with the blood of domestic or wild animals could be a valuable tool for veterinary and public health authorities who conduct surveillance for H5N1 virus spread.

Bird Flu Scares "Are A Conspiracy To Make Money"

The former chairman of the Pakistan Poultry Association, Khalil Abbasi, isn't buying any of the talk about bird flu becoming a pandemic that could devastate humanity.

He has his own theories about what is going on :

“The bird flu hype is part of the media campaign of a US-based commercial enterprise, which has former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld as president. All of this is being done merely to boost the sales of its product ‘tami-flu’,” Abbasi alleged.

He said that the H5N1 (bird flu) virus was first detected in Scotland in 1960 and it still exists in Great Lakes area of the USA, but it was “overplayed” when it hit Thailand and other Asian countries. “Why are we assuming that the virus would turn ‘vicious?’ This is a fallacy because no human transmission has been reported so far in the world,” Abbasi said.

PPA chairman, Abdul Basit, said that since 2004, bird flu fears had caused losses worth billions of rupees to the poultry industry. This, he said, had resulted in the closure of 40 percent of farms. “Hundreds of thousands of workers have lost their jobs only due to ‘sensational news’ because no human infection has been found so far in Pakistan,” Basit said.

There are around 25,000 poultry farms in the country, employing over 1.5 million people with an investment of around Rs 200 billion. Approximately Rs 45 billion to Rs 50 billion worth of agricultural products and by-products are being used in poultry feed, the PPA chairman said, adding that the poultry crisis would ultimately compound the agricultural crisis.

A vaccine is available to effectively control the virus in birds, and effective use of this vaccine in Pindi, Islamabad and Abbotabad has controlled the disease in those areas. Karachi will follow suite soon, Basit said.

Basit read out a statement issued by Bernard Vallet, director-general of the Paris-based Animal Health Organization. Vallet said that the risks of bird flu were “over-estimated and fears of an imminent pandemic were non-scientific assumptions.”

One of the speakers at the press conference blamed the media for “over-emphasizing” the fears of bird flu. This led to a heated exchange between poultry and health officials and journalists present there.

Before Donald Rumsfeld became US Secretary of Defense, he brought shares in an American pharmaceutical company that helped in the development of Tamiflu. Rumsfeld still held those shares when the US government began talking up the threat of bird flu, primarily, in 2005.

Increased sales of Tamiflu in the United States, and around the world, saw Rumsfeld's shares generate millions of dollars in returns.

Headlines Round Up

A small round up of latest news :

West Bengal Hit By Bird Flu Outbreak

Bird Flu Outbreak Hits Pakistan

Bird Flu Outbreak In Thailand

150,000 Poultry Birds Culled In Saudi Arabia After Bird Flu Confirmed

India : Poultry Cullers Ordered Into Compulsory Quarantine

Fresh Outbreaks Of Bird Flu Reported In North Vietnam

Indonesia : Bird Flu Claims Fifth Human Life In Seven Days

Swans Dying From Bird Flu In UK

India : Dozens Isolated With Bird Flu Symptoms, Hundreds More Being Monitored

With cullers and health care workers in India sent into numerous 'hot zones' in the past two weeks to deal with bird flu outbreaks, and with many lacking even the most basic safety equipment (face masks, gloves) it was inevitable that some would end up catching the virus.

Indian authorities may be, and hopefully are, exercising extreme caution now, but holding dozens of people under quarantine, and monitoring hundreds more, you would expect that India will be announcing a number of human bird flu deaths in the coming days.

From Reuters :

India has put 26 people in isolation with bird flu symptoms and hundreds more people are being monitored, officials said on Friday as Pakistan and Thailand reported outbreaks of bird flu in poultry.

India is battling its worst outbreak of avian influenza, which has spread to 13 of West Bengal's 19 districts. The densely populated state is adjacent to Bangladesh, itself trying to control a major outbreak of bird flu, and has millions of backyard fowl.

This photo shows the extent of the problems regarding lack of information and education. These children are standing only a few feet back from where suited up workers are dealing with possibly H5N1 infected poultry :




More from the Reuters story :

In West Bengal, veterinary staff have culled 2.6 million birds, completing what officials said was a successful operation that had brought the bird flu situation under control.

The focus now is on hundreds of medical and veterinary workers and villagers who had come into close contact with dead or sick birds. Officials said health staff returning home after the culling operation had been asked to get themselves checked.

Dozens of isolation wards had been created in hospitals in the affected districts to handle any sudden rush of suspected human cases.

Health experts also worry about the situation in Bangladesh, a crowded country of 140 million people where bird flu has spread to nearly half of the country's 64 districts.

Livestock officials said bird flu was still spreading and had resurfaced in the Feni district southeast of Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. The government has ordered culling of all chickens and ducks in one kilometre radius around affected farms.

The virus is threatening the livelihoods of millions of people reliant on the country's poultry industry and driving up food prices.

"Now we are facing a critical situation, as bird flu struck at a time when commodity prices from rice, flour to milk powder and edible oil had already nearly doubled," said Shahedul Alam, a government employee.

Egg exports from the world's second largest producer have dropped about 50 percent in the past two weeks, leaving the industry with losses of around $20 million, trade officials said.

India is now ground zero for a widespread human bird flu outbreak, or pandemic. How India deals with this crisis, and winds back the spread of the virus to more than 75% of the country, and whether or not such widespread exposure to the virus will result in many human victims, will tell us a lot about how serious bird flu may become in 2008, and how effectively current control measures and guidelines are for dealing with outbreaks.

India, Tibet, Indonesia Hit By Bird Flu Deaths, Virus Spread

Three people have died from the H5N1 virus in Indonesia in the past four days. In India, at least three districts are now be infected by the virus, but some experts estimate the virus may be in many more districts and already have reached Calcutta. Birds are dying in greater and greater numbers in Tibet, from the virus and from culling.

The spread of bird flu picks up speed across Asia :

The death of the 32-year-old man raised Indonesia's human toll to 101 — accounting for nearly half the worldwide total. The man died in the capital Tuesday, three days after being hospitalized.

In southwestern Tibet, a poultry farm was quarantined after an outbreak of the disease killed 1,000 birds, agriculture officials reported Wednesday. More than 13,000 other poultry were killed to prevent its spread.

In India, the virus spread in three districts of West Bengal state, where culling was under way and more than 129,000 poultry birds have died, said Animal Resource Development Minister Anisur Rahaman.

Health workers have killed nearly 2.5 million at-risk birds and were clearing areas within 3 miles of infection sites, said Rahaman. No human infections have been recorded.

Skittish officials in neighboring Bangladesh ordered the halt of all egg and poultry imports from India.

Bird flu typically flares during the winter months, and a number of Asian nations have recently reported fresh outbreaks in poultry, from India to China to Thailand. Health officials said it was essential that governments step up surveillance to prevent its spread, especially ahead of next week's Lunar New Year, when massive numbers of people and poultry will be on the move.

"The more you see it in poultry, the more chance there is that we will see human cases," said Gregory Hartl, World Health Organization spokesman in Geneva.

India's Fight Against Bird Flu Likened To Going To War

The spread of bird flu through West Bengal has been fast and overwhelming. The truth about what is going on over there is murky, at best. But there are numerous incredible stories coming out of the region. Police are raiding homes to seize birds that owners refused to give up. Poultry believed to be infected with the virus has been eaten at festivals. Roadside store sales of eggs and poultry are booming. There is a general view that the bird flu virus as not as dangerous as international agencies claim it to be. India's borders are now being closed in an attempt to contain the spread. All bad news.

From AFP :

India's West Bengal state has since Monday been slaughtering chickens on a "war footing" as bird flu spread to new areas of the highly-populated province of 80 million people. The disease has now been found in 13 of 19 districts in the eastern state, prompting fears it may reach local capital Kolkata which has a population of 13.5 million people.

The local government said it could revise the target number of birds to be culled up to three million, of some 20 million fowl counted in the state.

"We are worried the H5N1 virus was confirmed in samples from villages just 22 kilometres from Kolkata," West Bengal animal resources development minister Anisur Rahaman said.

"If it is required, culling teams will work throughout the night."
More than 1.5 million birds have been culled since the outbreak was reported a fortnight ago.

New Delhi on Monday tried to calm nerves while the price of poultry products dropped in West Bengal and in some of India's 28 other states, including New Delhi.

950 government-appointed culling teams were working round the clock in West Bengal, where a fourth of its population is in the zone of possible infection.

Two states hemming West Bengal sealed their borders with the stricken districts after TV networks in separate reports said the Marxist-ruled province bordering Bangladesh was yet to offer an adequate response to the crisis.

In New Delhi, butcheries reported a steep fall in poultry sales, with some establishments warning businesses would take a hit if the situation in West Bengal was not brought under control.

West Bengal authorities raided backyard traders at night to avoid resistance from locals who, fearing financial loss, would try to hide the birds or lock up their houses to prevent the chickens from being culled.

Poultry owners say they have been devastated by the mass cull, with the government paying only about 40 rupees (one dollar) for each dead chicken, compared with the 80 rupees they could earn on the market, excluding egg sales.

Bird Flu Panic Grips Multiple Countries As Virus Spread : More Deaths, Infections, Massive Poultry Culls

A round-up of recent headlines from WDIM :

Vietnam confirms 48th fatal bird flu case

Indonesian man dies of bird flu, toll up to 98

Indonesia confirms 120th human bird flu infection

Experts probe high bird flu mortality rate in Indonesia

Bird flu outbreak threatens India

Rain forces culling halt as India battles worst bird flu outbreak

Thailand confirms new bird flu outbreak

Turkey culls poultry to stop spread of bird flu

India risks bird flu 'disaster', human cases feared as 5 quarantined with symptoms

West Bengal appeals over bird flu for help in culling up to 2 million chickens

Chicken feast in India despite bird flu disaster warning

Three Indonesian children hospitalized with bird flu symptoms

Bird flu spotted in poultry in northern Turkey

West Bengal : Bird Flu Now In Six Districts, Locals Resist Poultry Culls

H5N1 Poultry Caught, Collected With Bare Hands

Government Goes Into Panic Mode As Virus Spreads Rapidly




The outbreak of H5N1 in West Bengal has shown just how quickly the virus can spread, and how unprepared some governments are to deal with such sudden outbreaks.

By all reports, the government of West Bengal is in chaos as H5N1 spreads through dozens of poultry farms and at least six districts. Poultry culls will see more than half a million birds killed within the week, and there are huge problems in getting small farmers to hand over poultry that is not yet sick, as compensation packages are not ready and are not being distributed widely enough.

Although the WB government claims there are no human infections, it would be remarkable if there were none, considering some of the emergency poultry culling is being done with bare hands due to a lack of equipment and proper preparation of workers.

Scary stuff :

....officials say time is of essence in containing the outbreak in Bengal, where the virus seems to be spreading very fast and infecting thousands of birds everyday. A trend that also puts human health at grave risk.

Agriculture and food minister Sharad Pawar said on Saturday that "preventive and prophylactic culling" would only be launched in areas which report high and unusual mortality of poultry.

"In such a situation, we won't wait for the confirmation of bird flu. Because it is spreading in near-by districts, we have taken a decision that we are not going to wait for Bhopal's report," Pawar said.

The state government aims to slaughter 4 lakh birds in a five-to-10 kilometre (three-to-six mile) radius of the affected areas and aims to complete it by Monday, after which clean up and disinfection operations will begin.

Agreeing with West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's reaction, Pawar said the situation "was indeed alarming."

Meanwhile, West Bengal's efforts to control the outbreak drew a sharp reaction from minister of state for health Panabaka Laxmi.

Reacting to an article...which revealed how compensation was not being paid to farmers whose birds were being culled, she said the Centre is unhappy over the steps taken by the state to contain the virus.

"We are not satisfied," she said.

She added "compensation to poultry losers was not being properly distributed."

From AFP :

Avian flu has been reported in three more districts in eastern India where authorities said poultry farmers have delayed a massive bird cull aimed at halting the spread of the virus.

A total of six districts in eastern West Bengal state have reported an outbreak of avian flu among poultry including a new one late Suday, the government said.

"Samples of dead chickens in Bankura district tested positive Sunday," West Bengal animal resources minister Anisur Rahaman told AFP.

The outbreak is the third in India since 2006, and the worst so far, according to the World Health Organisation, partly because it is more widespread.

The state government aims to kill about 400,000 birds in all the affected districts but culling teams have so far slaughtered just 100,000 after facing hostility from villagers.

"Police have been asked to accompany the culling teams which is bringing good results," Rahaman said.

Residents oppose the slaughter of their birds because they want immediate compensation.

Near Margram village -- the epicentre of the outbreak -- the biggest poultry farm with 30,000 birds remained untouched as the owner locked up the premises.

Many others fled their homes carrying chickens before the arrival of the culling teams, officials said. Local people attacked five members of a culling team with sticks and stones on Saturday.

West Bengal state borders Bangladesh, which is also fighting a bird flu outbreak.

From the Times Of India :

The contrast couldn't have been more stark. World Health Organisation officials were covered top to toe in what looked like space suits while a ragtag crowd of barely clothed villagers handled poultry with their bare hands, in the wake of an H5N1 avian flu virus epidemic in some districts of West Bengal.

The photographs, more eloquent than words, encapsulate the attitude: Caution and protection for officials, to hell with the rest.

Both WHO and government handouts warn of infection risk for those handling poultry without precautionary gear. Even inhaling the air or drinking water in the area contaminated with bird droppings or dust could lead to infection. Yet no efforts to protect villagers were evident though over 35,000 birds have already been culled over two days.

The slow pace of destroying birds suspected of carrying the deadly virus is also because of reluctance on the part of people to give up their birds without compensation. The delay in paying out compensation to poultry owners is an inexcusable failure of the government.

Reluctant to part with the birds without getting compensated first, many are resorting to hiding the birds in closed spaces in their homes.

When there was a suspected outbreak of the H5N1 avian flu virus in Maharashtra and Gujarat in 2006, swift action was taken. More than 5,00,000 birds were culled in a mere 24 hours under supervision of the national disaster management cell. What happened this time in West Bengal?

West Bengal Border Sealed To Stop Spread Of Bird Flu

Does India Have 700 Bird Flu Patients In Isolation?

Indonesia : Family Takes Dying Bird Flu Victim Home, Dies One Hour Later

16 Year Old Girl Suffering Bird Flu In Critical Condition

What sort of madness is this? Are all the family members now under quarantine? How many people did this dying woman come into contact with on her way out of the hospital and on the way home?

A 32-year-old Indonesian woman died from bird flu at her home after being forced to check out of a hospital by her family, the Health Ministry said Monday, raising the country's death toll from the disease to 95.

Two laboratory tests confirmed she was infected with the H5N1 strain of the virus, said Joko Suyono, an official at the Bird Flu Information Center.

The woman from the western outskirts of the capital, Jakarta, came down with severe pneumonia and went to a hospital Wednesday. Her family signed a forced release form the next day and she died an hour after being checked out, Suyono said. It was unclear why her relatives did not want her to be treated at the hospital.

Are all the family members now under quarantine? How many people did this dying woman come into contact with on her way out of the hospital and on the way home?

The Jakarta Post reports the announcement of yet another teenage Indonesian bird flu victim. Her chances of survival sound slim at best :

A 16-year-old patient suffering from bird flu has been admitted to Persahabatan Hospital in Rawamangun, East Jakarta.

The head the hospital's bird flu anticipation division, Mukhtar Ikhsan, said the patient's condition was bad.

"The patient has suffered acute pneumonia," he said as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

YF is the first patient treated for bird flu at the hospital this year. The hospital has treated as many as 14 bird flu patients with 12 deaths.

So the hospital has a bird flu victim fatality rate of 80%.

Disaster Expert Says Public Won't Trust Politicians On Bird Flu Warnings Because Of "Misleading" Claims About Iraq

The coming reality of a bird flu pandemic is far too serious a threat to be left in the hands of politicians, when it comes to adequately and successfully warning the public, argues a disaster management expert :

The public would put themselves at risk because they would not trust politicians to tell the truth if the country was hit by a major outbreak of bird flu, a world expert on disaster management has claimed.

Professor David Alexander, of the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, has been appointed as an adviser to both Nato and the UK Government on the issue of pandemic flu.

Alexander says the country should be preparing itself for a serious outbreak of the potentially devastating virus, but feels that warnings from politicians would not be heeded because of the corrosive impact of bogus claims over Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.

Instead he says people would be far more likely to pay attention to experts who are independent of the political process.

The director of the Aberdeen Centre for Trauma Research, who led the psychiatric team which responded to the Piper Alpha disaster, said there was a real need to prepare for the worst.

"According to the biological scientists a pandemic is likely to strike us. There is no point pretending it won't happen because all the evidence suggests that it will.

"We need to be preparing right now. The future has arrived."

Alexander says it is critical that, in the event of a major medical incident, the public receive the right message.

He said: "You must have credible and competent figures giving out the information. Without naming names, I think it would be fair to say that many people are fairly sceptical about what certain politicians say on major issues, Iraq being one.

"We were misled on Iraq. I don't think anybody disputes that now.

"Whether the motive was malice or ignorance, I certainly think it has undermined a lot of trust in politicians. There are individuals whose credibility is so low in the public domain that if they came on TV and delivered warnings they simply would not be believed," he said.

"Unlike politicians, I believe the public do not view scientists as having any personal vested bias."

The $2 Trillion Pandemic?

Economies around the world are already heading towards a recession. A global bird flu pandemic will provide the final push to trigger a new 'Great Depression'.

From Reuters :

Governments around the world need to do more to prepare for the dramatic economic impact of the next flu pandemic, the United Nations influenza coordinator said on Thursday.

David Nabarro said his team had recently collected information from nearly 150 countries to see how prepared they were for a pandemic and the picture was mixed.

"Most countries have now focused on pandemic as a potential cause of catastrophe and have done some planning. But the quality of the plans is patchy and too few of them pay attention to economic and social consequences," he told BBC radio.

"The economic consequences could be up to $2 trillion -- up to 5 percent of global GDP removed," he said, reiterating previous World Bank and UN estimates.

Egypt : 3 Human Bird Flu Deaths In Seven Days

From AFP :

An Egyptian woman died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu on Monday, the health ministry said, the third such death in less than a week as officials and experts warned against the relaxation of precautions.

Fardos Mohammed Haddad, 36, from the Nile Delta province of Menufia died in hospital after being admitted on Saturday with a high fever and difficulty breathing, ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shahin said in a statement carried by the official MENA news agency.

Her death, the second in as many days and the third in less than a week, is the 18th death in Egypt from the disease since the virus first appeared in the country in February 2006.

"She had been exposed to poultry infected with bird flu," Shahin said. "All members of her immediate family and people she has been in contact with recently are being tested for the disease."

Go Here For The Full Story

Chinese Man Survives H5N1 After 20 Days Of Treatment

A 52 year old Jiangsu man, Lu, lost his son to the bird flu virus in early November. Lu developed a fever shortly after his son died, and it was confirmed he too had become infected with H5N1.

But after 20 days of treatment, Lu recovered and was discharged from a hospital into the care of his family :

Lu's son died on Nov. 2, a couple of days after being diagnosed with "lower left lobe pneumonia" in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu. He was the 17th Chinese to die of avian flu since 2003.

He was said to have had no contact with dead poultry and the Jiangsu Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau said no bird flu epidemic had been discovered in the province.

China's health authorities previously said that no human-to-human transmission had been confirmed in the two human cases of bird flu and the means of transmission in these cases, involving the two family members in the Nanjing area, remained unknown.

As with all human bird flu cases in China, details are thin.

Ten Years Later, Scientists Still Baffled By Bird Flu

Despite a decade of testing and research, the H5N1 virus remains, mostly, a complete mystery to scientists, even as it becomes part of daily life for hundreds of millions of people around the world :

Baffled scientists first watched a mysterious virus called H5N1 jump from birds to humans a decade ago in Hong Kong, killing six people and forcing the territory to slaughter its entire poultry population. It quieted for a while, but resurfaced in 2003 with even more questions.

Bird flu has since spread to more than 60 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, killing at least 211 people along with hundreds of millions of birds. Pakistan and Myanmar reported their first human infections earlier this month. Indonesia, the world's hardest-hit country, reported its 94th death Wednesday while Vietnam and Egypt also logged a death each the same day.

In stricken places like Vietnam, people have learned to live with the disease. Children are taught about bird flu in elementary school, and the nation's poultry is vaccinated twice a year.

But much about the H5N1 virus remains unknown. Experts are still puzzled by its ability to spread and kill. They also do not understand why it infects only a few people, and fear it could morph into a new form that spreads easily among humans, potentially sparking a pandemic that kills millions and cripples national economies.

"It doesn't cease to amaze me that every week or every day we learn something new about this virus," said Juan Lubroth, an animal health expert at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. "From the very beginning we've been saying that no poultry producing country is safe from this disease."

The World Health Organization is currently working to determine whether limited human-to-human transmission could have occurred in Pakistan where up to nine suspect cases were detected, including several relatives. The last infection was reported Dec. 6, and experts say there appears to be no threat of further spread.

A number of other countries have recently detected poultry outbreaks during the winter months when the virus typically flares. The reason why remains unclear, though some experts suspect a pattern that may be similar to seasonal human influenza, which surfaces every year as temperatures drop.

Another mystery is how the virus spreads internationally. How much of a role do migrating wild birds play in transmitting it compared to the trade and movement of poultry, which often crosses borders illegally?

"There are so many questions that are unanswered, and so many things have to come together to cause a pandemic, that nobody can predict it," said Dr. David Heymann, the WHO's top flu official in Geneva. "We don't know all the risk factors."

Most human cases have been linked to contact with infected birds. Scientists believe human-to-human transmission has occurred a few times, but only among relatives in close contact.

WHO is watching other strains of bird flu, including H7 and H9, that are circulating among poultry and have also infected humans.

Still, H5N1 continues to be the virus experts worry most about, because it has spread so far, so fast. More than 60 percent of people infected by it have died.

"We just don't understand it, and what you don't understand is what's dangerous," Heymann said. "So, you have to be dramatic and take the most severe precautions."

Bird Flu Linked To Human Deaths In Indonesia, Egypt, Vietnam

Christmas Day saw the deaths of two young women believed to have been infected with the H5N1 virus :

In Egypt, a 25-year-old woman died Christmas day after being hospitalized on Dec. 21. The woman, from Bany Suwef Governorate, was the first case in Egypt since July, WHO officials said. The source of her exposure was being investigated.

Egypt has 39 confirmed cases of bird flu, with 16 of them fatal, since 2006.

In Indonesia, a 24-year-old woman from West Jakarta, also died Dec. 25 from bird flu. The woman developed symptoms on Dec. 14 and was hospitalized five days later. It was not immediately known how she contracted the virus.

Xinhau is reporting the death of a four year old child in the Son La province of Vietnam. The child was suffering high fever and pneumonia, two symptoms of bird flu infection :

The child ate a dead chicken before developing bird flu symptoms. Specimens from the child are being tested for bird flu virus strain H5N1, the representative told a meeting of the country's Anti-Bird Flu Steering Committee on Tuesday.

Vietnam has detected seven bird flu patients from the five northern provinces of Vinh Phuc, Thai Nguyen, Thanh Hoa, Ha Nam and Ha Tay since May 10, of whom four died, according to the ministry's Preventive Medicine Department.

Confirmed : Human To Human Bird Flu Spread In Pakistan

The World Health Organisation has now officially confirmed that the H5N1 virus was passed from one person to another in Pakistan. However, they are calling this human transmission of one of the world's most deadliest viruses "limited" :

World Health Organization, WHO, officials say there has been limited human transmission of bird flu in Pakistan - with no new cases reported recently.

WHO's top bird flu official David Heymann Friday, said there appears to be no threat of the further spread of the H5N1 virus, with the last human case reported December 6.

At least eight people were infected in Pakistan's northwest in recent weeks - in the country's first human cases of bird flu.

One man who worked on poultry farm in North West Frontier Province has died. His brother also died recently, but was not tested for the virus.

Heymann says the cases appear to be part of a small chain of human-to-human transmission.

A WHO team is investigating the outbreak and results from initial laboratory tests are expected in the next few days.

Indonesia : At Least Four Recent Human Bird Flu Victims Had No Contact With Infected Poultry



Depending on which media, or government reports you believe, there has been at least 20 human bird flu infections in recent months, in Pakistan, China and Indonesia, where the victim had no known contact with infected poultry, which has been the most common way humans become infected with H5N1.

Indonesia 'bird flu officials' are now investigating at least four cases of human infection, where the most likely source of infection is human transmission. The same AFP story reveals that 20 percent of human bird flu infections in 2006 were not linked to infected poultry. But in 2007, that figure has risen to 3o percent. The good news for Indonesia is that human deaths from H5N1 have dropped in 2007 :

"In the last three to four months, we have had four cases where the poultry in the victim's neighbourhoods (tested) negative for the virus," said Bayu Krisnamurthi, head of Indonesia's National Avian Influenza Committee.

"The number is significant enough for us to intensify our investigations so that we could have a more accurate explanation," he told a press briefing giving an overview of what has happened in Indonesia this year with bird flu.

Krisnamurthi nevertheless insisted that Indonesia had made progress in tackling bird flu, with the number of reported cases decreasing this year.

In 2007, 40 cases were confirmed with 35 fatalities, compared to figures of 55 and 45, respectively, in 2006.

But he also conceded that Indonesia needed more effective measures, particularly to combat bird flu in poultry.

According to Krisnamurthi, even though the agriculture ministry vaccinated 70 percent of the country's farmed poultry in 2007, "the quality of the vaccine must be improved," he said.

Fallout : Christmas Turkeys In UK Cost $200!

For the Brits, an organic turkey for Christmas dinner has become the luxury food of the season. The price of Christmas birds in the UK have soared by more than 38% in a matter of weeks, following bird flu outbreaks and mass cullings on organic poultry farms.

Some 200,000 poultry birds were culled in the UK after the recent outbreak, and added costs of raising poultry have come from the huge rise in the costs of feed, after wheat prices reached record highs.

Although paying more than £100 ($205) for a single turkey may seem outrageous, organic turkey suppliers have sold out, and are still fielding calls for more orders.

And turkey prices may climb even higher, according to Poultry World.

Sales of organic turkeys will jump 46%, the British Retail Consortium predicts. That compares with a 7% increase the industry group forecasts for total turkey sales.

As the bird flu virus continues to spread, and with tens of millions of poultry birds every few months to stop outbreaks from spreading, higher organic poultry rices are expected to become the norm for near future.

Bird Flu Spreading Rapidly As Winter Arrives In The Northern Hemisphere

A quick round-up of recent bird flu outbreaks :

Germany : EU Rolls Out Bird Flu Containment Measures After New Outbreak, Culling Begins

West Africa : Benin Confirms Outbreaks On Two Poultry Farms

Myanmar : First Human Case Confirmed, Victim Recovering

Saudi Arabia : New Outbreak Leads To Cull Of 13,000 Ostriches

Poland : Fresh Outbreak On Poultry Farm Reported

China : Human Infections Contained Claims Health Ministry

Pakistan : WHO Sends In Team To Investigate Human Transmission Claims