Sally Furniss
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U.K. Can Control Bird Flu Outbreaks, Scientist Panel Says
By Nicholas Comfort and Angela Cullen
July 18 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K.'s current plans to protect against avian influenza are sufficient to control a possible spread of the disease amongst the country's poultry, a panel of scientists from Imperial College London said.
Measures in place to restrict the movement of poultry in the event of an outbreak at as many as 20 farms would contain the spread, the panel said in a summary of the report, which was published today. Disease at a higher number of sites would require more intense control measures, such as culling, the scientists said.
The U.K. successfully controlled an outbreak of bird flu earlier this year by slaughtering about 150,000 birds at a Bernard Matthews Holdings Ltd. poultry plant. The U.K. authorities still could learn from countries such as Germany, where 250 birds have died of the lethal H5N1 strain of avian flu this year, or the Netherlands, which hasn't reported any H5N1 infections, said John Oxford, a professor of virology at St. Bartholomew's hospital in London.
``We're sitting around with our thumbs crossed, hoping that nothing's going to happen,'' Oxford said in a telephone interview. ``There's a lot of planning at the top end, but there is weakness encroaching in the public; people are wondering `Where is this virus then?'''
Abattoirs where poultry stocks are killed before the meat is prepared for human consumption are lightning rods for a spread of the disease, according to the panel.
Industrial Network
``We didn't know how strong the connections in the industrial network would be,'' said James Truscott, the corresponding author of the paper and a research associate at Imperial College's Division of Epidemiology, Public Health and Primary Care, in a telephone interview. ``The 10 to 15 largest poultry companies are most strongly linked through their abattoirs.''
Thousands of birds mingle in the slaughterhouses, and one infected animal can carry millions of H5N1 viruses, Oxford said.
``The virus can stay in a facility for up to a week and be carried as easily as a scent,'' he said.
In the case of infection, both the U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Regional Affairs and the European Commission require an immediate quarantine radius of 3 kilometers (2 miles) and a further observation radius of 10 kilometers.
Methods for containing the spread of the virus to domestic and poultry stocks in Germany depend on keeping birds in their pens in any areas deemed to be exposed to danger factors, such as lakes or clearings where wild fowl carrying the disease flock, said Elke Rheinking, a spokeswoman for the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, an animal health center.
Wild Birds
This year, the German state of Saxony declared an epidemic among black crested grebes, a species of wild bird. The only case of a domestic or poultry infection was a single goose in the neighboring state of Thuringia.
The most important aspect of containment is the work done in the 10-kilometer observation radius around an infected location, Rheinking said.
``If we observe carefully we can call for confinement as soon as the first signs of risk are manifested,'' she said.
Last year, a larger number of infections were found across Germany. Their number decreased throughout summer, and no infections were found by the end of the season.
``We hope the same will be true for this year, but we just don't know,'' Rheinking said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Nicholas Comfort in Frankfurt at ncomfort@bloomberg.net ; Angela Cullen in Frankfurt at acullen8@bloomberg.net
By Nicholas Comfort and Angela Cullen
July 18 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K.'s current plans to protect against avian influenza are sufficient to control a possible spread of the disease amongst the country's poultry, a panel of scientists from Imperial College London said.
Measures in place to restrict the movement of poultry in the event of an outbreak at as many as 20 farms would contain the spread, the panel said in a summary of the report, which was published today. Disease at a higher number of sites would require more intense control measures, such as culling, the scientists said.
The U.K. successfully controlled an outbreak of bird flu earlier this year by slaughtering about 150,000 birds at a Bernard Matthews Holdings Ltd. poultry plant. The U.K. authorities still could learn from countries such as Germany, where 250 birds have died of the lethal H5N1 strain of avian flu this year, or the Netherlands, which hasn't reported any H5N1 infections, said John Oxford, a professor of virology at St. Bartholomew's hospital in London.
``We're sitting around with our thumbs crossed, hoping that nothing's going to happen,'' Oxford said in a telephone interview. ``There's a lot of planning at the top end, but there is weakness encroaching in the public; people are wondering `Where is this virus then?'''
Abattoirs where poultry stocks are killed before the meat is prepared for human consumption are lightning rods for a spread of the disease, according to the panel.
Industrial Network
``We didn't know how strong the connections in the industrial network would be,'' said James Truscott, the corresponding author of the paper and a research associate at Imperial College's Division of Epidemiology, Public Health and Primary Care, in a telephone interview. ``The 10 to 15 largest poultry companies are most strongly linked through their abattoirs.''
Thousands of birds mingle in the slaughterhouses, and one infected animal can carry millions of H5N1 viruses, Oxford said.
``The virus can stay in a facility for up to a week and be carried as easily as a scent,'' he said.
In the case of infection, both the U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Regional Affairs and the European Commission require an immediate quarantine radius of 3 kilometers (2 miles) and a further observation radius of 10 kilometers.
Methods for containing the spread of the virus to domestic and poultry stocks in Germany depend on keeping birds in their pens in any areas deemed to be exposed to danger factors, such as lakes or clearings where wild fowl carrying the disease flock, said Elke Rheinking, a spokeswoman for the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, an animal health center.
Wild Birds
This year, the German state of Saxony declared an epidemic among black crested grebes, a species of wild bird. The only case of a domestic or poultry infection was a single goose in the neighboring state of Thuringia.
The most important aspect of containment is the work done in the 10-kilometer observation radius around an infected location, Rheinking said.
``If we observe carefully we can call for confinement as soon as the first signs of risk are manifested,'' she said.
Last year, a larger number of infections were found across Germany. Their number decreased throughout summer, and no infections were found by the end of the season.
``We hope the same will be true for this year, but we just don't know,'' Rheinking said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Nicholas Comfort in Frankfurt at ncomfort@bloomberg.net ; Angela Cullen in Frankfurt at acullen8@bloomberg.net
