In Vietnam, a Gateway for Bird Flu
The Washington Post Foreign Service
30 July 2006
Alan Sipress
Photo courtesty of The Washington Post
Ignoring Chicken Import Ban, Smugglers Bring Virus Over Border From China
The smugglers first appeared on the distant ridgeline and then, like ants, streamed down a dirt track carved from the lush, sculpted mountains that separate Vietnam from China. As the figures grew closer, their stooped posture became visible, backs heaving under bamboo cages crammed with live chickens.
On the road below, two young men identified by local officials as lookouts buzzed past on red dirt bikes, slowing down to check out a reporter and his government escorts who had stopped to watch. One man produced a two-way radio and started speaking urgently. Though his words were inaudible to the visitors, within moments the figures on the hillside melted into the brush.
These traffickers haul more than 1,000 contraband chickens a day into Lang Son, one of six Vietnamese provinces along the Chinese border, flouting a chicken import ban. In doing so, heath experts say, they have also repeatedly smuggled the highly lethal bird flu virus from its source in southern China into Vietnam, where the disease has taken a devastating toll on farm birds and killed at least 42 people since 2003.
West Nile found in Alberta Crow
Calgary Sun
28 July 2006
Tarina White
Bird from Brooks area tests positive for virus
A dead crow found in Brooks is the first bird in Alberta to test positive for the West Nile virus this year, the province confirmed yesterday (FRI). A member of the public discovered the crow in the city 160 km southeast of Calgary on Wednesday.
It was submitted to Alberta's West Nile virus wild bird surveillance program and tested positive on Friday. Forty-one birds were tested before the positive case was detected, said Dr. Margo Pybus, a provincial wildlife disease expert with Alberta Sustainable Resource Development.
"Although the first positive case came three weeks earlier than in 2004 and 2005, it is located well within the high-risk region in southwestern Alberta where the virus was detected in previous years," said Pybus.
New Prospects for Research on Manipulation of Insect Vectors by Pathogens [Journal Article]
PLoS Pathogens
28 July 2006
Thierry Lefèvre, Jacob C. Koella, and et al.
A growing number of studies demonstrate, or suggest, that vector-borne parasites manipulate phenotypic traits of their vectors and hosts in ways that increase contacts between them, and hence favour the parasites' transmission. Understanding these processes is not only exciting for purely scientific reasons but also important because of their role in applied parasitology, such as epidemiology and medicine.
The most frequently reported changes induced by vector-borne parasites are alterations of biting rates in vectors or of attractiveness in vertebrate hosts. Our aim here is to elaborate further on some potentially interesting and important avenues for future research in this area.
We begin this paper with a brief overview of the main mechanisms used by vectors to locate their vertebrate host, as it helps to grasp the fundamentals of the research on manipulation in vectors, as well as its current challenges.
Experts Seek Cause of Death for Local Ducks
The Daily News
28 July 2006
Roselee Papandrea
The N.C. Department of Agriculture still doesn’t know exactly what killed several ducks and left others sick earlier this week in downtown Swansboro. But it’s definitely not bird flu, state officials said Thursday.
Representatives from the Department of Agriculture were in Swansboro Wednesday collecting samples from sick Moscovy ducks. A necropsy — an animal autopsy — was also done on one of the dead birds, but the cause of death isn’t known yet, said Brian Long, spokesman for the Department of Agriculture.
“We are still working on it,” Long said. “We haven’t turned up any cause yet. … It could take several days.” State officials are running a variety of tests — everything from toxicology to bacterial tests — in an attempt to rule things out.
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