Britain's Bird Flu tests
- From: "Pat Gardiner" <patgardiner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 12:45:58 +0100
Pat's Note: Some interesting stuff for those who still have faith in the
SVS.
Warmwell has some interesting comments on the same subject.
You can look those up for yourselves http://www.warmwell.com/ , but the key
comment is
"Can the UK really be holding off until they feel their of rapid PCR
diagnosis is good enough to make money?"
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article361042.ece
Chickens at two more British farms are found to have bird flu
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 30 April 2006
Britain's defences against bird flu were last night exposed as ineffective,
as chickens in two more farms in Norfolk were found to have a strain of the
disease. The news came as an Independent on Sunday investigation revealed
severe flaws in the Government's surveillance against the infection.
The two new infected farms are in the same area, near Dereham, as Whitford
Lodge Farm, Hockering, where 35,000 chickens are being slaughtered after the
disease was found there last week. A worker caught a mild form of the bird
flu.
Their flocks, with 15,300 more birds, will be culled and a one-kilometre
"restrictive zone" - limiting movements of poultry, eggs and poultry
products - has been imposed around all three. Yesterday, even before last
night's announcement, Japan banned poultry imports from Britain.
Dr Debby Reynolds, the Government's chief vet, said that yet more farms may
be infected, adding that "we still cannot say that either of these two
further farms are the index case" - the one where the infection started. The
chickens at the two new farms, which have the same owner, are free range -
heightening the chances that they will have caught the virus from wild
birds. This will increase criticism of Dr Reynolds and ministers who
repeatedly refused to order Britain's poultry indoors to minimise risk of
infection.
The flu is a low-pathogenicity form of the H7N3 virus - not the virulent
H5N1 - but experts say that it, too, could mutate to become deadly. The
Government's defences - erected against H5N1 - should have caught this other
strain if they had been effective.
Ministers and officials who boasted that Britain was "probably better
prepared than any other nation" through "surveillance" and "early action"
are facing the possibility of another foot-and-mouth style fiasco. Dr
Reynolds admits the surveillance - testing wild birds for flu - failed to
find any carrying the virus affecting the farms, despite the greatest bird
flu monitoring exercise ever carried out in Britain.
The Independent on Sunday's investigation has established the testing itself
may be to blame. Experts from Ohio State University and the University of
Kalmar in Sweden say the Government's programme is turning up far too few
cases of normal low pathogenicity flu, which is always in birds, to be
credible.
The experts say samples must immediately be put in saline or preservative;
the British tests fail to do this. The Department for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs says its tests are valid, but plans a trial to see if the
methods used abroad are better.
Britain's defences against bird flu were last night exposed as ineffective,
as chickens in two more farms in Norfolk were found to have a strain of the
disease. The news came as an Independent on Sunday investigation revealed
severe flaws in the Government's surveillance against the infection.
The two new infected farms are in the same area, near Dereham, as Whitford
Lodge Farm, Hockering, where 35,000 chickens are being slaughtered after the
disease was found there last week. A worker caught a mild form of the bird
flu.
Their flocks, with 15,300 more birds, will be culled and a one-kilometre
"restrictive zone" - limiting movements of poultry, eggs and poultry
products - has been imposed around all three. Yesterday, even before last
night's announcement, Japan banned poultry imports from Britain.
Dr Debby Reynolds, the Government's chief vet, said that yet more farms may
be infected, adding that "we still cannot say that either of these two
further farms are the index case" - the one where the infection started. The
chickens at the two new farms, which have the same owner, are free range -
heightening the chances that they will have caught the virus from wild
birds. This will increase criticism of Dr Reynolds and ministers who
repeatedly refused to order Britain's poultry indoors to minimise risk of
infection.
The flu is a low-pathogenicity form of the H7N3 virus - not the virulent
H5N1 - but experts say that it, too, could mutate to become deadly. The
Government's defences - erected against H5N1 - should have caught this other
strain if they had been effective.
Ministers and officials who boasted that Britain was "probably better
prepared than any other nation" through "surveillance" and "early action"
are facing the possibility of another foot-and-mouth style fiasco. Dr
Reynolds admits the surveillance - testing wild birds for flu - failed to
find any carrying the virus affecting the farms, despite the greatest bird
flu monitoring exercise ever carried out in Britain.
The Independent on Sunday's investigation has established the testing itself
may be to blame. Experts from Ohio State University and the University of
Kalmar in Sweden say the Government's programme is turning up far too few
cases of normal low pathogenicity flu, which is always in birds, to be
credible.
The experts say samples must immediately be put in saline or preservative;
the British tests fail to do this. The Department for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs says its tests are valid, but plans a trial to see if the
methods used abroad are better.
--
Regards
Pat Gardiner
www.go-self-sufficient.com
.
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