Bird Flu in Europe

After a long break I wanted to post a few things and was surprised that this hasn't been covered (Apologies if this has been covered but didn't find anything via search). Over the last few days and weeks 3 cases of bird flu have been recorded in Europe.

The first was in the German northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern reported on November the 7th

Citing data submitted by the German ministry of agriculture, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said turkeys were found infected with the H5N8 serotype of the disease on November 4 on a farm in Heinrichswalde. It is the first time that the H5N8 strain, which hit Asia severely, had been notified by a member of the OIE in Europe.

www.voanews.com...

The second case was reported on the 15/16 November in Hekendorp, Netherlands

The outbreak was discovered at a farm in Hekendorp, about 35 kilometers (22 miles) south of Amsterdam, with 150,000 egg-laying hens in six poultry houses and no outdoor access, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement today. The highly pathogenic variant of bird flu is type H5N8, state secretary Sharon Dijksma of Economic Affairs wrote in a letter to parliament today.

www.bloomberg.com...

The third case was reported on the 16/17 November in the UK East Yorkshire

The case yesterday was identified as a H5 variant and the H5N1 strain that infects humans has been ruled out, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said in a statement today. It was discovered at a duck feeding farm near Driffield in East Yorkshire, England.

www.bloomberg.com...

As of yet I cant find conformation that the UK is the same variant H5N8 that has affected both Germany and Netherlands but already some are drawing conclusions that these cases could be related.

www.ibtimes.co.uk...

Avian flu outbreaks in the past two weeks in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany could be linked, according to the head of the World Animal Health Organisation.

Bernard Vallat said that the virus was most often transmitted through wild birds, which could spread it across countries.

This variant has the ability to decimate poultry stocks as it is highly pathogenic but there is conflicting reports as to if it can infect humans.

They are currently growing the strain in Laboratory conditions to determine the strain of Bird Flu in the U.K and they should have an answer in the next five days. It's not H5N1 though, so possibly H5N8

They are claiming the risk to humans is very very low and that it is safe to eat any poultry, even if they were affected by it. Not sure I'm willing to put that to the test, but then again, how would we know?

I agree completely and with Christmas around the corner I think I may be looking at a turkey free dinner. Not that I mind, not that keen on turkey.

a reply to: Cobaltic1978

Not sure I'm willing to put that to the test, but then again, how would we know?

If it only affects birds then no worries. Theres a ton of viruses that humans carry that are benign as well.

Contrary to common belief, harmful viruses may be in the minority compared to benign viruses in the human body. It is much harder to identify viruses than it is to identify bacteria, therefore our understanding of benign viruses in the human body is very rudimentary.

Wiki

I disagree with the rudimentary part. They tested some of these on American cities, didn't they? The virus was released and spread and nobody knew it because it didn't cause any symptoms? Part of germ warfare testing or something.

The big question is whether or not and how easily people can catch the strain and of course, the more cases there are, the more like it is to mutate. So they need to get it under control as quickly as they can.

The H5N8......?
Could it be spread by some migratory bird?
Would they be killing mass amounts of birds over it?
What are the chances this is a type of germ warfare we are unprepared to deal with?
It certainly would be easy to attack a countrys food chain compared to militarily wouldn't it?
Or is Big Paharma getting ready to flog some new chicken antibiotic?.....
I gotta take a break from ATS!

a reply to: stirling

No, take it from someone whose husband works in the animal pharma industry, specifically making vaccines for various things. That is most definitely NOT how they work.

They don't create diseases to invent cures for them and then release them to cause panic. That's asinine. For one thing, it would take higher level bio-containment labs than any of them have access to. The industry is reactionary. In other words, they react to things like this and if it becomes a major threat, there will be a race on to see who can produce the first, best product for it.

They don't create diseases to invent cures for them and then release them to cause panic

United States biological weapons program

Im pretty sure they do.

But weve not had a good Bird Flu scare for a while, the last one was going to wipe out all of humanity I seem to remember, Pfizer or Glaxo, whoever seemed to make a fortune selling vaccines to governments that nobody needed.

Well, that should bring up the price of turkey and chicken in the area if they decide to destroy a bunch of birds to keep it from spreading. I could see that happening here in the USA. Chicken more expensive than beef. I better go get six chickens from the store and stick them in the freezer. It could get pretty boring eating beef all winter. If someone gets a cold, beef soup won't work as good as chicken soup.

Further news

Emergency measures, including restrictions on the sale of live poultry, eggs and other poultry products, have been announced by the European Commission in the wake of bird flu outbreaks in Britain and the Netherlands.

The move comes after the H5 strain of the virus was confirmed at a duck breeding farm in Yorkshire and a recent outbreak of H5N8 at a chicken farm in Utrecht.

www.itv.com...

Watch this

I live about 35 miles from the East Yorkshire outbreak and know the area relatively well. The area is sparsely populated (as the UK goes) with mainly large farms with pigs, poultry and arable land (the nearest major place is Scarborough, the rest are small villages). The police have made a 10km sanction area and actually for the area that seems easy! (there are no major roads here - mainly small farm roads - the A64 I think is outside the area). Containing the disease is difficult but it does have a fighting chance here.

a reply to: templar knight

Thank you for the local update. Eyes open.

Nows the time of the year when i've seen a sudden drop in birds around here so its probably migratory time and some birds can travel 1000's of miles to get here and with a reasonable summer they may of hung a bit longer fattening up before making the long trips and i'd imagine it only takes one bird carrying it to decide that they've had enough and see a pond full of other feathered friends and fancy a nights kip and whammo its passed on

whatever poultry you buy just cook it properly and you'll be fine, cooking heat kills the virus, in any case this most recent case in Yorkshire is the one that dosent transmit to humans, just bird to bird, the source is thought to be a migrating wild bird.

Bird flu is really dangerous. Many people in Asia died because of it. In case you have this illness you can visit this URL and find out how treat it:
stop-flu.org...

We'll continue to have such diseases either harming people or ''just'' causing economical damage and leading to the destruction of millions of animals as long as we have this current system of factory farming

I just hope there won't be too much harm this time, either to animals, the economy or to people. As far as I know there're several cattle diseases that are lingering and that we try to contain someway...

a reply to: PaoloM the people in Asia catch it because the birds actually live with them in their houses, we don't in the UK and our systems are much more rigorous.