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Senior Moderator
Australian hunt for bird flu
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21078090-953,00.html#
Rosemary Desmond
January 17, 2007 11:00pm
RESEARCHERS will next month start a program to determine if bird flu has reached Australian shores.
The highly contagious H5N1 strain has caused the deaths of 150 people and millions of birds overseas. Graham Burgess from James Cook University's School of Veterinary and Biomedical Science will lead a team to collect blood samples in north Queensland from about 2000 waterfowl, the usual hosts of the disease.
Targeted for testing will be migratory and resident populations of magpie geese, black ducks and two whistling ducks.
Dr Burgess said the black duck held most interest because it might be capable of being infected with some virulent strains of bird flu.
"The black duck is most interesting to us in that there is a possibility that the black duck may be capable of being infected with some fairly virulent strains of influenza," Dr Burgess said.
"There's a lot of different strains of influenza and all influenza viruses essentially come from birds originally, even all of the human influenzas," he said.
There was no evidence yet of human-to-human transmission of bird flu.
Australian scientists believed bird flu had not yet spread to our nearest neighbour, Papua New Guinea, but it has been found in nearby Indonesia.
"How far it's come down the Indonesian archipelago is still a little bit unsure," Dr Burgess said.
Birds infected with H5N1 had suffered fairly high mortality rates.
"The thing we are hoping for is that these birds die before they get to places like Australia," Dr Burgess said.
"We are expecting not to find H5N1 but if we do find that we have an obligation immediately to hand it over to the CSIRO lab in Geelong (Victoria)."
"There is a plan in place of how exactly it would be handled from then on."
The prevalence of flu in ducks in some parts of the world was up to 50 per cent, Dr Burgess said.
"We expect to find between one and 10 per cent of north Queensland's waterfowl population to be carrying influenza viruses."
The three-year study would examine if the levels of flu in waterfowl were increasing or if the patterns of infection were changing, Dr Burgess said.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21078090-953,00.html#
Rosemary Desmond
January 17, 2007 11:00pm
RESEARCHERS will next month start a program to determine if bird flu has reached Australian shores.
The highly contagious H5N1 strain has caused the deaths of 150 people and millions of birds overseas. Graham Burgess from James Cook University's School of Veterinary and Biomedical Science will lead a team to collect blood samples in north Queensland from about 2000 waterfowl, the usual hosts of the disease.
Targeted for testing will be migratory and resident populations of magpie geese, black ducks and two whistling ducks.
Dr Burgess said the black duck held most interest because it might be capable of being infected with some virulent strains of bird flu.
"The black duck is most interesting to us in that there is a possibility that the black duck may be capable of being infected with some fairly virulent strains of influenza," Dr Burgess said.
"There's a lot of different strains of influenza and all influenza viruses essentially come from birds originally, even all of the human influenzas," he said.
There was no evidence yet of human-to-human transmission of bird flu.
Australian scientists believed bird flu had not yet spread to our nearest neighbour, Papua New Guinea, but it has been found in nearby Indonesia.
"How far it's come down the Indonesian archipelago is still a little bit unsure," Dr Burgess said.
Birds infected with H5N1 had suffered fairly high mortality rates.
"The thing we are hoping for is that these birds die before they get to places like Australia," Dr Burgess said.
"We are expecting not to find H5N1 but if we do find that we have an obligation immediately to hand it over to the CSIRO lab in Geelong (Victoria)."
"There is a plan in place of how exactly it would be handled from then on."
The prevalence of flu in ducks in some parts of the world was up to 50 per cent, Dr Burgess said.
"We expect to find between one and 10 per cent of north Queensland's waterfowl population to be carrying influenza viruses."
The three-year study would examine if the levels of flu in waterfowl were increasing or if the patterns of infection were changing, Dr Burgess said.
