New Bird Flu Strain Spreads Fast, Is Resistant to Vaccine
National Geographic News
01 Nov 2006
Brian Handwerk

A newly discovered bird flu strain has emerged in China and has spread rapidly through poultry in Southeast Asia.

Human infections by the new strain have also turned up in several locations, including both farms and urban centers, intensifying fears of a worldwide flu pandemic that could kill millions. (Related: "Bird Flu Will Reach U.S. and Canada This Fall, Experts Predict" [March 14, 2006].) Magnifying those concerns is the vaccine-selective nature of the new strain, which means that existing animal vaccines are less effective on it than they are on previously known bird flu types.

"This virus seemed to spread very fast over a big geographic region," said Yi Guan, director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Hong Kong in China. A team led by Guan discovered the new strain—dubbed "Fujian-like"—while monitoring chickens, ducks, and geese in Chinese markets, including several in Fujian Province (map of China). "However, we don't have any evidence to show whether this virus is more dangerous or less dangerous than any other H5N1 [bird flu] viruses," Guan said.

He and his colleagues report their findings in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To help prevent the spread of bird flu, China has instituted an extensive, compulsory vaccination program for chickens. But the effort has proven unable to contain the new strain, which has displaced other H5N1 variants to become the dominant strain in the southern China surveillance area, Guan says.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

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>>>Bird Flu: Frequently Asked Questions

>>>Next Killer Flu in National Geographic Magazine

Bird Flu Dynamic Map - Click & Watch the Progression of the Disease over Time [Map]
World Health Organization (Posted by MSNBC.com)
Date not provided

The deadly strain of avian influenza known as H5N1 has caused infections in humans, poultry, wild birds and other animals. And it's no long just Asia's problem. The virus has spread rapidly to the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

This site provides a dynamic map of the progression of bird flu over the last three years. Each second of time represents approximately one month. The legend includes human death due to H5N1, laboratory-confirmed human infections, and H5N1 found in poultry, wild birds and other animals.

>>>DYNAMIC MAP

'False Information' on Devils Given
News.com.au
02 Nov 2006
Robyn Grace

The Tasmanian Government has been accused of providing false information to gain approval to export four Tasmanian devils to the Danish royals, potentially putting Denmark at risk of devil facial tumour disease (DFTD).

Greens environment spokesman Nick McKim said today the Government had placed a good news announcement ahead of quarantine requirements in an "astounding decision" that could have sent a wildlife disease to the other side of the world. Mr McKim told parliament the Department of Primary Industries, Water and the Environment had advised the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service (AQIS) the devils were sourced from a wildlife institute "well away" from areas featuring the deadly disease. But in a December 2004 document, the same department said "all institutes are located in the DFTD high risk zone", he said.

The Government sent four devils to Denmark in April as a christening gift for Prince Christian, the baby of Crown Prince Frederik and Princess Mary. Two devils at the Trowunna Wildlife Park, where the Danish devils were sourced, have since tested positive to DFTD. The infectious cancer has wiped out up to 80,000 devils in the past decade and threatens to cause the extinction of the Tasmanian species.

There is no cure and the cause of the disease remains a mystery. Mr McKim said the revelation was a "serious matter" that could lead to breaches of international quarantine and biosecurity protocols. Primary Industries Minister David Llewellyn said he did not believe false information had been provided to the Federal Government but he would investigate the allegations.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Country, City Clash over Prairie Dog Problem: Ranchers Propose Poison, Conservationists Push Vaccines
ArgusLeader.com
31 Oct 2006
Ben Shouse

Prairie dogs might be the most divisive rodents in America. To tourists and city folk, they are cute enough to send back home on a postcard. To drought-stricken western South Dakota, they are pasture-wrecking vermin worthy only of poisoning. The conflict is intensifying, especially in the Conata Basin, south of Wall, a devastated piece of cattle country that also is home to a crucial colony of black-footed ferrets. Ferrets eat prairie dogs and often are called the country's most endangered mammal.

A conservation group will hold a fundraiser in Denver on Wednesday to help South Dakota's ferrets. At the same time, ranching groups are pushing political leaders to change how the federal government manages ferrets and prairie dogs. Even government agencies can't agree. Some want to poison more prairie dogs, but others are using insecticides and even vaccine to protect them from a very different threat: plague. For most of the ongoing drought, the Conata Basin has looked like a wasteland, stripped bare of grass by prairie dogs.

"The grass is being overgrazed by prairie dogs to the point that the grass is being killed, and will result in soil erosion - wind and water erosion - that should be intolerable to the rest of us, the citizens of South Dakota," said state Secretary of Agriculture Larry Gabriel in Pierre. Despite that, the area still is considered ideal for ferrets, a species more or less resurrected from extinction 25 years ago. "If we can't manage for places like that, then recovery of the species is hopeless, pure and simple," said Mike Lockhart, national ferret recovery director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Laramie, Wyo.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Investigation Finds Seventh TB Herd in Minnesota
Farm Futures
01 Nov 2006

Another case of bovine tuberculosis turns up in a Beltrami County herd.

The Minnesota Board of Animal Health announced Tuesday that investigators have found bovine tuberculosis in a seventh herd in Minnesota. The case was found in one cow in Beltrami County, which is, with Roseau County, one of only two counties in northwestern Minnesota in which the disease has been discovered. According to the Board of Animal Health, the herd is small and has had minimal movement, boding well for the containment of this case. Minnesota will not be able to apply for TB free accreditation until two years after the elimination of its last infected herd.

Although each new herd discovery pushes that period back, Minnesota state veterinarian Dr. Bill Hartmann says the Board of Animal Health will remain diligent in its tests and efforts to eradicate the disease. "Finding another positive herd will reset our timeline for regaining status, but for the sake of Minnesota's cattle industry, we cannot leave a single infected herd undiscovered," he says.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will contribute to the board's efforts by collecting a planned 5,000 samples from white-tail deer killed by hunters this fall. Two deer have tested positive for bovine TB within a mile of the infected cattle herd this past year.

>>>ARTICLE

Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease, Cervids - USA (IN) - Archive Number 20061101.3132
Promed
01 Nov 2006
Dean Zimmerman

The Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study has recently confirmed that samples submitted from 2 dead Indiana white-tailed deer tested positive for epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD). The EHD virus was detected by PCR testing. Starting in late August 2006, a steady stream of reports came in from the public indicating that they were finding dead deer, most of which were either near or in water.
Other clinical signs also pointed to EHD.

Concerned landowners and hunters reported a total of 300-400 dead deer to several DNR offices. Biologists believe the actual loss was several times that many because, undoubtedly, many dead deer went undetected. A total of 15 west-central and southern Indiana counties reported deer losses. The highest loss was in an area about 30-50
miles west of Indianapolis in Clay, Parke, Putnam and Vermillion Counties.

A few cases are suspected east of Indianapolis in Henry County, but are unconfirmed. Posey County in the far southwest part of the state as well as Ohio County in the southeast corner reported losses. There have been no known incidents of livestock being affected. Indiana has had outbreaks of EHD in 1985, 1987, 1996 and 2004, all in west-central and south-central Indiana.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Anatidae Migration in the Western Palearctic and Spread of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 Virus [Journal Article]
CDC EID Journal
19 Oct 2006
Marius Gilbert et al.

Abstract
During the second half of 2005, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus spread rapidly from central Asia to eastern Europe. The relative roles of wild migratory birds and the poultry trade are still unclear, given that little is yet known about the range of virus hosts, precise movements of migratory birds, or routes of illegal poultry trade. We document and discuss the spread of the HPAI H5N1 virus in relation to species-specific flyways of Anatidae species (ducks, geese, and swans) and climate. We conclude that the spread of HPAI H5N1 virus from Russia and Kazakhstan to the Black Sea basin is consistent in space and time with the hypothesis that birds in the Anatidae family have seeded the virus along their autumn migration routes.

>>>FULL JOURNAL ARTICLE