Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) — An outbreak of avian flu in India’s West Bengal state is “serious” and the virus has spread rapidly to many districts, the World Health Organization’s representative said.
The outbreak is the 10th in India since the H5N1 avian influenza virus was first reported to have killed poultry there in February 2006. No human cases have been recorded in India.
India has the capacity to handle the situation as the “fundamentals of planning are sound,” S.J. Habayeb, the organization’s representative in the South Asian nation, said in an interview conducted over e-mail.
The disease has spread to more districts in West Bengal, taking the total number to nine, Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said in New Delhi today. “We are trying to control the situation.”
The government has stepped up culling, with the total number of chickens killed almost doubling to 414,597 today from the 242,200 reported yesterday, according to the agriculture ministry. India confirmed the disease among poultry in the state on Jan. 15.
As many as 116,203 chickens have died from the virus, the ministry said in the release. Samples from six districts have tested negative. About 258 teams have been deployed for culling and surveillance operations in West Bengal, the ministry added.
`Backyard Culling’
“The main problem we are facing is culling in the backyards,” Anisur Rahman, West Bengal’s animal resources minister, said in a telephone interview from the state capital of Kolkata, also known as Calcutta. “In other places, where the disease was reported, the farmers carried their poultry to a central farm in a village. Here, volunteers have to go to each house and convince farmers to do the culling.”
The teams, working in the villages, have gone up from 400 to 650 today, Rahman said.
“Culling is going on at a rapid pace,” he said. “At the same time, we are faced with a situation where poultry is being tested positive from new areas which are far-flung.”
The virus is known to have infected 351 people in 14 countries since late 2003, killing 219 of them, the Geneva-based World Health Organization said on its Web site two days ago. Indonesia has the highest number of fatalities, with 97 deaths.
Millions could die if the H5N1 virus develops the characteristics of seasonal flu and begins spreading easily between humans through coughing and sneezing.
Early signs of the disease range from fever and coughing to diarrhea and vomiting, researchers said in a Jan. 17 report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Original article… ➡
Spread of avian flu by drinking water
There is a widespread link between avian flu and water, e.g. in Egypt to the Nile delta or Indonesia to residential districts of less prosperous humans with backyard flocks and without central water supply as in Vietnam: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no12/06-0829.htm. See also the WHO webside: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/emerging/h5n1background.pdf and http://www.umwelt-medizin-gesellschaft.de/ abstract in English “Influenza: Initial introduction of influenza viruses to the population via abiotic water supply versus biotic human viral respirated droplet shedding†and http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473309907700294/abstract?iseop=true “Transmission of influenza A in human beingsâ€.
Avian flu infections may increase in consequence to increase of virus circulation. Transmission of avian flu by direct contact to infected poultry is an unproved assumption from the WHO. Infected poultry can everywhere contaminate the drinking water. All humans have contact to drinking water. Special in cases of small water supplies this pathway can explain small clusters in households. In hot climates and the tropics flood-related influenza is typical after extreme weather and natural after floods. The virulence of the influenza virus depends on temperature and time. If young and fresh H5N1 contaminated water from low local wells, cisterns, tanks, rain barrels or rice fields is used for water supply the water temperature for infection may be higher (at 24°C the virulence of influenza viruses amount to 2 days) as in temperate climates (for “older†water from central water supplies cold water is decisive to virulence of viruses: at 7°C the virulence of influenza viruses amount to 14 days).
Human to human and contact transmission of influenza occur – but are overvalued immense. In the course of influenza epidemics in Germany, recognized clusters are rare, accounting for just 9 percent of cases e.g. in the 2005 season. In temperate climates the lethal H5N1 virus will be transferred to humans via cold drinking water, as with the birds in February and March 2006, strong seasonal at the time when drinking water has its temperature minimum.
The performance to eliminate viruses from the drinking water processing plants regularly does not meet the requirements of the WHO and the USA/USEPA. Conventional disinfection procedures are poor, because microorganisms in the water are not in suspension, but embedded in particles. Even ground water used for drinking water is not free from viruses.
In temperate climates strong seasonal waterborne infections like the norovirus, rotavirus, salmonella, campylobacter and – differing from the usual dogma – influenza are mainly triggered by drinking water, dependent on the water’s temperature (in Germany it is at a minimum in February and March and at a maximum in August). There is no evidence that influenza primarily is transmitted by saliva droplets. In temperate climates the strong interdependence between influenza infections and environmental temperatures can’t be explained by the primary biotic transmission by saliva droplets from human to human at temperatures of 37.5°C. There must be an abiotic vehicle like cold drinking water. There is no other appropriate abiotic vehicle. In Germany about 98 percent of inhabitants have a central public water supply with older and better protected water. Therefore, in Germany cold water is decisive to the virulence of viruses.
Dipl.-Ing. Wilfried Soddemann – Free Science Journalist – soddemann-aachen@t-online.de – http://www.dugi-ev.de/information.html – Epidemiological Analysis: http://www.dugi-ev.de/TW_INFEKTIONEN_H5N1_20071019.pdf