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  • Experts say bird flu virus survives longer

    By Tan Ee Lyn
    SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Leading influenza experts urged nations not to lower their guard against the deadly and hardy H5N1 virus, saying it now survives longer in higher temperatures and in wet and moist conditions.
    Scientists previously found the virus to be most active and transmissible among birds in the cooler months from October to March in the northern hemisphere, and many people were hoping for some respite in the coming summer months.
    But influenza expert Robert Webster warned against complacency and underestimating the virus, which made its first documented jump to humans from birds in 1997 in Hong Kong, killing six people.
    "When we tested the virus in Hong Kong from 1997, the virus was killed at 37 degrees Celsius (98 Fahrenheit) in two days. The current H5N1 is still viable for six days at 37," said Webster, from St Jude Children's Research Hospital in the U.S. city Memphis.
    "H5N1 at room temperatures can stay (alive) for at least a week in wet conditions," Webster told Reuters on the eve of a bird flu conference organised by the Lancet medical journal in Singapore.
    "One of the often overlooked facts about influenza is that it's more heat stable than people realise, especially under moist, damp conditions ... Don't trust it," he said.
    Webster said heat-stable strains of H5N1 were already circulating in ducks in Vietnam, Indonesia, China in 2004 and 2005 and experts would have to test if this trait was in the variants now circulating in India, Africa, Europe and parts of the Middle East.
    Since re-emerging in Asia in late 2003, the H5N1 virus is known to have infected 205 people, killing 113 of them. In the past few months, it has spread from Asia to parts of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
    Although it is predominantly a bird disease and most of the victims contracted the virus directly from poultry, experts fear it might change into a form that transmits easily among people and trigger a pandemic.
    BREAKING THE CHAIN
    The virus's growing adaptability to water has ominous implications because it means untreated water might no longer be safe, Webster said, and it was important to drink boiled water.
    "This means that water supplies for feeding chickens, or water supplies where people are swimming and water supplies for villages have got to be treated," he said.
    Other experts also called for concerted action and determination in breaking the chain of transmission of the virus, which resides largely in the world's reservoir of 250 billion domestic birds and 50 billion migrating birds.
    "You can break the chain of transmission into the human population. The best place to break it is either to protect the domestic birds from the migratory birds. Or alternatively, remove humans from the domestic birds and break the chain of transmission and you are halfway there," said John Oxford, virology professor at the Royal London Hospital.
    Kennedy Shortridge, who spent three decades studying influenza viruses, called for a complete rethink of the way poultry should be raised in parts of Asia, where ducks -- natural reservoirs of flu viruses -- are raised in padi fields to get rid of rice pests. Ducks are also raised alongside chickens, and cross infection is all too common.
    "When I first saw the beginnings of intensive raising of poultry in the early 1980s in southern China, to me, the alarm bells were there," said Shortridge, who described these padi fields as "nothing more than faecal soups of influenza viruses".
    In an interview, he also called for a change in the ways chickens are now raised. Conditions were often too stressful for the birds and this made them vulnerable to disease.
    "We've got to find other sources of protein, other than just chicken. And the chickens have to be raised in such a way that the birds are not going to be stressed and not susceptible to so many infections," he said.

  • #2
    Re: Experts say bird flu virus survives longer

    Originally posted by Doofa
    By Tan Ee Lyn
    SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Leading influenza experts urged nations not to lower their guard against the deadly and hardy H5N1 virus, saying it now survives longer in higher temperatures and in wet and moist conditions.
    Scientists previously found the virus to be most active and transmissible among birds in the cooler months from October to March in the northern hemisphere, and many people were hoping for some respite in the coming summer months.
    But influenza expert Robert Webster warned against complacency and underestimating the virus, which made its first documented jump to humans from birds in 1997 in Hong Kong, killing six people.
    "When we tested the virus in Hong Kong from 1997, the virus was killed at 37 degrees Celsius (98 Fahrenheit) in two days. The current H5N1 is still viable for six days at 37," said Webster, from St Jude Children's Research Hospital in the U.S. city Memphis.
    "H5N1 at room temperatures can stay (alive) for at least a week in wet conditions," Webster told Reuters on the eve of a bird flu conference organised by the Lancet medical journal in Singapore.
    "One of the often overlooked facts about influenza is that it's more heat stable than people realise, especially under moist, damp conditions ... Don't trust it," he said.
    Webster said heat-stable strains of H5N1 were already circulating in ducks in Vietnam, Indonesia, China in 2004 and 2005 and experts would have to test if this trait was in the variants now circulating in India, Africa, Europe and parts of the Middle East.
    Since re-emerging in Asia in late 2003, the H5N1 virus is known to have infected 205 people, killing 113 of them. In the past few months, it has spread from Asia to parts of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
    Although it is predominantly a bird disease and most of the victims contracted the virus directly from poultry, experts fear it might change into a form that transmits easily among people and trigger a pandemic.
    BREAKING THE CHAIN
    The virus's growing adaptability to water has ominous implications because it means untreated water might no longer be safe, Webster said, and it was important to drink boiled water.
    "This means that water supplies for feeding chickens, or water supplies where people are swimming and water supplies for villages have got to be treated," he said.
    Other experts also called for concerted action and determination in breaking the chain of transmission of the virus, which resides largely in the world's reservoir of 250 billion domestic birds and 50 billion migrating birds.
    "You can break the chain of transmission into the human population. The best place to break it is either to protect the domestic birds from the migratory birds. Or alternatively, remove humans from the domestic birds and break the chain of transmission and you are halfway there," said John Oxford, virology professor at the Royal London Hospital.
    Kennedy Shortridge, who spent three decades studying influenza viruses, called for a complete rethink of the way poultry should be raised in parts of Asia, where ducks -- natural reservoirs of flu viruses -- are raised in padi fields to get rid of rice pests. Ducks are also raised alongside chickens, and cross infection is all too common.
    "When I first saw the beginnings of intensive raising of poultry in the early 1980s in southern China, to me, the alarm bells were there," said Shortridge, who described these padi fields as "nothing more than faecal soups of influenza viruses".
    In an interview, he also called for a change in the ways chickens are now raised. Conditions were often too stressful for the birds and this made them vulnerable to disease.
    "We've got to find other sources of protein, other than just chicken. And the chickens have to be raised in such a way that the birds are not going to be stressed and not susceptible to so many infections," he said.
    http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/news...LU-EXPERTS.xml
    We've been talking about H5N1 in water for a while now. Theories that kids swimming in infected lakes got sick. Wells poisoned.
    Fish and dolphin die offs.

    This is wonderful news... NOT

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Experts say bird flu virus survives longer

      In a fluid situation like this (no pun intended) there are two things TPTB would not want shouted from the rooftops: That infected water can spread H5N1 and that eating the virus could kill you. Much effort has been made to dampen (sorry again!) such speculation, but many have assumed this is true anyway. Only now is it becoming more clear that both these worries may in fact be well founded, although more research needs to be done.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Experts say bird flu virus survives longer

        For those tech types who like to read the science behind the announcements, the following paper is must reading.



        Basically, H5N1 transmission in water and antreated sewage is assured

        The stuff even lives in Mississippi water for extended periods.

        GRRR.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Experts say bird flu virus survives longer

          I think it's time to spread the word on water being a possible route to infection. Actually, I've long thought that this route needs more attention, but without causing people to panic and increase the bottled water company's profits. I feel an editorial coming on...

          Comment

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