Bird flu virus 'unlikely to reach Australia'

[Sally Furniss]

Bird flu virus 'unlikely to reach Australia'



An international conference in Brisbane has been told that it is unlikely a deadly strain of the bird flu virus will ever reach Australia.


It is the first time Australia has hosted the World Poultry Congress, with more than 2,000 delegates attending the first day.


Immunologist and Nobel prize-winner Peter Doherty says although the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain has killed 240 people overseas, Australia's dry climate and isolation will help prevent the virus entering the country.
"It's not something we have to worry about," he said.


But virus expert Dr Andrew Turner says there is still a slight risk.
"We have to be prepared, it may not be H5N1 which starts the pandemic - there are other viruses circulating in birds at the moment," he said.
However he says Australia's strict quarantine system is helping keep bird flu out of the country.


An inquiry into last year's horse flu outbreak blamed weak quarantine procedures for the spread of the virus.


Dr Turner says poultry is monitored more closely than horses.
"The restrictions on birds coming in, poultry genetics coming in, are much much stronger than horses," he said.


"It's a very strict quarantine regime and they come from birds in very highly protected flocks overseas."


The conference ends on Friday.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/01/2290851.htm

 

[HenryN]

Re: Bird flu virus 'unlikely to reach Australia'

Birds stopped flying?

 

[gsgs]

Re: Bird flu virus 'unlikely to reach Australia'

it has already reached Australia.

By the "virus theft".

 

[Sally Furniss]

Re: Bird flu virus 'unlikely to reach Australia'

Principle migratory birds that carries bird flu. Can they fly as far as aussie?

 

[Oracle]

Re: Bird flu virus 'unlikely to reach Australia'

Too far and too dry.
Does not compute.

Climate map of Australia:

Map of East Asian-Australasian Flyway with important sites marked:
http://www.eaaflyway.net/images/network1.html

EAAF Migratory Waterbirds:
http://www.eaaflyway.net/waterbirds.html

"The East Asia-Australasian Flyway (the Flyway) is one of eight major migratory waterbird flyways around the globe and is home to over 50 million migratory waterbirds - including shorebirds, Anatidae (ducks, geese and swans), cranes, and seabirds (for example Divers, Cormorants, Gulls, Shearwaters, and Auks) - from over 250 different populations.

There are currently 700 sites recognized as internationally important to migratory waterbirds along the flyway. "

 

[tropical]

Re: Bird flu virus 'unlikely to reach Australia'

Australia had catched imported alien species (becamed pests) like rabbits, dogs, and rats, in enormous breeding quantities.

Climate apart, we can use logic to doubt that other aliens stopped "ante portas" ...

"poultry is monitored more closely than horses."
Looking at the horse affair, where vaccines exists, it don't looks so easy for other flu's.

 

[Laidback Al]

Re: Bird flu virus 'unlikely to reach Australia'

Nobel prize-winner optimistic about stopping avian flu

Wednesday, 02/07/2008

Australian Nobel Laureate for Medicine, Peter Doherty, believes a bird flu pandemic is becoming less likely.
Professor Doherty has told the World Poultry Congress in Brisbane that the virus would have to undergo many mutations before it could jumpt to humans' and then from one human to another.
He says strict quarantine is necessary, both of poultry and humans entering Australia.
"It looks as though it's just going bird-to-human, and at this stage it certainly hasn't jumped to cause human-to-human spread, and we're hopeful, as time goes by, that that's less and less likely," he says.
"But it's always a risk, and it's being watched very closely."

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200807/s2292074.htm

 

[gsgs]

Re: Bird flu virus 'unlikely to reach Australia'

I think, most agree, that it's becoming less likely.

that's the :
"if it didn't yet go pandemic, it might not be able to" - argument

OTOH we have the
"we are overdue" - argument, but no cycle in pandemics is generally
accepted.

So we are becoming more and more overdue...

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Bird flu virus 'unlikely to reach Australia'

Nobel prize-winner optimistic about stopping avian flu

Wednesday, 02/07/2008

Australian Nobel Laureate for Medicine, Peter Doherty, believes a bird flu pandemic is becoming less likely.
Professor Doherty has told the World Poultry Congress in Brisbane that the virus would have to undergo many mutations before it could jumpt to humans' and then from one human to another.
He says strict quarantine is necessary, both of poultry and humans entering Australia.
"It looks as though it's just going bird-to-human, and at this stage it certainly hasn't jumped to cause human-to-human spread, and we're hopeful, as time goes by, that that's less and less likely," he says.
"But it's always a risk, and it's being watched very closely."

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200807/s2292074.htm

This may be another case of ''excerpted words'' out of the discussion context that changes totally its sense.

A Nobel-Prize winner I think should have some difficult to state that ''bird flu pandemic is less likely'', even he told about only H5N1, because the huge unknowns on ecology, biology, genomics of influenza viruses.

Thus, the piece of news may be read that ''the introduction of H5N1 in Australia hasn't happened so far'' but for the future no predictions are possible as well.

False sense of safety is the greatest threat in the fight (and for preparedness for) pandemic influenza.

 

[Blue]

Re: Bird flu virus 'unlikely to reach Australia'

Is it any drier than Egypt? Of course, Egypt has the Nile but Australia
has rivers also. And as Oracle has pointed out, the northern area
is tropical.

So, what has stopped the virus thus far from moving south?
Could it be there under the radar? I have often wondered
about this.

How far away is it from Indonesia?