[Mike]

from bridget – 09/05/2005′, ‘Hi Guys
Gosh, I do not want to be an alarmist, but I never thought I’d be
forced by shear facts to believe we’d be under an operation the
likes of ‘Owning the Weather’ either, so now my ear is to the ground
and my trust is out the window.

“”(quote from article below~Apart from the economic threat, the
spread of H5N1 also poses a hazard to human health, by increasing
the chances of a mutation that could create a pandemic capable of
killing tens of millions.””
Well, we continue to do what we can. I’d like to have ‘A Meet-Up’
with like minded people, if anyone is interested.
Best to you all,
Bridget

http://finance.news.com.au/story/0,10166,16495785-31037,00.html
Bird flu risks spreading to Europe
From: AAP
By Sarah Stewart in Bangkok

September 05, 2005
THE bird flu virus that had leapt to Russia and Kazakhstan after
causing deaths and huge economic losses in Asia risked spreading
further, borne by migratory birds criss-crossing the globe, experts
said today.

Wild birds are widely credited with spreading avian influenza far
beyond its epicentre in the backyard farms of Asia, where the
mingling of species gives virologists nightmares about the risk of
mutation into a far deadlier form.

Once deposited in a country, courtesy of the annual migrations which
take flocks of birds from Asia to the north during the European
summer, the H5N1 strain moves among poultry with ease.
“Birds play a role in the primary infection of the country, but then
after that there’s no need for wildlife. It will spread very easily
from one village to another through trade,” Joseph Domenech, the UN
Food and Agriculture Organisation’s chief vet, said.

“Given that it is a highly contagious disease, we were sure it could
spread from one region to another, either through wildlife or
through trade and movements of products. So this happened and we are
not surprised at all.”
Asia has been battling bird flu since late 2003, with vaccination
campaigns and huge culls of tens of millions of chickens and ducks
that have wrecked poultry industries, particularly in Thailand and
Vietnam.

While sporadic outbreaks continue to emerge in
Asia, attention has now shifted to the discovery of the virus in
poultry in parts of Russia and Kazakhstan, raising fears it will
cross the Urals mountain chain into Europe.
The alarm has already been raised in western Europe, and French
President Jacques Chirac has called for a strong international
response to the threat, warning it could develop into a serious
health crisis.

Mr Domenech said that the risk of avian influenza creeping that far
in the next few months was low, but that each time birds flew back
and forth across the globe the risks of contagion at the
avian “crossroads” increased.
“If the virus is coming from wildlife, then next year or the year
after it could happen that it goes to western Europe,” he said.
The virus threatened to contaminate all the migratory paths,
bringing the disease to Africa, South Asia and the Middle East as
well, he said.

“We don’t want to panic, we don’t want to say there will be a
massive infection, but recent events are obliging us to say that the
risk exists and it must be monitored and surveillance must be put in
place.”
Mr Domenech said Europe has more weapons at its disposal to fend off
bird flu than Asia, and a developed agricultural system that was
easier to defend. But it also had a lot to lose in a financial
sense.

“We are very worried. If it comes to countries like those in western
Europe it could be a very severe economic disaster,” he said,
listing poultry export bans and expensive changes in farming methods
as among the fallout.
The Netherlands, one of the biggest European chicken producers, has
already ordered poultry be kept inside in the hope of avoiding a
repeat of a flu epidemic two years ago which nearly wiped out the
country’s stock.

Apart from the economic threat, the spread of H5N1 also poses a
hazard to human health, by increasing the chances of a mutation that
could create a pandemic capable of killing tens of millions.
Bird flu has killed 62 people in Asia in the past two years,
including 43 in Vietnam.

“The farther this virus is being spread, the more opportunity it has
to infect humans,” Dick Thompson, spokesman of the Geneva-based
World Health Organisation, said.
“And when that happens there’s also the possibility of reassortment
with a human influenza virus and what we are concerned about in that
case is that what might emerge is a pandemic virus able to jump
easily from one person to another.”

Mr Thompson said the emergence of bird flu in Europe had created a
sense of alarm, but that wherever a pandemic erupted, it would
circulate around the globe with deadly effect in a few months
anyway.

“In fact people in Europe are as threatened by pandemic influenza
should it emerge and begin spreading from South-East Asia, as if the
pandemic emerged in Kazakhstan,” he said.