Avian Influenza - Questions And Answers

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

With the onset of spring, not only last year's dog poop on the lawns begins to thaw, but also human stupidity. The avian flu hysteria begins a new round. "Vile swans carried the H5N1 Virus from China through Russia and Turkey to Western Europe. Mass death of waterfowl from bird flu! People are infected. Even cats will die! Death to swans and other waterfowl!"

Veterinary pharmacies and hospitals are attacking squadrons of grannies, demanding to protect their pets from a terrible fatal infection. Apocalypse! Avian flu, great and terrible, like Marilyn Manson!"

And no one knows that the increased horror of the same Marilyn Manson is only for those who look at him from the side of the auditorium and pay money. The rest, who look out from behind the curtains and receive dividends from the spectacle, see what it is: a skinny, tattered creature with awkward make-up and stupid vinyl wings.

At the last international ornithological symposium "Anseriformes of Northern Eurasia", which took place from 5 to 10 October 2005 in St. Petersburg, and at the All-Russian Ornithological Conference in Stavropol in February this year, the problem of bird flu was seriously discussed. Let's try to summarize the available data.

Mysterious killer or news with forty-five years of experience?

For the first time, the avian influenza virus was isolated in 1902. During the 20th century, the incidence of various strains of group A was detected in a very large number of species of birds, mammals and humans. Some of the strains of this group are characteristic only for certain species, with some of them several groups of animals can get sick at once. Sometimes certain species can only be carriers, and they themselves do not get sick.

The H5N1 strain virus has been known since 1959, when an epizootic of chickens arose on a small farm in Scotland. In 1969 he caused an epizootic in Hong Kong. In 1979, it was found in wild waterfowl in the northeastern Caspian.

Thus, the novelty of the year is a "good old friend" for humanity.

Which ducks carry bird flu - wild or newspaper?

"A terrible infection from the east comes at us on the wings of migratory birds!" - with these words, associations arise with the medieval bubonic plague that came from the east with hordes of gray rats.

If this were so, then in the spring of 2005 a wave of the epizootic would go on a continuous front to the north. But over the entire history of the H5N1 strain, we see foci far apart across Eurasia. And in the past year - now the Novosibirsk region, now the Tula and Tambov, even in Finland in July, it seems, some gulls with this virus were found, and in Romania - a dead gray heron. The winter outbreak of the disease in Turkey and Crimea, in principle, is located in the same geographic focus (Black Sea region) as Romania. And finally, the Western Baltic. And in the intervals between these points there is nothing contagious, these foci are not connected with each other.

Each large geographic grouping of waterfowl has its own flight paths and isolated wintering grounds. The exchange of individuals between these groups is extremely insignificant. Let's see: birds from our Far East and Eastern Siberia winter in eastern China, and it is there, according to the logic of newspaper events, that bird flu should get this summer. However, neither on Lake Khanka, nor on the lakes of the Amur floodplain, nor in Dauria (it is warm everywhere, there are a lot of people and poultry), nothing that pleases the tabloids popped up. Even if we assume that some significant part of the infected ducks overwintering in eastern China suddenly went crazy and flew to nest in the Trans-Urals, why did not any epizootics break out, for example, on Balkhash, in the Semirechye? They could not pass these places of mass camps of migratory birds. And the heat is stronger there,than in the Novosibirsk steppes and comes much earlier! Something doesn't grow together.

West Siberian birds winter in the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Black Sea. They do not fly through China or through the Tula and Tambov regions. Therefore, in one summer they could not bring anything there, since they meet with Central Russian mallards only in wintering.

They could theoretically bring the virus to Crimea and Turkey in the fall. But they do not appear there until October, and already at the end of August in the Black Sea region (Romania) a dead heron (clearly of local origin) with H5N1 in the blood was found. This means that the virus has already wandered in this region.

Birds from completely different regions winter in Western Europe: the European North, tundra and forest-tundra, up to Taimyr. These two groupings never mix. From Turkey, waterfowl can only get to Egypt and Iraq, and by no means to the island of Rügen in the Baltic.

That is, we can safely say that in each focus of the disease, the virus has been present for about fifty years, if not a hundred - from the moment of its inception. So, it is not a virus from China that spreads, but only unhealthy rumors and information ducks.

Where is the enemy's lair, who is he killing and why?

The H5N1 strain causes massive diseases and mortality only in poultry; in the wild, no large deaths from this virus have been detected. Only a small percentage of aquatic birds die, usually weakened by another infection. So in 1979-1982. in the northeastern Caspian Sea, according to the estimates of ornithologists of the Astrakhan Reserve, up to a million swans, geese, ducks and gulls died. Some dead birds have been isolated with the H5N1 strain. But the tragedy was caused by massive poisoning from botulism toxins, and the flu acted as a "nice addition" for the emaciated birds. Even in 2005, in Western Siberia, only 15 dead wild ducks with this virus were found in a focus on Lake Chany, but the deaths occurred for other reasons. And this is with tens of thousands of dead poultry.

Why don't the wild have such massive epizootics? First, because the immune system is stronger. Secondly, as mentioned above, H5N1 was discovered for a long time and existed, apparently, much earlier than the moment of its discovery, and natural populations perfectly adapt to any infection, even lethal at first, infection. It's simple: those who survive - transmit the signs of resistance to the strain to the offspring. Natural selection. There is no such selection in poultry!

Thirdly, nowhere in nature is there such superdense concentrations of birds in one permanent place, as in chickens and ducks in a village courtyard. And such unsanitary conditions - too. The poultry house is usually a low, stuffy and cramped structure on chicken legs with microscopic blinded windows and a floor slimy from droppings. Yes, any stick of Koch will sell his soul for such a hacienda! Foolish from the "cultural" wintering and teeming with all kinds of bacteria, domestic ducks in the spring go in droves to the village pond or the nearest backwater of the lake, where they communicate with neighbors, share news and intestinal microflora. Can you imagine how many interesting things can proliferate in this nutritious broth, if you just bake the sun properly? A microbiologist's dream! And now, in waterfowl, poisoning with botulism, pasteurellosis, helminthic invasions,bacterial diseases and other and other delights.

On top of all the troubles, the bird flu virus, which had been peacefully sleeping before, is sharply activated in the exhausted organisms. And away we go, to the delight of journalists languishing from heat and boredom. In support of the above, we note that not a single case of the disease has been detected in any large poultry complex in Western Siberia! Because they comply with sanitary standards and technology!

121 deceased swan and dead cat on the island. Rügen. Is the virus growing day by day?

The question arises: "Why did winter surges of H5N1 occur in Turkey and Germany?" To answer the question, consider the situation a little more broadly. Over the past twenty years, there has been an extremely strong climate warming in Europe. During the same period, European environmentalists enforced many laws and programs to make life easier for waterfowl.

Due to these two reasons, the number of many bird species has increased manifold.

And suddenly, after such prosperity, unprecedented frosts and snowfalls fall on dense mass gatherings of wintering birds! And so throughout Europe!

During the winter cold in the Baltic, there have been cases of deaths before. Swans and ducks died in thousands from exhaustion in Denmark, and off the coast of Pomerania, and even on the Estonian coast (1983-85). But nobody tested them on H5N1 - there was simply no such panic "anti-bird" campaign.

This year the frosts were unprecedented, and the number of birds killed by starvation is expected to reach tens of thousands. Any birdwatcher will tell you that. But no one officially talks about these numbers. There is talk of only 121 dead swans with the H5N1 virus in their blood. And this is done to create the illusion that the birds died from it, and there is "an unprecedented death of wild birds from the flu."

The unfortunate cat found on the street is also added here! Listen, stray cats always feed on all kinds of filth and raw bird meat! So there is nothing surprising in the presence of the virus in her blood. And in such frosts, she could die from other more prosaic reasons!

Will the flu kill humanity?

A hybrid avian-human flu is possible. In theory. In practice, as for the H5N1 strain, in its entire history from 1959 there was not a single case of disease and death of a person until 1997. There were no such cases in 2005 in Russia. Just think: up to 80 thousand infected poultry in Western Siberia and not a single human disease, despite constant and close contacts at peasant farmsteads!

At the same time, according to the oral reports of ornithologists who worked in the areas of epizootics, our peasants ate the infected bird with might and main and during slaughter did not always comply with the prescribed norms. Well, there are no effective (active) human antigens in this strain!

What will happen?

Epidemiologists will meet the enemy fully armed - the development and testing of vaccines have been successfully completed. But the unfortunate consequences of unhealthy media hysteria can be palpable. For example, the decline in agriculture caused by a panic decline in consumer demand.

Most importantly, wild birds may suffer. Already in 2005, in some places barbaric shootings were observed, authorized by a number of local authorities. Such a measure does not lead to anything good - healthy birds were destroyed in mass, completely innocent of the epizootic caused by human carelessness. After all, poultry almost exclusively get sick and transmit the infection to each other. And wild waterfowl, frightened by the shooting, begin to concentrate en masse on small safe areas, where the probability of the virus spreading sharply increases. In addition, birds that died during shooting become a real source of infection for both water bodies and corpse-eating animals.

Bird watchers everywhere demand that migratory birds be left alone. The authorities seem to be listening, and in some places they have already banned spring hunting. But instead they create detachments of shooters to shoot birds in "flu-hazardous places". And will anyone keep an eye on all the headless alarmists and poachers who want to burn as much as they can under the guise of fighting the "universal infection"?

This is how someone will earn a lot of money on this unhealthy hysteria, and huge irreparable damage will be caused to nature. Waterfowl already suffer annually from mass, often poaching, hunting.

A short conclusion for grandmothers with cats and lapdogs

Dear ladies, cases of infection of cats and dogs with bird flu are so rare and exotic that you can be completely calm about the fate of your Murziks. If you let them out on the street, they will die only from some other infection or under the wheels of a car. There are plenty of both in our city. Almost all newspaper facts are so unverified and doubtful that one does not want to dwell on them. As for the dogs, there is not a single case of bird flu infection. So, get vaccinated from the Olympics and listen to stupid radio less!