Experts call for calm over rabbit flu

[birdfluwhispers]

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<HR noShade SIZE=1>[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Experts call for calm over rabbit flu[/FONT]

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Matt Weaver and agencies
Monday August 21, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

[/FONT]Health experts today urged the public not to panic after a man died of rabbit flu.
John Freeman, a 29-year-old farmer, died earlier this month from blood poisoning that developed when he caught pasteuralla multocida - rabbit flu - from a rabbit he picked up on his farm after shooting it.
A post-mortem revealed the disease had developed into septicaemia.
Rabbit flu, a prevalent pet ailment, is the most common disease to spread from animals to humans.
A spokesman for the Heath Protection Agency said around half all dogs and cats were infected by pasteuralla multocida, and there were around 400 cases a year of it passing to humans.
However, he said the organisation was not aware of any other cases in which a person had died after catching the disease.
"There is no need to panic at all," the spokesman added. "It is not an uncommon infection - it's just uncommon that someone should die from it."
Mr Freeman's mother, Joan, of Aspall, Suffolk, said she was shocked there was so little information about the disease among the farming community.
She said she wanted to make people aware that handling dead rabbits could potentially be fatal, adding that she believed the bacteria had passed into her son's bloodstream via a blister on his thumb.
Doctors initially thought he had chicken pox because he developed a rash on his body. He died on August 5, four days after falling ill.
"Everyone is so appalled that he should die in this way," she said. "It's absolutely shocking, he was such a strong, strapping, healthy country man."
The death came amid growing anxiety over diseases that can spread from animals to humans. A man in Scotland died from anthrax - the first fatality from the cattle disease in more than 30 years - last week, and there are continued concerns over the spread of bird flu.


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Couldn't resist it even if it's not viral!!!

Not the missing vectors for bird flu, but rabbit migration can definitely be ruled out. Must be that illegal rabbit smuggling trade which is so rampant in the UK!

I guess Hugh Hefner is getting worried now, not just bird flu, but bunny flu as well!!
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[Mingus]

Re: Experts call for calm over rabbit flu

Despite the common name, it's a bacterial infection, notting to do with Influenza virus.

pasteurella multocida is also the causative agent of

avian cholera in birds;
pneumonia and rhinitis in swines;
it can also bring complication when if dog bite infect.

<H2>Ecology

Pasteurella bacteria are part of the natural oral, respiratory, genital, and gastrointestinal floras of various wild and domestic animals; for example, P. multocida ssp. gallicida is most frequently isolated from birds and occasionally from pigs, and P. multocida subsp. septica is isolated from cats more than from dogs and infrequently from humans. Some of these bacteria are also considered pathogenic to animals and even humans. Interactions among Pasteurella and members of the flora of the different mucosal membranes where they can be found naturally as well as interactions between Pasteurella and its host are not known (Prokaryotes). When grown on blood agar, P. pneumotropica forms within 24 hours light gray to yellow-colored colonies about 0.5 times 1.2 micrometers in size (Charles River Lab).
http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Pasteurella

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[birdfluwhispers]

Re: Experts call for calm over rabbit flu

Mingus,

You are quite correct, that this is only bacteria, I mentioned that this was not viral in my post. In the grand scheme of things this really is a very trivial story (obviously not for the family/friends, condolences etc), but even the BBC has carried the story Man 'first rabbit flu victim'. Yet at the same time, Indonesians are going down with suspected H5N1 like flies (or is it because of flies, (I do get confused)) and yet there is little or no mention in the UK media.

Rabbit flu - bird flu; they can all sound the same and trivialisation of one may/will lead to trivialisation in the (less informed) mind of the other. I will not prep just yet for the threat of rabbit flu (unless they are Monty Python "Holy Grail rabbits" ). If I associate both stories, I may be inclined to think this is all just media hype and buy another football kit rather than prep for a rather more serious H5N1 Pandemic.