H5N1 entraps 64th Indonesian
Friday, 9th February witnessed the death of a 20 year old woman from West Java who was diagnosed positive for avian influenza or commonly called bird flu, raising the death toll to 64.
The highly pathogenic Influenza A virus-also called H5N1 virus, has already witnessed 164 calamitous deaths from a total of 271 infected people.
The woman after showing bird flu-like symptoms was rushed to a hospital in Garut in West Java where she was tested positive to the flu leading to her death on the very next day. She picked up the flu as she was in direct contact with infected chickens engulfing two of her neighbors in the infection trap who are in the hospital now.
"The woman was tested positive to the avian influenza," and "...the result is from two labs," Nyoman Kandun, director general of communicable disease control at the health ministry confirmed.
The Indonesian farmers have been given a deadline of two weeks ending on Wednesday to get rid of their infected fowl which will be confirmed by door to door investigations.
H5N1 is mainly spread by domestic poultry, both through the movements of infected birds and poultry products and through the use of infected poultry manure as fertilizer or feed. Humans with H5N1 typically catch it from chickens, which were in turn infected by other poultry or waterfowl.
World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) in collaboration with United States are looking into minimizing the risk of spreading of this disease and taking steps to avoid this to turn into a pandemic on a global level.
The fatal H5N1 virus has hit the economies of various countries financially, politically and socially. A huge sum of money is being spent on research to find out a cure for this lethal virus. No highly effective treatment for H5N1 flu has been determined, but “oseltamivir” can sometimes inhibit the influenza virus from spreading inside the victims body.
The deadly bird flu occurred among poultry in Maharashtra in 2006 but the human samples tested negative, wild birds were held responsible for bringing this flu to India. The virus has also spread to various parts of central and western Europe and west Asia including Mongolia, Siberia, and Kazakhstan.
bird flu/ factory farming
Factory-farming is the culprit in bird-flu, not wild birds!
Dr. Michael Gregor, director of public health and Animal Agriculture in the Farm Animal Welfare div. of The Humane Society of the US says:
http://tinyurl.com/y9n9qk
[Begin Quote]
Highly pathogenic bird flu viruses seem predominantly to be products of
factory farming. Indeed, said University of Ottawa virologist Dr. Earl
Brown, a specialist in influenza virus evolution, You have to say that high intensity chicken rearing is a perfect environment for generating virulent avian flu virus.
Many of the worlds scientific authorities seem to agree. The World Health Organization blames the increasing trend of emerging infectious diseases in part on the industrialization of the animal production sector in general, and the emergence of H5N1 on intensive poultry production in particular...
According to the Royal Geographical Society, Massive demand for chicken has led to factory battery farming which provides ideal conditions for viruses to spread orally and via excreta which inevitably contaminates food in the cramped conditions that most birds are kept in.
Other experts around the world similarly lay blame on so-called factory
farming, intensive poultry production, large industry poultry flocks,
intensive agricultural production systems, or intensive confinement. We are wasting valuable time pointing fingers at wild birds, the U.N.s FAO has stated, when we should be focusing on dealing with the root causes of this epidemic spread which...[include] farming methods which crowd huge numbers of animals into small spaces. [End Quote]