Avian flu confirmed in England - in turkeys

Avian flu (H5N1) has made it to England.

This raises again the question I addressed earlier today in Home Monitoring Industry, of wishing an emergency room or other surveillance unit could , upon releasing a questionable case, leave an electronic tether on them to be notified if things improve or get worse following release.

Deadly Bird Flu confirmed in BritishTurkeys
New York Times
Alan Cowell
Feb 4, 2007
excerpt:

LONDON, Feb. 3 — British authorities confirmed Saturday that an outbreak of bird flu discovered among turkeys at a poultry farm in eastern Britain had been caused by the deadly A(H5N1) strain, which has killed humans in other parts of the world.

The disease has killed 2,500 turkeys near Lowestoft since Thursday, making it the biggest outbreak of the strain reported in Britain since concern about its global spread began to take root in 2003.

An additional 160,000 birds will now be culled in an effort to contain the outbreak, government officials said.

No immediate risk

Fred Landeg, a senior government veterinarian, said there was no public health concern. “Avian influenza is a disease of birds,” he said, “and whilst it can pass very rarely and with difficulty to humans, this requires extremely close contact with infected birds, particularly feces.”

How did it get to England?

The disease is commonly transmitted to farmed birds by infected migrating birds.

But since 2003, 164 people, most of them in Asia, have died of the A(H5N1) strain, and authorities worry that the virus could easily become transmissible among humans to create a global pandemic. About 200 million birds have either died or been killed in the same period.

On Saturday, the World Health Organization confirmed that the strain had killed a 22-year-old Nigerian woman, making her the first known human fatality in sub-Saharan Africa, Reuters reported.

Tests carried out at a laboratory in London confirmed the findings of Nigerian health authorities, who announced on Wednesday that the woman had died after catching the virus from an infected chicken.

Incidentally, we note that the migratory patterns of birds is heavily influenced by the climate, so all of this may be a downstream effect of global warming and human-induced instability in the plantet's weather.