Bird
Flu Hits Israel, Three People Maybe Infected
By
Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency
Tel
Aviv----March 17......Until today, Israel had thought that it's deadliest threat
came from Iran, Syria, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, Hizbollah and bin-Laden. But
now some innocent birds without suicide belts may have changed that equation.
The
Israel Agriculture Ministry today confirmed the first bird flu outbreak in the
country, Israel Radio reported. Citing an official source, Israel radio said that
the Agriculture Ministry had confirmed that the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain
of bird flu led to the deaths of over 11,000 turkeys on two farms in southern
Israel, the first such case in the country. In addition, local newspaper Ha'aretz
reported that three people, either living or working on one of the two farms located
in the southern area of Negev, had been rushed to hospital for treatment of suspected
symptoms of bird flu infection.
Following
preliminary tests after discovering the dead turkeys Israel Health Minister Yaakov
Edri said "a very high chance that this is avian flu." "Last night we informed
the World Health Organisation that the H5N1 virus has spread to Israel," Dr Moshe
Haimovitch, a senior agriculture ministry official, said in Tel Aviv.
The
Israel Agriculture Ministry has ordered the slaughter of thousands of birds on
the two farms and a third one near Jerusalem where bird flu was suspected, the
report added. Israel has geared up for bird flu outbreaks, ordering that all the
birds in the affected farms and nearby farms be destroyed and that a quarantine
be imposed with a radius of 10 kilometers around the farms if the deadly virus
is detected. Last month, Israel's neighboring country Egypt detected its first
case of H5N1 in chickens.
The
H5N1 strain of bird flu, which re-emerged in east Asia in December 2003, has killed
over 90 people worldwide in the last few years and is spreading rapidly across
the world. Experts fear that the disease, currently jumping from birds to humans
through close contact, might mutate into a form that can easily pass among humans,
leading to a global pandemic.
The
Israel Health Ministry confirmed that Bird Flu was responsible for the recent
deaths of approximately 11,000 turkeys at the southern kibbutzim of Holit and
Ein Hashlosha. The same strain was identified at Kibbutz Nachshon near Beit Shemesh,
following an unusual amount of poultry deaths. Two people from Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha,
who worked at the chicken coops, were sent to Soroka Hospital under suspicion
that they contracted the deadly bird flu strain. One of them, a Thai worker was
held in isolation.
The
Israel Health Ministry ordered that the carcasses be buried underground. The poultry
were to be killed by consumption of poisoned water.
After
its meeting to discuss the response to a bird flu outbreak, the Agriculture Ministry
announced on Friday that they would continue the veterinary quarantine over the
southern kibbutzim of Holit and Ein Hashlosha.
Chief
Israel veterinarian of the Agriculture Ministry Dr. Shimon Pokamunski told Israel
Radio that it had not yet been decided to launch a massive vaccination campaign,
but should that decision be made, the Health Ministry would be ready to proceed
within three days.
Health officials repeatedly reminded the public that the avian flu primarily affects
birds. It was very rare for the virus to make the transition into a human host.
Even in cases where humans do contract the disease, it is generally limited to
people who come in direct contact with fowl, usually bird handlers in chicken
coops. Unfortunately, mortality tends to be high in cases when it is contracted.
The
Israel Health Ministry voiced caution and urged the public not to panic after
the Agriculture Ministry announced on Thursday night that turkeys on two Negev
farms were "suspected" of having died from the H5N1 strain of avian flu. Health
Minister Ya'akov Edri called an emergency meeting last night to discuss the case.
Agriculture Minister Ze'ev Boim said the ministry was still testing the birds
to determine whether they had the feared flu strain. Boim stressed that Israelis
should remain calm until the tests have been completed. The suspected outbreak
was centered on the Negev desert farming community of Ein Hashlosha and the nearby
community of Holit, where a large number of turkeys were found dead, Boim said.
"We
have imposed a quarantine in a radius of seven kilometers around the area, and
we are prepared, in case our suspicions are confirmed, to prepare for a wide-scale
destruction of the flocks in a radius of three kilometers," he said. Health Ministry
associate director-general Dr. Boaz Lev said that there was no danger to the general
public, as avian flu spreads directly among poultry and wild birds and can spread
only to people in direct contact with live birds whose droppings contain the virus.
There is no danger eating poultry, even if the food supply is affected by the
virus, as it is destroyed by the heat of cooking and does not pass to humans who
touch raw processed poultry.
The
H5N1 virus was detected in neighboring Egypt last month, and Boim said the death
of the birds in southern Israel might indicate that the disease had entered the
country from Egypt.
Bird flu expert Robert Webster told ABC News this week that there were ''about
even odds at this time for the virus to learn how to transmit human to human,"
and ''society just can't accept the idea that 50 percent of the population could
die. . . . I'm sorry if I'm making people a little frightened, but I feel it's
my role."
Webster
was criticized for his statement by the Boston Globe which stated: "As
one of the top flu experts in the world, Webster's role is to track influenza
in the test tube, not to make sweeping speculations that are not based on science
and do far more harm than good. By his estimate, we should be destroying every
bird in the world right now before we all perish in a pool of pathogens."
The Globe continued: "Webster's statement is the latest Hitchcockian pronouncement
about H5N1 bird flu, a virus that is deadly in birds. But humans are different.
We are protected by a species barrier, and serological surveys conducted in 1997
in Hong Kong and since have detected antibodies in thousands of humans who never
got sick, showing that bird flu isn't as deadly to the few who come in contact
with it as has been reported. Imagine what would happen if a bird in the United
States gets H5N1 bird flu. At the rate we are going, the fear of birds will be
so great that our own poultry industry, number one in the world, is likely to
be in shambles. We already have this problem with mad cow disease, where a single
sick cow that is not even in the food chain makes people very nervous, despite
the fact that it is almost impossible to get mad cow disease from eating beef."
Most
scientists won't say it that directly but most acknowledge that Webster could
be right, even though they believe the 50% figure could be too high. No one knows
how long or how many mutations changes it would take for bird flu to become a
direct threat to humans. But that hasn't stopped Dr. Anne Moscona from desperately
searching for new types of anti-virals that both prevent and slow the spread of
bird flu. She says, "I don't think that once we human-to-human transmission, it's
going to be possible to contain it." This is why nearly every viral scientist
in America, perhaps the world, is waiting, watching the avian flu virus to see
if it remains a terrible threat to birds, or changes its DNA and becomes just
as deadly to humans.
Blaming
the media for blowing out of proportion a localised event, India Agriculture Minister
Sharad Pawar said today the bird flu situation is under control and there is nothing
to panic about on a nationwide scale. "The media has blown a localised event out
of proportion without realising that such exaggeration of facts would impact the
rural economy," Pawar told reporters at the sidelines of the World Consumer Rights
Day celebration here. There is nothing to worry, he said, adding "the situation
is completely under control".
The
US Center for Disease Control states: "Although
avian influenza A viruses usually do not infect humans, more than 100 confirmed
cases of human infection with avian influenza viruses have been reported since
1997. For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) maintains situation updates
and cumulative reports of human cases of avian influenza A (H5N1). Most cases
of avian influenza infection in humans are thought to have resulted from direct
contact with infected poultry or contaminated surfaces. However, there is still
a lot to learn about how different subtypes and strains of avian influenza virus
might affect humans. For example, it is not known how the distinction between
low pathogenic and highly pathogenic strains might impact the health risk to humans.
(For more information, see “Low Pathogenic versus Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza
Viruses” on the CDC Influenza Viruses Web page. Because of concerns about the
potential for more widespread infection in the human population, public health
authorities closely monitor outbreaks of human illness associated with avian influenza.
To date, human infections with avian influenza A viruses detected since 1997 have
not resulted in sustained human-to-human transmission. However, because influenza
A viruses have the potential to change and gain the ability to spread easily between
people, monitoring for human infection and person-to-person transmission is important."
The
CDC continued: "The avian influenza A (H5N1) epizootic (animal outbreak)
in Asia and parts of Europe is not expected to diminish significantly in the short
term. It is likely that H5N1 infection among birds has become endemic in certain
areas and that human infections resulting from direct contact with infected poultry
will continue to occur. So far, the spread of H5N1 virus from person-to-person
has been rare and has not continued beyond one person. No evidence for genetic
reassortment between human and avian influenza A virus genes has been found; however,
the epizootic in Asia continues to pose an important public health threat."
The
results from the tests of people in Israel admitted into hospital with bird flu
symptoms will be ready in two days, Haaretz informs. The information about
how many people have been admitted into Soroka hospital with bird flu symptoms
is controversial. Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reports about five Israel
citizens from Ein Hashlosha. At the same time Haaretz informs of four workers,
including a Thai citizen.
For
now it appears that Bird Flu may be a blessing in disguise as the terror group
Hamas led Palestinian Authority will have to work closely with Israel authorities
in combating a common enemy.
A sick dove of peace may actually contribute
to peace, cooperation and stability in the Middle-East, if the birds don't get
to us first.