Bird Flu Round Up 5th April 2007

The Gulf Times reports that bird flu has spread to a new poultry farm in Bangladesh despite the efforts by vets and health workers.
An official of the Fisheries and Livestock ministry reported that “The latest farm confirmed to have H5N1 virus is in northern Jamalpur 200km (125 miles) from the capital Dhaka,” .

Since bird flu was detected in six farms at Savar near the capital in March 72,000 chickens have been culled from 26 farms and 500 workers at infected farms given a local version of the Tamiflu anti-viral drug.

About 4m Bangladeshis are directly or indirectly associated with poultry farming.

The Arab Times online reports that on Wednesday Kuwait sent samples from Bangladeshi bird handlers to WHO laboratory in Cairo for confirmation of test results conducted in Kuwait - according to Dr Ahmad Al-Shatti, spokesman for the Health Ministry. Test results are expected Thursday. The four workers had earlier shown bird-flu symptoms.

Dr Al-Shatti said the bird flu situation in the Kuwait was under control, : “The bird handlers are in good health and there is no cause for concern. We have plans in place to deal with any emergent situation."
Since Kuwait reported a bird flu outbreak late February authorities have slaughtered around 1.6 million birds. The four Bangladeshi bird handlers were part of the task force slaughtering birds in Wafra area, where most positive cases were discovered.

In the US, at a farm in West Virginia test results from turkeys have indicated exposure to H5N2 virus according to World of Poultry.
The test samples were part of routine, pre-slaughter surveillance and the turkeys showed no signs of illness and no mortality.
USDA Chief Veterinarian John Clifford stressed, "Every indication is that the virus is consistent with low pathogenic strains of avian influenza, or LPAI, which are commonly found in birds and typically cause only minor sickness or no noticeable symptoms. We can say for certain this is not the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain." The National Veterinary Services Laboratory plans to run sequencing and pathogenicity tests to further identify the virus.

Around 25,000 turkeys were slaughtered and poultry operations within a 6-mile radius of the affected farm closely monitored.