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**HenryN** · January 22, 2007, 03:30 PM

Re: Bird flu suspected in southern Hungary

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/01220702/H5N1_Hungary.html

Recombinomics Commentary

**hawkeye** · January 22, 2007, 03:39 PM

Re: Bird flu suspected in southern Hungary

I wonder if Russia will still allow the imports?

Hungarian poultry free to go to Russia again
Thursday, 4, January 2007 05:11:00 PM
Russia has lifted its ban on Hungarian poultry from January, which will allow Hungarian firms to sell several 100 million forints of poultry to Russia in the coming months, the Hungarian Poultry Product Council said.

Russia, which imposed the ban in June after the H5N1 strain of avian influenza hit Hungary's poultry, partially lifted it in October but kept it for some Hungarian counties including the most important poultry producing regions.

In a normal year, Hungary sells HUF 1.2-1.5 billion of poultry to Russia, but sales plunged to less than half those levels in 2006, László Bárány, chairman of the poultry product council told Thursday's issue of business daily Világgazdaság.

Hungary sold less poultry products to other key markets, e.g. Germany, after one million birds were culled following the outbreak of bird flu, which hit the duck and goose breeding region of Bács-Kiskun hardest, the paper added.

//==

Hungary succeeding in bird flu battle, claims expert

10/01/2007 - Following the discovery last year of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza in some of Hungary’s poultry stock, processors are finally on the road to recovery, an industry expert has claimed.

Peter Foldi, secretary of the Hungarian Poultry Producers' Council told CEE-Foodindustry.com that the industry was beginning to win the battle against the disease, as the market looks to recover its share of revenue lost of food safety concerns.

The disease which was discovered in a number of free range farms within the south of the country, caused consumers in both domestic and international markets to turn away from poultry sourced within the country.

Despite a wide scale cull of birds including geese and ducks by the Hungarian authorities in the affected regions like the breeding grounds of Bács-Kiskun, Foldi believes that more significant damage was caused by “unfavourable media coverage” of the disease.

The resulting concerns amongst consumers over food safety resulted in a large fall in demand, which according to Foldi caused as much as a 20 per cent decline in the price of many poultry products.

It also lost a large amount of business to major markets like Germany, a major buyer of duck products.

To protect its poultry, further measures have as a result been put in place to prevent any further outbreaks.

“We are developing new technologies to protect free range farms and other risk areas in the country as well as our interests”, said Foldi.

These technologies were also backed by EU approved prevention and control measures present in all member states affected by the H5N1 virus. The measures restrict movement of all birds in domestic areas, as well as increased surveillance of all wild and domestic birds.

The comments follow the announcement last week that Russia had completely lifted a ban imposed on all poultry products.

Though Foldi admits that Russia for some time “has not been a significant market for Hungarian poultry products,” he added that it was a sign of improving fortunes for the industry.

According to the Poultry Producers' Council before 2006, Hungarian exports to Russia accounted for around €5m - €6m in annual revenue for poultry processors in the country.

With Russia having now removed its ban on poultry, and new safeguards being put in place to protect its birds, Foldi is confident the situation for processors was clearly improving.

Quite simply he said, “We think 2007 will be a much better year for Hungarian poultry.”

**AlaskaDenise** · January 22, 2007, 04:42 PM

Re: Bird flu suspected in southern Hungary

Originally posted by niman View Post

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/01...1_Hungary.html

Commentary

Suspect H5N1 in Geese in Hungary
Recombinomics Commentary
January 22, 2007

Five geese found dead in southeastern Hungary are being tested for suspected bird flu, an Agriculture Ministry official said on Monday.

The dead birds are being tested in Budapest and come from a large farm in the southeastern county of Csongrad where about 40 geese had fallen sick and some had died, Farming Ministry Secretary of State Fulop Benedek told national news agency MTI.

Veterinarians who saw the birds said the suspicion of bird flu was justified.

The above comments suggest H5N1 may have been detected in southern Hungary. Although H5N1 has been reported in the Ukraine this season, other countries in Europe have failed to detect or report bird flu for about 12 months. Last season many countries in Europe reported H5N1 in late January and throughout February. This season most of the reports have been out of Africa, in Egypt, Sudan, and Nigeria.

The recent outbreak in Egypt has resulted in the death of all five confirmed cases this season, and the two sequences from the Gharbiya cluster had the Tamiflu resistance marker, N294S. The failure to find wild type sequences fro this position strongly suggests the polymorphism was in the H5N1 prior to the start of Tamiflu treatment. Moreover, N294S has also been identified in H5N1 in ducks in China. The acquisition of N294S appears likely. The HA sequences from these patients had a receptor binding site change, V223I, which was detected previously in H5N1 from geese in Shantou. The Gharbiya NA sequence also had a new change, M107I. This polymorphism was in the same Shantou geese that had the V223I change in HA. The presence of two newly acquired polymorphism in two genes that match a common source strongly supports acquisition of these polymorphisms by recombination.

Such acquisitions are cause for concern. In addition to the N294S polymorphisms in ducks in H5N1 infected ducks in China, the common Tamiflu resistance marker, H274Y, has been detected in Qinghai isolates in Astrakhan (A/swan/Astrakhan/1/2005(H5N1) and A/swan/Astrakhan/Russia/Nov-2/2005(H5N1), raising the possibility of more Tamiflu resistance in the region linked to Qinghai H5N1 infections.

.

**Carter** · January 23, 2007, 08:10 AM

Re: Bird flu suspected in southern Hungary

Hat -tip to Dutchie.

Hungary suspects bird flu outbreak
The Raw Story/DPA - Published: Monday January 22, 2007

Budapest- Hungarian authorities on Monday tested five dead
geese suspected of having bird flu, an Agricultural Ministry official
said.
The dead birds were discovered on a geese farm in Csongrad County
in south-east Hungary, Fulop Benedek told MTI news agency.

Around 40 of the farm's 3,300 geese became sick over the weekend
before some of the animals died, he said.

A protective zone was set up around the farm while the birds were
being tested.

Hungary last year culled hundreds of thousands of birds after bird
flu broke out in multiple locations across the country.

All of the protective zones set up at the time, were cancelled
when no further cases were uncovered.

Benedek said more information would be made available on Tuesday.

© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency

Raw Story - Celebrating 20 Years of Independent Journalism

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Hungary_suspects_bird_flu_outbreak_01222007.html

Breaking news, political news, and investigative news reporting from Raw Story's team of journalists and prize-winning investigators.

**hawkeye** · January 23, 2007, 09:13 AM

Re: Hungary - Bird flu in geese

Long article covering the usual info...however this bit was specific to Hungary

Farmers must cooperate to stamp out bird flu

23 Jan 2007
bbj.hu
The UN' Food and Agriculture Organization urged poultry farmers to cooperate with local authorities to stamp out bird flu as the virus spreads in Asia, saying many outbreaks probably go unreported. Hungarian authorities are investigating a suspected outbreak.

Bans on raising birds in backyards, such as the one being rolled out in Indonesia, may lead to illegal poultry production, the Rome-based FAO said today in a statement. Instead of banning production, farmers should be encouraged to vaccinate day-old chicks and take other virus control measures, FAO said. Fresh outbreaks in Japan, Thailand and Vietnam raise the concern of international disease trackers who are monitoring the virus in the event it spawns a global pandemic. The H5N1 avian flu strain may spread further as the weather gets colder in Europe and nations including China prepare to slaughter fowl for lunar New Year celebrations next month, FAO said. ?It is crucial that countries themselves step up their surveillance, detection and rapid response measures,? Juan Lubroth, senior officer at the FAO's animal health agency, said in the statement. ?Farmers should be encouraged to participate in virus control and vaccination...

**HenryN** · January 23, 2007, 11:54 AM

Re: Hungary - Bird flu in geese

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0 valign="top"><TBODY><TR><TD>Culling of bird flu suspect fowl begins in SE Hungary
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0 valign="top"><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=2 height=12></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top>Budapest, January 23 (MTI) - The culling of fowl began on Tuesday at a farm where birds suspected of having bird flu have been reported, MTI's on-site correspondent said on Tuesday.</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top>
The culling of nearly 3,300 geese was ordered on a farm by Lapisto, 13 kilometres of the south-eastern Hungarian town of Szentes, after 40 of the animals were found to show symptoms of bird flu.

Veterinary authorities have begun checking birds on nearby farms in a 10-kilometre quarantine zone where owners have been ordered to keep all fowl indoors. Locals said a large number of wild ducks has flown through the area and had spent time at a nearby stream.

Some of the dead birds are being tested in a Budapest diagnostics laboratory and EU authorities have been notified, chief veterinary officer Miklos Suth told the press earlier on Tuesday.

http://english.mti.hu/default.asp?menu=1&theme=2&cat=25&newsid=234018

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

**yielddude** · January 24, 2007, 11:19 AM

Re: Hungary - Bird flu in geese

MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires

01-24-07 1106ET

Copyright (c) 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

DJ EU Will Meet Friday To Discuss Hungary Bird Flu Measures

BRUSSELS (Dow Jones)--Veterinary experts from the European Union will discuss Friday what safety measures to impose on Hungary following a reported outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus in the country.

(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires

01-24-07 1109ET

Copyright (c) 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

**HenryN** · January 24, 2007, 11:24 AM

Re: Hungary - Bird flu in geese

Hungarian labs detect presence of H5N1 strain of bird flu
The Associated Press

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

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BUDAPEST, Hungary Hungarian laboratories have detected the presence of the deadly strain of H5N1 bird flu virus, the agriculture ministry said Tuesday.

"Bird flu tests have shown a high pathogenic H5 type, which looking at previous test results, belongs to the deadly N1 strain," the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said it would send samples to the official European Union lab at Weybridge, England for further tests.
Hungary has also notified EU officials about Wednesday's test results.

Earlier this week, some 30-40 geese — discovered on a farm in southeastern Hungary dead or showing signs of damaged nervous systems — were suspected of having been infected by the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus.
By Tuesday, the farm's 3,300 birds were culled.

The ministry said normal preventive measures to avoid the spread of the disease were in place. Further measures will not be taken and additional culling is unnecessary, the statement said.

Hungary's first case of H5N1, detected in February 2006, was found to be carried by wild birds including swans and gray geese, while the deadly virus was first found in domestic poultry in June.

**yielddude** · January 24, 2007, 11:30 AM

Re: Hungary - Bird flu in geese

DJ EU Will Meet Fri To Discuss Hungary Bird Flu Measures -2-

Hungarian authorities Wednesday detected the H5N1 virus in geese in the southeast of the country. Budapest imposed emergency security measures, restricting the movement of birds, ordering poultry indoors and stopping poultry meat exports.

E.U. experts meeting in Brussels Friday will assess and likely endorse these measures, the European Commission said in a statement.

This is the first incidence of highly pathogenic bird flu in the E.U. since August 2006, when one case occurred in Dresden zoo in Germany.

Since 2003, the H5N1 bird flu strain has killed at least 163 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Experts fear it could mutate into a form that becomes easily passed among people, potentially sparking a pandemic.

-By Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck, Dow Jones Newswires; +32-2-741-1487; juliane.vonreppert@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-24-07 1125ET

Copyright (c) 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

http://www.amtddj.inlumen.com/bin/djstory?StoryId=CrBBN0aebqLqWmdu2nZK

**hawkeye** · January 24, 2007, 11:33 AM

Re: Hungary - Bird flu in geese

probably threaten to kick them out of the EU over it. j/k

**HenryN** · January 24, 2007, 12:07 PM

Re: Hungary - Bird flu in geese

Commentary at

Qinghai H5N1 Confirmed in Hungary

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/01240701/H5N1_Hungary_Confirmed.html

Recombinomics Commentary

**Dark Horse** · January 24, 2007, 12:36 PM

Re: Hungary - Bird flu in geese

Originally posted by niman View Post

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/01...Confirmed.html

Do you suppose this is another opportunity for last year's jilted porcine bride? Or has she moved on?

**Niko** · January 24, 2007, 06:41 PM

Re: Hungary - Bird flu in geese

Avian flu crops up in Europe again

Jan 24, 2007 (CIDRAP News) ? Hungary today announced an H5N1 avian influenza outbreak at a goose farm, signaling the first appearance of the disease in Europe this winter.

A European Union (EU) statement said Hungarian authorities notified the EU of an H5N1 avian flu outbreak in Csongrad County in southeastern Hungary, Reuters reported today. The EU said veterinarians tested some geese after several deaths were reported in a 3,000-bird flock; the remaining geese were culled.

Hungarian veterinary officials told Bloomberg News today they will send samples tomorrow to an EU lab in the United Kingdom to confirm the results.

Appearing on public television today, chief veterinarian Miklos Suth said a surveillance zone was set up around the farm, which is in an isolated location, making spread of the disease unlikely, Bloomberg reported.

Hungary's first H5N1 outbreaks involved a handful of mute swans in B?cs-Kiskun County in the south-central region in April 2006, according to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). The following June, the disease was detected on several goose farms in the same county.

Twenty-six nations in Europe reported their first H5N1 outbreaks in wild birds or poultry in late 2005 and early 2006, according to Bloomberg. The last previous outbreak in Europe occurred in Germany last August, according to information published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/con...07hungary.html

**AlaskaDenise** · January 25, 2007, 01:25 AM

Re: Hungary - Bird flu in geese

Originally posted by niman View Post

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/01...Confirmed.html

Commentary

Qinghai H5N1 Confirmed in Hungary
Recombinomics Commentary
January 24, 2007

Hungarian laboratories have detected the presence of the deadly strain of H5N1 bird flu virus, the agriculture ministry said Tuesday.

"Bird flu tests have shown a high pathogenic H5 type, which looking at previous test results, belongs to the deadly N1 strain," the ministry said in a statement.

The above comments suggest that the determination of the H5 serotype included sequencing of the HA cleavage site, and finding the common GERRRKKR sequence signaling the Qinghai strain of H5N1. Thus, although the serotype of the N1 has not been determined, the H5 sequence leaves little doubt that the H5 bird flu is the highly pathogenic Qinghai strain.

The detection of H5N1 in Europe this season is not a surprise. Qinghai H5N1 was widely reported last year in late January and throughout February. More H5N1 reports from Europe are expected.

The Qinghai strain is transmitted and transported by migratory birds. Interactions between the dead ducks and wild ducks in Hungary had been noted. Most initial fatal H5N1 infections will involve wild birds.

The failure of any European country to report recent H5N1 in wild birds is cause for concern. The surveillance in these countries is fatally flawed, and like many of the countries in the Middle East and Africa, the Qinghai strain is only detected / reported when domestic poultry dies.

Samples from the dead geese are being sent to the WHO affiliated Weybridge lab in London. Many countries in Europe sent samples for testing last year to Weybridge and widespread infections were confirmed. However, these sequences are still being hoarded in the WHO private database at Los Alamos. In several instances, this hoarding has been in place for well over one year since H5N1 confirmation.

The hoarding of H5N1 sequences, coupled with failure to detect or report H5N1 in Europe and the Middle East, remain scandalous.

The recent detection of the Tamiflu resistance, N294S, NA polymorphism in the fatal cases in the Gharbiya cluster strongly suggests that the polymorphism is in wild and domestic birds in the region.

The failure to report the bird infections in Europe and the Middle East and/or release the sequences, is hazardous to the world?s health.

.