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Researchers fear avian flu may be here to stay
By Minnesota Public Radio News Today at 7:45 p.m.
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But some avian researchers fear the new viruses may be here to stay.
The strains of bird flu currently circulating in the United States contain genes from viruses found in Europe and Asia.
That's very unusual, given that the oceans and north-south migration patterns are a barrier to significant mingling between birds from those continents, said David Halvorson, an avian influenza researcher.
"With the exception of Siberia and Alaska where they can have a little bit of exchange of genetic material of their viruses," said Halvorson, a retired University of Minnesota veterinary medicine professor.
Halvorson suspects the new flu viruses were introduced to North America near the Bering Sea in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean between North America and Asia. Now that they're here, he believes it will be hard to get rid of them.
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Halvorson said there's little doubt that the flu virus started in wild birds. Even though it has been hard to find any traces of that connection in Minnesota, he thinks the new flu strains could already be widespread in wild ducks, geese and other waterfowl.
"It's either an overwhelming amount of virus [in waterfowl] or the virus that we're dealing with now is much more infectious than we're used to seeing because we're not used to seeing anything like this," he said. "Getting bombed with virus from wild birds in the spring like this -- we've never seen that before."
Halvorson predicts these highly-pathogenic viruses will squeeze out less deadly strains of North American avian flu. If so, he said, the threat to domestic flocks could intensify and continue indefinitely.
...
By Minnesota Public Radio News Today at 7:45 p.m.
...
But some avian researchers fear the new viruses may be here to stay.
The strains of bird flu currently circulating in the United States contain genes from viruses found in Europe and Asia.
That's very unusual, given that the oceans and north-south migration patterns are a barrier to significant mingling between birds from those continents, said David Halvorson, an avian influenza researcher.
"With the exception of Siberia and Alaska where they can have a little bit of exchange of genetic material of their viruses," said Halvorson, a retired University of Minnesota veterinary medicine professor.
Halvorson suspects the new flu viruses were introduced to North America near the Bering Sea in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean between North America and Asia. Now that they're here, he believes it will be hard to get rid of them.
...
Halvorson said there's little doubt that the flu virus started in wild birds. Even though it has been hard to find any traces of that connection in Minnesota, he thinks the new flu strains could already be widespread in wild ducks, geese and other waterfowl.
"It's either an overwhelming amount of virus [in waterfowl] or the virus that we're dealing with now is much more infectious than we're used to seeing because we're not used to seeing anything like this," he said. "Getting bombed with virus from wild birds in the spring like this -- we've never seen that before."
Halvorson predicts these highly-pathogenic viruses will squeeze out less deadly strains of North American avian flu. If so, he said, the threat to domestic flocks could intensify and continue indefinitely.
...