Announcement

**AlaskaDenise** · December 4, 2006, 04:34 AM

Re: death of birds was reported in Ganja

This was reported by Azirbaijan news, however Encarta only returns a "Ganja" for Angola, see below.
(map removed after Dutchy's addition below)

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**Gert van der Hoek** · December 4, 2006, 05:44 AM

Re: death of birds was reported in Ganja

map from wikipedia

Attached Files

**HenryN** · December 4, 2006, 06:00 AM

Re: death of birds was reported in Ganja

APA is Azeri Press Agency, so the map of western Azerbaijan appears to be correct.

**AlaskaDenise** · December 4, 2006, 06:13 AM

Re: death of birds was reported in Ganja

Apparently Ganja is also known as Ganca.....up the Kura River.

Dutchy asked me to use the Encarta maps, so see below...

**HenryN** · December 4, 2006, 06:52 AM

Re: death of birds was reported in Ganja

From last season

H5N1 Confirmed in Azerbaijan

Recombinomics Commentary
February 10, 2006

The Health Ministry said Friday that a British laboratory has confirmed the presence of the H5N1 strain of avian flu in dead birds from Azerbaijan 's Caspian Sea coast.

The first case of mass deaths among birds was registered in the autumn in the Nakhichivan region, bordering Turkey . More deaths occurred in December and January, but health authorities insisted that the birds had not been infected with avian flu and said there was no cause for concern.

According to local media, within just two to four days at the beginning of this month, the carcasses of thousands of dead migratory birds were found floating along the sea coast near the northern Khachmas and Devechi districts. Mass bird deaths have also been registered in southern and western districts. The dead birds include crows and swans.

Samaya Mammadova, spokeswoman for the Health Ministry, said the Weybridge laboratory had confirmed the H5N1 strain in wild birds on the Absheron Peninsula , which includes the capital Baku and surrounding villages. It has not yet delivered a finding on samples taken from domestic poultry found dead in the southern Masalli district at the end of December and beginning of January.

About 200,000 migratory birds spend the winter in the environs of Baku, on the Caspian Sea shore, and Azerbaijan hosts up to 1.3 million water birds each winter, second only to Britain, said Elchin Sultanov, the head of Azerbaijan's Ornithological Society.

The above comments indicate H5N1 has been in Azerbaijan for some time, which is not surprising. H5N1 was reported in the Volga Delta at the northern end of the Caspian sea in August. In October, H5N1 was confirmed in western Turkey and the Danube Delta, but there were die-offs reported in eastern Turkey as well as northern Iran. Recent OIE reports by Turkey indicated they detected H5N1 in eastern Turkey in mid November and have been reporting outbreaks including more this month (see map).

Recently H5N1has been reported in Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Greece, which may be linked to birds moving further south and similar events in Azerbaijan may have caused the deaths this month.

However, H5N1 in Nigeria has been killing birds in northern Nigeria since mid-January and the genetic signatures match the Qinghai strain, which has been carried by migratory birds into Eastern Europe, Turkey, and the Middle East.

The latest reports further substantiate the under reporting of H5N1 in the area, and raise significant credibility issues in adjacent countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa which have not yet filed OIE reports on H5N1.

WHO comments on a lack of understanding of H5N1 introduction to Nigeria are of great concern, as is the lack of enforcement or investigations regarding of mandatory OIE reporting of H5N1.

The overlap of three major migratory bird flight paths in western Africa is cause for additional concern as H5N1 prepares to move into new areas of Western Europe and North America, leading to new recombinations and new problems.

Map

Media Resources

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/02...zerbaijan.html

**HenryN** · December 4, 2006, 08:24 AM

Re: death of birds was reported in Ganja

Commentary at

Poultry Deaths in Azerbaijan Raise H5N1 Survellance Concerns

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/12040601/H5N1_Azerbaijan_Poultry.html

Recombinomics Commentary

**Niko** · December 4, 2006, 09:44 AM

Re: death of birds was reported in Ganja

Today.Az ? Society ? No bird flu danger in Azerbaijan
<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3" width="100%"><tbody><tr> <td background="/images/dash.gif"></td></tr></tbody></table> 27 November 2006 [19:38] - Today.Az
<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3" width="100%"><tbody><tr> <td background="/images/dash.gif"></td></tr></tbody></table> Agriculture Ministry State Veterinary Service Chief Ismayil Hasanov held a press conference.

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td class="normal3"> He said that monitoring concerning bird flu is held twice a month, APA reports.
The results of the monitoring show that there is no bird flu in Azerbaijan. Ismayil Hasanov said that they analyzed 2250 samples during the first and 37 dead birds and 3723 blood samples during the second monitoring. "The analyses show that there is no bird flu danger in Azerbaijan," he said.
The service chief said that they have all necessary equipment and technical means to struggle against bird flu.
"Now we can analyze and diagnose concerning bird flu during two days. The birds died in Berde and Jalilabad have nothing to do with bird flu. Generally the situation connected with bird flu in the world is more satisfactory this year compared with last year. The ban imposed on fowl hunting still remains effective," Ismayilov said.
</td></tr></tbody></table>

URL: http://www.today.az/news/society/33173.html

I couldn't find the location for Berde - it may be an alternate name for Barda since an Expedia/Encarta search defaulted to Barda.
Map for Jalilibad (Calilibad)-see bottom of map - Barda is in West and center

**HenryN** · December 4, 2006, 10:31 AM

Re: death of birds was reported in Ganja

Monitoring 37 dead birds is not real monitoring.

**AlaskaDenise** · December 4, 2006, 10:41 AM

Re: death of birds was reported in Ganja

Originally posted by niman

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/12...n_Poultry.html

Commentary

Poultry Deaths in Azerbaijan Raise H5N1 Survellance Concerns

Recombinomics Commentary
December 4, 2006

Mass death of birds was reported in Ganja, APA Western bureau reports. Over 20 poultry died simultaneously in different houses on December 2.

Rumors were spread that H5N1 virus caused the death of birds. State Veterinary Service Ganja Department Chief Hussein Abbasov denied it.
?State Veterinary Service holds monitoring twice a month. If there were bird flu virus, it would be found in wild birds first. The birds died of Newcastle and colibacilosis diseases,? he said.

The above denials of H5N1 in Azerbaijan are cause for concern. Although there is monitoring of wild birds, most monitoring fails to detect H5N1 at early stages. In Azerbaijan, H5N1 was first confirmed in February. However there were multiple die-offs prior to the confirmation in February, when there were massive deaths on the shores of the Caspian Sea.

Last season H5N1 was initially detected in Romania and western Turkey in October and H5N1 in eastern Turkey was denied. However, when patients began dying in early January, H5N1 was acknowledge in eastern Turkey in November and December. Moreover, recently released sequences from teals in Egypt from December, 2005 included a Qinghai isolate.

Fatal H5N1 infections in Azerbaijan were confirmed in February of this year, but Azerbaijan monitor last season was poor. The H5N1 in Egypt this season has a number of changes not found in last season, indicating H5N1 has arrived in the area again, although H5N1 has not been reported in Turkey or the Middle East this season, again raising serious concerns about monitoring and transparency in the area.

Although the bird sequences of H5N1 in Azerbaijan are still being withheld, the phylogenetic trees of isolates from last season were presented at a meeting in Italy in July. These trees clearly showed that there were multiple introductions of H5N1 into Azerbaijan last season. In the top branch (see top) there is an isolate from a swan in Azerbaijan, A/swan/Azerbaijan/Av107-K3-2/06, which is the group that includes H5N1 from the only bird sequence released by Weybridge (from a turkey in Turkey collected in October, 2005).

Further down the tree (see bottom) are Azerbaijan isolates from a dog, A/dog/Azerbaijan/1413-6/06) and a fox, A/fox/Azerbaijan/1413-7/06. These are related to a chicken isolate from Azerbaijan, A/ck/Azerbaijan/Av107-K7-2/06. Isolates from multiple countries in western Europe are represented in this group. Another branch lower on the tree includes a number of isolates from Azerbaijan chickens, A/ck/Azerbaijan/Av776-2-7/06 as well as a swan, A/swan/Azerbaijan/Av107-K2-2/06, and isolates from Qinghai. Although these sequences were collected in late 2005 / early 2006, only one bird sequence has been released by Weybridge.

Last week Weybridge released human sequences from Iraq and Azerbaijan. Two of the Azerbaijan human H5N1 sequences have N186K, a change that has been shown to increase affinity for human receptors. All six of the Iraq isolates have another change at the same position, N186S, and two isolates from Iraq also have Q196R, another change that increases affinity for human receptors and synergizes with S227N, which was in two of the four human isolates from eastern Turkey. S227N has also been found in a human isoalte from Egypt, and this season the only confirmed human case in Egypt had M230I, which is found in all three human strains of influenza (H1N1, H3N2, influenza B) and creates are region (226-230) of identity (QSGRI) with influenza B, a strain that is efficiently transmitted from human-to-human. Moreover, there have now been three suspect H5N1 clusters in Egypt, although these clusters have not been confirmed to be H5N1 positive.

Thus, the poultry deaths in Azerbaijan, suspect human cluster in Egypt, and confirmed H5N1 in one patient and multiple regions in Egypt raise concerns that H5N1 is transmitting unreported in the region. Last season Azerbaijan had multiple introductions that lead to deaths of wild and domestic birds as well as mammals, including humans, a fox, and a dog.

The above discounting of H5N1 in dead poultry because H5N1 has not yet been reported in wild birds in the region is cause for concern, as is the hoarding of H5N1 bird, dog, and fox sequences by Weybridge from countries throughout the Middle East and Europe.

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