Friday, February 1, 2008
Townsend Peterson, senior curator at University’s Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center, received a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study the possible spread of the Bird Flu virus to America.
Peterson will use the grant to assemble a team of researchers to map areas of the continent that are at a potentially high risk from Bird Flu.
The USDA offered Peterson the grant based on his conclusion that the government had not properly monitored the possible spread and evolution of Bird Flu on this continent.
“If you look back at the last century, flu in general is of concern,” Peterson said. “Flu viruses are continually evolving and every so often you get one on the nasty side.”
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Bird Flu originated in southeast Asia Bird Flu has spread to the Middle East, Europe and Africa in the past decade. The World Health Organization has recorded a 68 percent mortality rate in human cases of Bird Flu infection
The strain of Bird Flu Peterson will study, called H5N1, is not very transmissible among humans, but it is highly pathogenic.
According to the World Health Organization, of the nearly 348 known human cases of H5N1 infection, 62 percent were fatal.
Although the probability of a human catching Bird Flu is currently low, Peterson said it was not worth the risk to neglect fully researching the virus.
“We’re more likely to develop a highly pathogenic, highly transmissible variant if there’s more of the virus out there,” Peterson said. “This is certainly an important moment in flu history.”
To determine how common H5N1 is in different bird populations, a team of University researchers and graduate students traveled to countries such as the Philippines, Solomon Islands, China and Ghana.
Mark Robbins, collections manager at the Natural History Museum, completed the fieldwork in Ghana in November.
Robbins said one focus of the trip was to establish which method of testing birds for H5N1, swabbing or testing brain, heart or liver tissues, was most effective.
Peterson said work like this helped determine the prevalence of the virus, which is an important aspect of the USDA grant research.
Peterson invited about 20 experts, including virologists, epidemiologists and ornithologists, to join the USDA-funded Bird Flu research.
“The emphasis will be on thinking outside of the box,” Peterson said.
Peterson said one example of that creative thinking would be to measure the prevalence of H5N1 in land birds. He said land birds were largely ignored by researchers who stuck to the traditional idea that H5N1 migrated almost exclusively with water birds such as ducks and gulls.
Asian land birds provide a possible avenue for Bird Flu to spread to North America when they migrate for the summer, Peterson said.
He said the Bering Strait would not be a barrier for the Asian land birds, which KU fieldworkers in China showed to carry H5N1 at a rate of 3 percent.
If introduced to North American bird populations, Peterson said the virus could spread and possibly mutate to create a worst-case scenario Bird Flu pandemic.
“Pandemics in history have taken millions of lives,” Peterson said. “The best time to learn about them is when we’re not in an emergency situation.”
Peterson said he would begin work with the USDA-funded research team this spring.
— Edited by Jared Duncan
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KU gets grant to research bird flu
Interesting...I didn't know it was uncommon to catch it.
KU gets grant to research bird flu
Spread of avian flu by drinking water
There is a widespread link between avian flu and water, e.g. in Egypt to the Nile delta or Indonesia to residential districts of less prosperous humans with backyard flocks and without central water supply as in Vietnam: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no12/06-0829.htm. See also the WHO web side: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/emerging/h5n1background.pdf and http://www.umg-verlag.de/umwelt-medizin-gesellschaft/407_m_s.html “Influenza: Initial introduction of influenza viruses to the population via abiotic water supply versus biotic human viral respirated droplet shedding” and http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473309907700294/abstract?iseop=true “Transmission of influenza A in human beings”. Avian flu infections may increase in consequence to increase of virus circulation. Transmission of avian flu by direct contact to infected poultry is an unproved assumption from the WHO. There is no evidence that influenza primarily is transmitted by saliva droplets. Infected birds and poultry can everywhere contaminate the drinking water. All humans have contact to drinking water. In hot climates/the tropics flood-related influenza is typical after extreme weather and floods. Virulence of influenza viruses depends on temperature and time. Special in cases of local water supplies with “young” and fresh H5N1 contaminated water from low local wells, cisterns, tanks, rain barrels, ponds, rivers or rice paddies this pathway can explain small clusters in households. At 24°C e.g. in the tropics the virulence of influenza viruses in water amount to 2 days. In temperate climates for “older” water from central water supplies cold water is decisive to virulence of viruses. At 7°C the virulence of influenza viruses in water amount to 14 days. Human to human and contact transmission of influenza occur - but are overvalued immense. In the course of influenza epidemics in Germany, recognized clusters are rare, accounting for just 9 percent of cases e.g. in the 2005 season. In temperate climates the lethal H5N1 virus will be transferred to humans via cold drinking water, as with the birds in February and March 2006, strong seasonal at the time when drinking water has its temperature minimum. The performance to eliminate viruses from the drinking water processing plants regularly does not meet the requirements of the WHO and the USA/USEPA. Conventional disinfection procedures are poor, because microorganisms in the water are not in suspension, but embedded in particles. Even ground water used for drinking water is not free from viruses.
Dipl.-Ing. Wilfried Soddemann - Free Science Journalist - soddemann-aachen@t-online.de
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