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Moscow Times: Bird Flu Strain Can Infect Humans (August 1, 2005)
Bird Flu Strain Can Infect Humans - official confirmation

By Jim Heintz
The Associated Press

Investigators have determined that a strain of bird flu virus infecting fowl in Siberia is the type that can infect humans, the Agriculture Ministry said Friday.

The virus caused the deaths of hundreds of birds in the Novosibirsk region this month, but no human infections have been reported.

In a brief statement, the ministry identified the virus as avian flu type A H5N1. "That raises the need for undertaking quarantine measures of the widest scope," the statement said.

Ministry officials could not immediately be reached for elaboration.

Strains of bird flu have been hitting flocks throughout Asia, and some fatal human cases have been reported there.

Since 2003, bird flu has killed at least 57 people in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia, which reported its first three human deaths this month.

The outbreak in the Novosibirsk region apparently started about two weeks ago when large numbers of chicken, geese, ducks and turkeys began dying. Officials say that all dead or infected birds were incinerated. But it is unclear whether that would effectively stop the virus from spreading.

An animal health expert at the Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organization said it was still not known how many birds had been exposed. Birds can be "reservoirs, animals which are infected but not showing clinical signs" of the virus, Juan Lubroth said.

Lubroth, a veterinarian, said the concern was whether birds that appeared healthy might have the virus. "If you're a sick bird or a dead bird, you're not migrating anywhere. Sick birds don't fly," he said. Thus, samples should be taken of birds that look healthy, he said.

He called for greater international funding to prevent infection to humans by setting up laboratories and epidemiology studies. "We don't see the donor community coming together" on the bird flu fight, he said.

Earlier in the week, Russia's chief epidemiologist, Gennady Onishchenko, said the appearance of the virus in Russia could be due to migrating birds that rest on the Siberian region's lakes.

A recent report released by the journal Science said the finding of the H5N1 infection in migrant birds at Qinghai Lake in western China "indicates that this virus has the potential to be a global threat."

The reports echo concerns voiced by the World Health Organization, which urged China to step up its testing of wild geese and gulls. A WHO official estimated that the flu had killed more than 5,000 wild birds in western China.

The outbreak was first detected about two months ago in bar-headed geese at China's remote saltwater lake, which is a key breeding location for migratory birds that spend the winter in southeast Asia, Tibet and India. The virus has hit that species the hardest, but it also affects brown-headed gulls and great black-headed gulls.

Dick Thompson, a spokesman for the World Health Organization in Geneva, said, "We would hope that these samples would be sent to a WHO international reference lab outside the country. This is standard for verification."

"To confirm that it is H5N1, it is important that these tests are done outside the country," he said.