Snowy Owl
Retired in 2010, In Memoriam
<center> <!-- Body Column --> <center>[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]Last Updated: 4/21/2006 12:01:00 AM[/FONT]</center>
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</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">[FONT=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]Friday, April 21, 2006[/FONT]
[FONT=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]Avian flu still a cause for concern for agriculture [/FONT]
[FONT=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]WHITNEY COLE
http://www.agrinewspubs.com/Main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=207&ArticleID=10034
[/FONT]
[FONT=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Among an audience of animal agriculture leaders, avian influenza was a hot topic.<oneup>
</oneup>At the recent National Institute for Animal Agriculture annual meeting, speakers and video presentations told the story of where the bird flu is, what’s being done about it and the need to keep the public informed.<oneup>
</oneup>David Nabarro, U.N. coordinator for global avian influenza response, gave a video presentation that was summarized by William Hueston, director at the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety at the University of Minnesota.<oneup>
</oneup>“Nabarro made a comment about the need to sustain production agriculture and a comment about the need to try to protect backyard agriculture for the poor,” Hueston said.<oneup>
</oneup>Nabarro recognized avian influenza is growing exponentially in the last six months across Asia, through Europe and the Middle East and now is into Africa.<oneup>
</oneup>Hueston echoed that as one of Nabarro’s key points and marked it when he said there is “widespread and increasing recognition that this is a long-term problem for which there is no simple solution.”<oneup>
</oneup>Other key points of Nabarro’s speech included the reinforcement that high path avian influenza H5N1 represents not just an animal health concern, but also a human health concern.<oneup>
</oneup>He also commented on the potential harm to animal and public human health, which has been used to strengthen the animal health systems in terms of biosecurity, and talks of bio-containment have begun to help lay out a plan of what to do with animals should they test positive for the virus.<oneup>
</oneup>The last bullet on Hueston’s list of key points from Nabarro’s speech seemed to be simple: “David Nabarro reinforced that avian influenza is a global threat with local roots.”<oneup>
</oneup>“He said that it is necessary to assure the poultry meat industry as it is to be sensitive not to sacrifice backyard birds for the poor,” Hueston said.<oneup>
</oneup>Hueston talked about Nabarro’s call for cooperation between those who hold the power to make a difference on the handling and outcome of avian influenza.<oneup>
</oneup>“I heard David Nabarro say several times about the need to strengthen partnerships, and those are partnerships between government and industry and between the human medical profession and the veterinary profession,” Hueston said.<oneup>
</oneup>“I thought (Nabarro) made a pretty candid statement, that no one can say whether the current H5N1 will become a pandemic or when the next pandemic will occur.<oneup>
</oneup>“We know there will be another pandemic sometime in history. We don’t know how dangerous that new mutant virus will be. We don’t know when it will occur or how much of the world it will affect.”<oneup>
</oneup>One of Nabarro’s final points that Hueston emphasized was the need for public to know and understand what is happening with the virus, where it has been found and what it being done to stop it.<oneup>
</oneup>“Why do we need to let the people know what’s going on? Why do we need to share and not conceal things,” Hueston asked.<oneup>
</oneup>“Because if we don’t, the public will lose confidence in the food supply, the markets will fall apart and the poultry meat and egg consumption will drop and people will get confused and that confusion translates into fear,” Hueston said.<oneup>
</oneup>Ron DeHaven, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service administrator, talked about the U.S. plan to handle avian influenza in the event it comes to the country.<oneup>
</oneup>“While this is still primarily a disease of birds, it is a zoonotic virus and the potential to become the next global pandemic is always there. The economic and health implications, if this does become a pandemic, are huge,” DeHaven said.<oneup>
</oneup>He said the World Bank estimated, if the bird flu should become a pandemic virus, the global costs in the first year would exceed $800 billion.<oneup>
</oneup>The U.S. Department of Agriculture and DeHaven have a three-part plan to keep the worst-case scenario from playing out.<oneup>
</oneup>“Our domestic activities for H5N1 fall into roughly three categories — exclusion, surveillance and protection if it does enter the United States and rapid response,” he said.<oneup>
</oneup>The exclusion plan DeHaven laid out included import restrictions from countries known to be infected, quarantine and testing of birds from any country to ensure they do not have the virus before the birds enter the United States and focusing on high-risk shipments and international passengers that might be bringing poultry or poultry products from infected countries.<oneup>
</oneup>He said numerous alerts had been sent out to those that protect the borders to be sure any potentially dangerous products or people do not get into the country.<oneup>
</oneup>“Secretary Johanns has made it clear we need to assume that H5N1 will be here tomorrow, so rapid detection is clearly critical if we’re going to be able to quickly contain and eradicate the virus,” DeHaven said.<oneup>
</oneup>He noted the good surveillance already in place at commercial poultry production facilities, but also said hobby breeders and what he called barnyard flocks also will need to be addressed.<oneup>
</oneup>“We are reenergizing our outreach to hobby breeders and backyard flocks with our biosecurity for the birds campaign. We will also be putting out some public service announcements to that particular population,” he said.<oneup>
</oneup>“The idea is to encourage them to practice good biosecurity as well as report any disease or dying birds early on as that might be one of the first populations affected by this virus.”<oneup>
</oneup>For the third area of the USDA plan, rapid response, the agency already is planning for the personnel, equipment, supplies and communication systems that would be necessary if the response mechanism would need to be enacted.<oneup>
</oneup>“As to rapid response, we are bolstering our response plans to keep accordance with the system that has already proven to be effective in numerous outbreak situations,” DeHaven said.<oneup>
</oneup>DeHaven said, with the partnerships the USDA has with state agencies as well as the industry as a whole, the virus could be quickly identified, responded to rapidly and eradicated if the virus should find its way to the United States.<oneup>
</oneup>“I can assure you,” he said, “we won’t underreact.” [/FONT]</td></tr></tbody></table></center>
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<!-- BEGIN UACI.inc | 4/21/2006 5:55:14 AM | --> <!-- LevelID:3,ArticleID=10034 --> <!-- END UACI.inc | 4/21/2006 5:55:14 AM | --> <!--Start Article Table--> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="450"><tbody><tr><td valign="top">
</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">[FONT=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]Friday, April 21, 2006[/FONT]
[FONT=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]Avian flu still a cause for concern for agriculture [/FONT]
[FONT=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]WHITNEY COLE
http://www.agrinewspubs.com/Main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=207&ArticleID=10034
[/FONT]
[FONT=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Among an audience of animal agriculture leaders, avian influenza was a hot topic.<oneup>
</oneup>At the recent National Institute for Animal Agriculture annual meeting, speakers and video presentations told the story of where the bird flu is, what’s being done about it and the need to keep the public informed.<oneup>
</oneup>David Nabarro, U.N. coordinator for global avian influenza response, gave a video presentation that was summarized by William Hueston, director at the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety at the University of Minnesota.<oneup>
</oneup>“Nabarro made a comment about the need to sustain production agriculture and a comment about the need to try to protect backyard agriculture for the poor,” Hueston said.<oneup>
</oneup>Nabarro recognized avian influenza is growing exponentially in the last six months across Asia, through Europe and the Middle East and now is into Africa.<oneup>
</oneup>Hueston echoed that as one of Nabarro’s key points and marked it when he said there is “widespread and increasing recognition that this is a long-term problem for which there is no simple solution.”<oneup>
</oneup>Other key points of Nabarro’s speech included the reinforcement that high path avian influenza H5N1 represents not just an animal health concern, but also a human health concern.<oneup>
</oneup>He also commented on the potential harm to animal and public human health, which has been used to strengthen the animal health systems in terms of biosecurity, and talks of bio-containment have begun to help lay out a plan of what to do with animals should they test positive for the virus.<oneup>
</oneup>The last bullet on Hueston’s list of key points from Nabarro’s speech seemed to be simple: “David Nabarro reinforced that avian influenza is a global threat with local roots.”<oneup>
</oneup>“He said that it is necessary to assure the poultry meat industry as it is to be sensitive not to sacrifice backyard birds for the poor,” Hueston said.<oneup>
</oneup>Hueston talked about Nabarro’s call for cooperation between those who hold the power to make a difference on the handling and outcome of avian influenza.<oneup>
</oneup>“I heard David Nabarro say several times about the need to strengthen partnerships, and those are partnerships between government and industry and between the human medical profession and the veterinary profession,” Hueston said.<oneup>
</oneup>“I thought (Nabarro) made a pretty candid statement, that no one can say whether the current H5N1 will become a pandemic or when the next pandemic will occur.<oneup>
</oneup>“We know there will be another pandemic sometime in history. We don’t know how dangerous that new mutant virus will be. We don’t know when it will occur or how much of the world it will affect.”<oneup>
</oneup>One of Nabarro’s final points that Hueston emphasized was the need for public to know and understand what is happening with the virus, where it has been found and what it being done to stop it.<oneup>
</oneup>“Why do we need to let the people know what’s going on? Why do we need to share and not conceal things,” Hueston asked.<oneup>
</oneup>“Because if we don’t, the public will lose confidence in the food supply, the markets will fall apart and the poultry meat and egg consumption will drop and people will get confused and that confusion translates into fear,” Hueston said.<oneup>
</oneup>Ron DeHaven, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service administrator, talked about the U.S. plan to handle avian influenza in the event it comes to the country.<oneup>
</oneup>“While this is still primarily a disease of birds, it is a zoonotic virus and the potential to become the next global pandemic is always there. The economic and health implications, if this does become a pandemic, are huge,” DeHaven said.<oneup>
</oneup>He said the World Bank estimated, if the bird flu should become a pandemic virus, the global costs in the first year would exceed $800 billion.<oneup>
</oneup>The U.S. Department of Agriculture and DeHaven have a three-part plan to keep the worst-case scenario from playing out.<oneup>
</oneup>“Our domestic activities for H5N1 fall into roughly three categories — exclusion, surveillance and protection if it does enter the United States and rapid response,” he said.<oneup>
</oneup>The exclusion plan DeHaven laid out included import restrictions from countries known to be infected, quarantine and testing of birds from any country to ensure they do not have the virus before the birds enter the United States and focusing on high-risk shipments and international passengers that might be bringing poultry or poultry products from infected countries.<oneup>
</oneup>He said numerous alerts had been sent out to those that protect the borders to be sure any potentially dangerous products or people do not get into the country.<oneup>
</oneup>“Secretary Johanns has made it clear we need to assume that H5N1 will be here tomorrow, so rapid detection is clearly critical if we’re going to be able to quickly contain and eradicate the virus,” DeHaven said.<oneup>
</oneup>He noted the good surveillance already in place at commercial poultry production facilities, but also said hobby breeders and what he called barnyard flocks also will need to be addressed.<oneup>
</oneup>“We are reenergizing our outreach to hobby breeders and backyard flocks with our biosecurity for the birds campaign. We will also be putting out some public service announcements to that particular population,” he said.<oneup>
</oneup>“The idea is to encourage them to practice good biosecurity as well as report any disease or dying birds early on as that might be one of the first populations affected by this virus.”<oneup>
</oneup>For the third area of the USDA plan, rapid response, the agency already is planning for the personnel, equipment, supplies and communication systems that would be necessary if the response mechanism would need to be enacted.<oneup>
</oneup>“As to rapid response, we are bolstering our response plans to keep accordance with the system that has already proven to be effective in numerous outbreak situations,” DeHaven said.<oneup>
</oneup>DeHaven said, with the partnerships the USDA has with state agencies as well as the industry as a whole, the virus could be quickly identified, responded to rapidly and eradicated if the virus should find its way to the United States.<oneup>
</oneup>“I can assure you,” he said, “we won’t underreact.” [/FONT]</td></tr></tbody></table></center>
<!-- BEGIN UACI.inc | 4/21/2006 5:55:14 AM | --><!-- LevelID:3,ArticleID=10034 --><!-- END UACI.inc | 4/21/2006 5:55:14 AM | --> <!--Start Article Table-->