H5N1 bird flu reaches Poland, experts fear pandemic
- From: Andy <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 15:09:02 -0600
H5N1 bird flu reaches Poland, experts fear pandemic
Mar 06 7:44 AM US/Eastern
The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu swept into Poland, a laboratory
confirmed, as world health experts prepared for a feared mutation of
the virus that could kill millions.
Tests on two swans in Poland confirmed the presence of disease, which
has killed at least 94 people since 2003 as it raced through Asia,
then into Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
"Yes, we have confirmed that it is definitely H5N1," said Poland's
national Pulawy laboratory deputy director laboratory Jan Zmudzinksi.
Samples were being sent for further examination in the European
Union's laboratory in Weybridge, Britain, he said.
Poland set up a crisis unit in the northern city of Torun where the
outbreak was detected. A hygiene-security zone has been erected over a
three-kilometer (1.8-mile) radius.
The highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 has spread on rare occasions from
birds to humans and has proven deadly in about half of those cases,
most of them in Asia where it is still claiming lives.
In Indonesia's capital Jakarata, a 25-year-old woman who was five
months pregnant died Monday with symptoms of bird flu after being in
close contact with chickens, hospital officials said.
The deepest fear is that the bird flu virus could mix with a human
influenza and acquire the capacity to jump from human to human,
sparking off the next global flu pandemic.
In Geneva, World Health Organisation experts opened a three-day
meeting to refine plans to rapidly detect and contain a potential
pandemic even as it erupts.
Pandemic fears have climbed sharply since the emergence of Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome in China in late 2002 and now H5N1, WHO
special adviser on avian influenza Margaret Chan told the health
experts.
"Events in recent weeks justify that concern," WHO special adviser on
avian influenza Margaret Chan told the health experts.
"H5N1 avian influenza has spread to affect wild and domestic birds in
17 new countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East," Chen
told the meeting, most of which is to be held behind closed doors.
Some experts warned that H5N1 was not the only potential source for a
future pandemic.
"Even if H5N1 stays in its animal box, this plan would be an
investment for the future," said Angus Nicoll of the European Centre
for Disease Prevention and Control.
Besides the human threat, the disease has enormous economic
consequences.
Its arrival in Europe has led to a plunge in consumption of poultry.
France, the European Union's largest poultry exporter, reported the
disease spreading with 30 incidences of H5N1.
The French government allocated from Monday 52 million euros (63
million dollars) in aid to poultry farmers, whose produce has been
totally or partially banned by 46 countries.
In Germany -- where a cat has been confirmed to be the first mammal in
Europe affected by H5N1 -- the government said at the weekend it was
checking a suspected new case in a wild goose.
In Africa, bird flu has been detected in Nigeria, neighbouring Niger
and Egypt. Nigeria has promised protective equipment for a
three-billion-euro emergency eradication plan by Niger.
In Asia, China's health ministry was quoted by Xinhua news agency as
saying Sunday that a 32-year-old man who frequented poultry markets
had succumbed to bird flu in Guangdong, the first case in the
province.
Hours later, Hong Kong, which suffered the world's first reported
major bird flu outbreak among humans in 1997 when six people died,
suspended imports of live poultry and pet birds from Guangdong for
three weeks.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/03/06/060306124130.kzhcju7v.html
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