I wonder if the public has access to the map shown in this photo...note the comments under the photo (looks like more than just Alaska to me...).
AP photo
Dr. Joshua Dein of the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center poses next to a map that shows where sampling of birds has begun for avian influenza.
Full Article:
Bird flu detectives at work here
Lab will test for virus in samples from Alaska
By Marilynn Marchione
Associated Press
An unconventional border patrol here is watching for a dangerous migrant that may be trying to enter the country thousands of miles away.
On Wednesday, agents at a Madison lab will start searching their first detainees - wild birds from Alaska that may be harboring bird flu.
"The whole point is early detection," said Scott Wright, one of the U.S. Geological Survey scientists involved in the effort.
"When West Nile virus started, nobody knew what was going on," and the germ started killing people before scientists realized it had been killing birds, he said. With bird flu, "we have the advantage of being able to sit down and plan things out" to try to find it and prevent an epidemic, Wright said.
Bird flu detectives at work here
AP photo
Virologist Hon Ip holds a tray filled with eggs at the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center in Madison. The eggs have been injected with a portion of bird fecal matter.
Bird flu detectives at work here
AP photo
Adam Ray a researcher at the NWHC, a biological technician, inoculates eggs with fecal samples taken from birds at the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center.
Bird flu detectives at work here
AP photo
Dr. Joshua Dein of the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center poses next to a map that shows where sampling of birds has begun for avian influenza.
Tests will signal within a day whether the deadly H5N1 flu is present.
No one knows whether the virus that has ravaged poultry in Asia and spread to Africa and Europe will make its way to the United States, or morph into a human super-flu. But controlling the disease in birds is one way to help ensure that it doesn't, so scientists want to know if migrating birds have brought it with them.
"We know the specific sites in Alaska where wild birds arrive from Asia," said Dr. Leslie Dierauf, director of the USGS's National Wildlife Health Center here.
"Almost to the day, we're aware of what birds are coming and from where," because birds in the Pacific flyway have "high fidelity" and typically return to the very spot they left months before, she said.
The center, a sprawling, woodsy compound fronted by 15 acres of restored prairie on the far west side of Madison, will do most of the nation's testing of wild birds. The center is 30 years old, and many of its scientists have been there that long, with experience in animal diseases as diverse as lead poisoning in eagles and chronic wasting disease in deer.
This summer, they expect to analyze more than 11,000 swabs from trapped, healthy birds plus about 4,000 dead birds, starting with 400 samples arriving today or Wednesday from 10 villages in the Yukon delta region of western Alaska, where hunters recently shot migrating ducks and geese for food.
Also coming are samples taken over the weekend from healthy migrating shorebirds in coastal marsh areas near Anchorage.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be testing droppings from tens of thousands of birds around the country.
At the Madison lab, each bird gets a numbered manila folder file that is entered into a global positioning database being built to help track movement of H5N1, if it shows up.
Virologist Hon Ip will test samples inside a secured, highly automated Biosafety Level 3 lab, air-pressurized to prevent germs from escaping.
A small robot extracts genetic material from a sample. Another robot sets up the test, injecting bits of the sample into narrow, test-tube-like wells. The machine goes through heating and cooling cycles to make more copies of the genetic material; a substance is added to make it glow if H5N1 is present.
The process is so high tech that even simple interpretation is not trusted to mere mortals: A fiber-optic cable measures the strength of the fluorescence and reports the amount of virus.
The analysis takes one day, but "the implications of that first positive are so high, we would want to repeat that test" before announcing that H5N1 had turned up in the United States, Ip said.
Scientists also will inject each sample into eggs containing 9- to 11-day-old chicken embryos and allow them to grow for about two weeks before testing for the virus again.
In a separate, even more secured lab, "we're going to deliberately infect wild birds with known quantities of virus," Ip said.
That will tell them how easily the germ spreads from bird to bird and whether particular species are most vulnerable, as crows were to West Nile. These answers one day might help control the disease - in birds and perhaps even in people.
Published: May 23, 2006
AP photo
Dr. Joshua Dein of the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center poses next to a map that shows where sampling of birds has begun for avian influenza.
Full Article:
Bird flu detectives at work here
Lab will test for virus in samples from Alaska
By Marilynn Marchione
Associated Press
An unconventional border patrol here is watching for a dangerous migrant that may be trying to enter the country thousands of miles away.
On Wednesday, agents at a Madison lab will start searching their first detainees - wild birds from Alaska that may be harboring bird flu.
"The whole point is early detection," said Scott Wright, one of the U.S. Geological Survey scientists involved in the effort.
"When West Nile virus started, nobody knew what was going on," and the germ started killing people before scientists realized it had been killing birds, he said. With bird flu, "we have the advantage of being able to sit down and plan things out" to try to find it and prevent an epidemic, Wright said.
Bird flu detectives at work here
AP photo
Virologist Hon Ip holds a tray filled with eggs at the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center in Madison. The eggs have been injected with a portion of bird fecal matter.
Bird flu detectives at work here
AP photo
Adam Ray a researcher at the NWHC, a biological technician, inoculates eggs with fecal samples taken from birds at the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center.
Bird flu detectives at work here
AP photo
Dr. Joshua Dein of the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center poses next to a map that shows where sampling of birds has begun for avian influenza.
Tests will signal within a day whether the deadly H5N1 flu is present.
No one knows whether the virus that has ravaged poultry in Asia and spread to Africa and Europe will make its way to the United States, or morph into a human super-flu. But controlling the disease in birds is one way to help ensure that it doesn't, so scientists want to know if migrating birds have brought it with them.
"We know the specific sites in Alaska where wild birds arrive from Asia," said Dr. Leslie Dierauf, director of the USGS's National Wildlife Health Center here.
"Almost to the day, we're aware of what birds are coming and from where," because birds in the Pacific flyway have "high fidelity" and typically return to the very spot they left months before, she said.
The center, a sprawling, woodsy compound fronted by 15 acres of restored prairie on the far west side of Madison, will do most of the nation's testing of wild birds. The center is 30 years old, and many of its scientists have been there that long, with experience in animal diseases as diverse as lead poisoning in eagles and chronic wasting disease in deer.
This summer, they expect to analyze more than 11,000 swabs from trapped, healthy birds plus about 4,000 dead birds, starting with 400 samples arriving today or Wednesday from 10 villages in the Yukon delta region of western Alaska, where hunters recently shot migrating ducks and geese for food.
Also coming are samples taken over the weekend from healthy migrating shorebirds in coastal marsh areas near Anchorage.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be testing droppings from tens of thousands of birds around the country.
At the Madison lab, each bird gets a numbered manila folder file that is entered into a global positioning database being built to help track movement of H5N1, if it shows up.
Virologist Hon Ip will test samples inside a secured, highly automated Biosafety Level 3 lab, air-pressurized to prevent germs from escaping.
A small robot extracts genetic material from a sample. Another robot sets up the test, injecting bits of the sample into narrow, test-tube-like wells. The machine goes through heating and cooling cycles to make more copies of the genetic material; a substance is added to make it glow if H5N1 is present.
The process is so high tech that even simple interpretation is not trusted to mere mortals: A fiber-optic cable measures the strength of the fluorescence and reports the amount of virus.
The analysis takes one day, but "the implications of that first positive are so high, we would want to repeat that test" before announcing that H5N1 had turned up in the United States, Ip said.
Scientists also will inject each sample into eggs containing 9- to 11-day-old chicken embryos and allow them to grow for about two weeks before testing for the virus again.
In a separate, even more secured lab, "we're going to deliberately infect wild birds with known quantities of virus," Ip said.
That will tell them how easily the germ spreads from bird to bird and whether particular species are most vulnerable, as crows were to West Nile. These answers one day might help control the disease - in birds and perhaps even in people.
Published: May 23, 2006
