"Animal Disease Surveillance" Is Theme of USAHA Annual Meeting Oct. 12-18 [News Release]
USAHA News
07 August 2006
"Animal Disease Surveillance - The Next 20 Years" is the theme of the joint scientific session of the 110th annual meeting of the United States Animal Health Association (USAHA) and the 49th annual meeting of the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians (AAVLD) at the Minneapolis Hilton, Oct. 12-18, in Minneapolis, Minn.
"Today, nations throughout the world face threats to their economies, agricultural industries and health of their citizens from diseases such as avian influenza," said Bret D. Marsh,DVM, USAHA president. "In the past few years, countries across the globe have dealt with a number of serious diseases affecting agriculture, including foot-and-mouth disease, exotic Newcastle disease, West Nile virus, SARS, monkeypox, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
"These situations highlight the necessity for robust surveillance systems to detect quickly introductions of animal diseases, as well as for the need for multi-agency and international cooperation and collaboration to deal with them," Marsh pointed out. . . . Topics to be addressed at the joint USAHA-AALVD scientific session include global surveillance for avian influenza; zoonotic disease surveillance for public health; integration of food surveillance systems; U.S. domestic animal disease surveillance; global wildlife disease surveillance; and the future of surveillance systems, including the role of the Department of Homeland Security.
The USAHA annual meeting is open to animal health officials, producers, veterinarians, researchers, laboratory officials, wildlife specialists, allied organizations and others with an interest in animal and human health and food safety.
Screening for Highly Pathogenic H5N1 Avian Influenza in Migratory Birds
USDA
09 August 2006
"An Early Detection System for H5N1 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in Wild Migratory Birds -- U.S. Interagency Strategic Plan", August 2006
Avian influenza (AI) is a virus that is naturally found in wild birds, particularly in certain species of waterfowl and shorebirds. Occurrences of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza (HPAI H5N1) virus overseas have heightened concerns regarding the potential impact on wild birds, domestic poultry and human health should it be introduced into the United States. To understand the differences and potential threats to U.S. bird populations, this fact sheet provides definitions, a historical perspective and an outline of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) efforts to detect the HPAI H5N1 virus in wild migratory birds.
THE WILD BIRD PLAN
PLAN OVERVIEW
The national interagency strategic plan, developed by wildlife disease biologists, veterinarians and epidemiologists, provides a unified national system for conducting HPAI H5N1 monitoring of wild migratory birds throughout the United States. The plan serves as a guide to all federal, state, university and non-governmental organizations involved in avian influenza monitoring by providing standard procedures and strategies for data sampling, diagnostics and management.
U.S. to Monitor Wild Birds for H5N1 in Lower 48
Reuters
09 August 2006
U.S. surveillance efforts to monitor wild birds for the deadly H5N1 avian influenza virus will be expanded to include the lower 48 states, Hawaii and other Pacific islands, the U.S. government said on Wednesday. The U.S. departments of Agriculture and Interior are working with the states to collect between 75,000 and 100,000 wild bird samples in addition to more than 50,000 environmental tests throughout the United States.
An estimated 10,000 wild bird samples already have been collected in Alaska because of its close proximity to the Pacific Flyway to Asia. The locations of the bird samplings in each state depend on the weather and habitat at the time of bird migration. Samples could be taken at national and state wildlife refuges, parks and private lands.USDA said it is in the process of completing agreements with all 50 states that will dole out $4 million to state agencies to sample specific species of migratory birds at appropriate sites.
The Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service has given seven states and other groups $1.9 million to implement monitoring strategies in each state's surveillance plan. "These coordinated federal and state testing programs will be important this fall as birds now nesting in Alaska and Canada begin their migration south through the continental United States," said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.
Why Whales Beach ThemselvesEarth & Sky Radio Series
10 August 2006
Marc Airhart
Photo courtesy of NOAA
DB: This is Earth & Sky, on why whales beach themselves.
JB: The technical name for it is whale stranding. We spoke to Darlene Ketten at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. For 20 years, she's studied whales and dolphins stranded on the coast of Massachusetts.
Darlene Ketten: People sometimes think that, oh, well they've come on shore because they want help. Actually it usually is that they've come on shore by mistake, sometimes in a panic perhaps or sometimes just from weakness.
DB: The animals can be weakened by disease or by toxins produced by the algae that cause red tides. Scientists have also suggested that whales might use Earth's magnetic field to navigate and that if the magnetic field is distorted -- maybe through solar activity or magnetic anomolies on the sea floor -- a whale might become disoriented. But Ketten said not everyone agrees that whales use magnetic fields to navigate.
JB: And sometimes humans cause whale strandings. In 2002, 14 beaked whales washed ashore in the Canary Islands. Navy ships in the area were using active sonar: a system that emits loud sounds to "see" underwater. Some scientists think that the whales fled from the sound, and as they did, they rose too fast and got what divers call "the bends."
DB: Ketten hopes her study of stranded sea animals will yield better ideas for how to rescue them. Our thanks to the National Fish and Wildlfie Foundation. We're Block and Byrd for Earth & Sky.
Bird Flu Spreads to Indonesia's Papua
Antara News
08 August 2006
Bird flu has spread to Indonesia's easternmost province of Papua, with laboratory tests confirming the deadly H5N1 strain in poultry there, an animal husbandry official said Tuesday. The confirmation comes as Indonesia reported overnight that a teenager was the 43rd bird flu fatality here.
If confirmed by the World Health Organisation, Indonesia would become the country with the most human deaths from the disease. In Papua, samples were taken from about 30 chickens in the Mimika area after chickens from a local farm began to die in the second week of July, said Alexander Radjasa Pintadewa, the head of the Papua animal husbandry office. "We have received the results of testings from the Bogor Veterinary Research Center, which said that three of the some 30 samples... were positively infected by the H5N1 virus strain," he told AFP.
Pintadewa said these were the first known cases of bird flu infection found in the province. The virus has already been detected in 27 other provinces out of 33 in the Indonesian archipelago. Isolated Papua, which is located on one of the world's largest islands and shares a border with Papua New Guinea, lies some 3,000 kilometres (1,800 miles) from the capital Jakarta where the latest bird flu fatality occurred Monday.
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