Tweets,

The spread of H5N1 is an epidemiologists dream or nightmare, depending on
the point of view. The current spread of the virus appears to be among
domestic birds, and perhaps migratory waterfowl. The problem here is that
of possible (likely) underreporting of birds actually dying from the
disease. Very few people notice a dead sparrow, or starling, or thrush, and
may even shrug off ducks - but dead swans are noticed - they are big and
easy to see and unusual, so current reporting is focusing on swans as a
primary migratory bird vector - reality or perception?

Movement of domestic fowl is definitely a problem. Birds used for food are
one problem, pets are another - but a good part of these do go through an
agricultural inspection process. Real problems begin to exist when the
inspection is skipped - and things like illegal transport of fighting cocks
and wild caught and/or rare birds for the pet trade are worrisome. Cock
fighting is still legal in New Mexico and Louisiana (as well as Puerto Rico
and all other US Territories) as well as in most, if not all, countries in
Latin America - it is also widely practiced but illegal in the other 48 US
states. This sport is not just bad from a humane perspective, but from the
perspective of spread of disease as a lot of blood, feces, offal and flesh
are literally sprayed over spectators. It is nothing to get these birds
illegally into the US - when a single fight can bring the owner of a
particular bird $100,000 or more paying $5000 for transport in a private
plane, or for bribes is just a cost of doing business.

The real problem will come when the virus mutates into a form transmitable
from human to human - this is what happened in the Spanish Flu epidemic in
the early part of the century (the most famous instance) and at least a
dozen other times in the past couple of hundred years. The overall link of
fowl to swine to human flu virus mutagenisis is still the most likely way
this will happen.

If something is fit to eat and go to market humans somewhere will be in
contact with an animal. SARS was eventually linked to the eating of Palm
Civits in Asia. Swine generations are very short (as little as 10 months!)
and this is thought to play some role in the reason pigs eventually "get" a
virus from other animals - the virus (days long generation length) has a
chance at multiple generations and tiny changes in swine through evolution
or even co-evolution. Other reasons include the fact that pigs will eat
almost anything including dead birds, and the fact that traditionally
nothing goes to waste in some Asian cultures and swine are fed dead birds,
remains from butchers, etc. Exposure eventually equals a cross-species
infection.

Yes, we are up against another pandemic problem and it will likely be
difficult to control - but the horrible part of this disease will likely
have its genesis in the traditional fowl to swine to human chain that flu
mutates in, the eventual mutation to a human-to-human transmittable form,
and then the spread of the disease via human movement - no major city in the
world is more than 24 hours from all other major cities in the world with
jet travel. This will be the pattern for flu movement.

Rob


Rob Conway
Newcastle, WA

robin_birder at hotmail.com