South Korea: Recent bird flu outbreaks may have come from midwestern China

[HenryN]

Re: South Korea: Recent bird flu outbreaks may have come from midwestern China

too late to lock the chickens in their stables.

not all Qinghai are the same, there are substrains.
It's not about the cleavage site or such, just to determine
how it went to Korea. Compare e.g. the paper how it went
to Nigeria, this is important to know for the countries
in the region. But it took many months until this was published.
They should speed up the process and release the sequences now.

Why do you allow Korea to keep the sequences secret, while requiring
Indonesia to release them ?

The series of isolates from Azerbaijan to Italy to Afghanistan, to Tuva/Mongolia are quite clear.

Indonesia held the human sequences for over a year. The outbreak in Korea is less than a month old. Those sequences will come out, but have nothing to do with your earlier comments of China "hiding" data, which really isn't practical, since the sequences flying into and out of China do not have passports and don't read the "no H5N1 allowed" signs.

[HenryN]

Re: South Korea: Recent bird flu outbreaks may have come from midwestern China

Bird flu in South Korea unlikely to cause human infection <!-- END HEADLINE --><!-- BEGIN STORY BODY -->Sat Dec 16, 4:10 PM ET


The two bird flu outbreaks reported last month in South Korea were caused by a strain of the virus that has not led to any human infection, a senior official said.
Health authorities have culled 771,000 chickens near Iksan City, 230 kilometers (140 miles) southwest of Seoul, after two poultry farms were hit by the virus last month.
Kim Chang-Seob, chief veterinarian of the agriculture and fisheries ministry, said initial analyses of the samples from the two farms showed that the strain shares the same genetic characteristics as those found in western China.
"This means that the chances of the virus infecting human beings are slim," Chief Veterinarian Officer Kim Chang-Seob of the ministry said.
In May 2005, wild birds were infected by the same strain of virus in Qinghai, China's midwestern province. Bird flu outbreaks in Russia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan were also later caused by the same strain of H5N1 virus, the ministry said.
The government's efforts to curb the flu suffered a setback when a third outbreak was reported on Monday. The latest outbreak was reported from a farm in Gimjae, 260 kilometers southwest of Seoul.
The ministry said it had asked the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct further analyses on the first two samples to determine the possibility of human infection.
The analysis for the third outbreak will be carried out at the end of this month, it said.
Health authorities have completed the culling of 365,000 birds, mostly quails, in Gimje as of Saturday, Kim added.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061216...1028&printer=1

[HenryN]

Re: South Korea: Recent bird flu outbreaks may have come from midwestern China

Bird flu virus here a different strain from deadly outbreak<!--@제목끝@-->
<!-- //기사타이틀 -->
<!-- 서브타이틀 --><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=652 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=Sarticle><!--@부제목시작@--><!--@부제목끝@--></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- //서브타이틀 --><!-- 기사내용 --><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=652 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=txt_index_02><!--@본문시작@-->December 16, 2006 ㅡ The bird flu outbreaks last month in Iksan, North Jeolla province, were caused by a virus strain different from the one in Southeast Asia that infected and killed dozens of humans, the nation's health authorities said yesterday.
South Korea will ask U.S health authorities next week to help assess the potential threat to humans of the most recent strain.
Two farms were infected last month by a highly pathogenic form of the virus. A third outbreak was reported in the region Sunday.
The ministry said the first two outbreaks were caused by the H5N1 strain. An analysis of the samples from the two poultry farms showed that the strain shares the same genetic characteristics as those found in western China. In May 2005, wild birds were infected by the strain in Qinghai, China's midwestern province. Bird flu outbreaks in Russia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan were also later caused by the H5N1 strain, the ministry said.
Human infections have been reported in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. None have been reported here.
"The virus found in Iksan originated from birds, it was not influenced by human influenza virus," said an official from the National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service, according to the Ministry's statement. "The genetic analysis of the virus for the specimen collected from another outbreak in Gimje earlier this month will be available at the end of this month."
The Ministry of Health and Welfare said it will ask the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention this week to conduct further analysis on the first two samples to determine the possibility of human infection.
Meanwhile, food sales at local discounters and department stores declined in November, dragging down the retailers' overall sales, as the latest outbreak of bird flu scared consumers away from chicken and egg counters, according to Korea's Commerce Ministry.
According a Commerce Ministry survey, the combined sales of the discount chains in November shrank 0.7 percent from a year earlier, despite brisk sales of household goods and apparel. The sales of household goods and apparel climbed 6.7 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively. But the sales of food, a major component of discounters' overall sales, shrank 2.3 percent compared to November 2005.
"The sales declined largely because of sluggish sales of chicken and eggs," the Commerce Ministry said in a statement.


by Ser Myo-ja, Jung Ha-won <myoja@joongang.co.kr><!--@본문끝@-->
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http://joongangdaily.joins.com/20061...090409041.html