It's official. Bird flu has come to poultry in the UK, with the death of 1000 turkeys in Suffolk. The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) just announced confirmation that the H5 virus is indeed H5N1 (via BBChat tip Peter McG.). This is the second confirmed appearance of the virus in Europe this year and the second appearance in the UK in the last 12 months (previously chickens in Norfolk in April 2006). Most people expect there to be more instances elsewhere in Europe.
The virus is out there. Gone from the headlines doesn't mean it's gone from the world.
Comments
Just a small clarification, the previous outbreak was H7N3 although a dead swan washed up on the east coast of Scotland was H5N1. The bad news is the sequencing will be done by Weybridge so dont expect to see them anytime soon.
Posted by: JJackson | February 3, 2007 10:17 AM
JJackson: Many thanks for the correction.
Posted by: revere | February 3, 2007 11:01 AM
That's the real question, isn't it. Will Weybridge release these sequences?
Posted by: Pixie | February 3, 2007 11:15 AM
It's the third confirmed appearance of the virus in Europe this year : Hungary, Russia.
Posted by: Nati Elkin | February 3, 2007 12:15 PM
Nat: Good point. Another correction.
Posted by: revere | February 3, 2007 12:18 PM
I thought UK had biosecurity in place since last year, so I wonder how this happened - Is Holton Suffolk close to the Suffolk Broads wetland conservation area? If infection from wild birds, how could that happen if strict biosecurity in place? Must be a lot more endemic in the wild bird population than previously thought - asymptomatic?
Posted by: gharris | February 3, 2007 1:00 PM
gharris: Or maybe biosecurity is like airport security.
Posted by: revere | February 3, 2007 1:41 PM
"The avian flu which killed 2,600 turkeys at a Bernard Matthews farm in Suffolk has been confirmed as the Asian strain of the H5N1 virus."
I just read this on the BBC RSS feed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6328161.stm
You might want to bump up that death toll on the turkeys.
As for biosecurity, how in the name of anything holy or unholy can you keep migratory birds out of anywhere? They fly at night and can easily slip under any radar we humans have invented. You cannot kill them all nor will all of them die in an avian flu outbreak.
Posted by: Gindy | February 3, 2007 2:05 PM
Gindy, it IS possible! Ask Norwegian and Finnish authorities, if you don't believe! In Finland and in Norway there haven't been one single H5N1 animal - not in wild, not in farms... ;)
Posted by: Thinlina | February 3, 2007 2:51 PM
"thought UK had biosecurity in place since last year"
ha ha ha ha ha
Posted by: Ron | February 3, 2007 4:54 PM
Gindy's right: they are now starting to kill the 160,000 turkeys on the farm and are 'confident' that the infection was restricted to one 'shed' of turkeys. There is also some bewiliderment in the media as to why the infection hit battery (shed reared) rather than free range turkeys, which it was assumed would be far more prone to infection. Has there been any research on susceptibilities to infection between shed-reared and free-range flocks? One theory is that the infection made it into the building through a hole in the roof, by way of a pigeon. (Which would make it a carrier, pigeon, I guess.)
The workers at the site are getting seasonal flu jabs and tamiflu courses.
Posted by: Peter McGrath | February 3, 2007 5:37 PM
Gidy. Think about it. Bird Flu is now world wide. How would we go about getting rid of it? I believe that we are now on the count down.
Posted by: Victoria | February 3, 2007 6:04 PM
Do we know how old the turkeys were? Were they still chicks possible - one story says this "Landeg said that the birds had come from an undisclosed hatchery in the UK, and that none had been moved off the farm. Early indications were that this was a "recent introduction of disease"" http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=184472007
If the infection started in chicks (or was entirely chicks) then the source may be the hatchery - if so that means we might soon see outbreaks elsewhere. Calling them turkeys doesn't tell us how old they were.
Ah ha found this "The first signs of the virus emerged last Tuesday, when 71 chicks died. A further 186 died the following day, 860 on Thursday and 1,500 on Friday." http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2005571,00.html
I had seen that on Dr. Niman's site but hadn't found the confirmation when I started this post. Soooooooooooo where is the hatchery?
Posted by: K | February 3, 2007 9:19 PM
Given the seeming isolation of these birds and the difficulty of them being exposed to virus due to their sequestration, do we dare wonder if this is some kind of industrial sabotage? Sure, terrorists spring to mind if we consider that possibility, but also, does anyone know whether the turkey industry is cut-throat, or if they've fired anyone recently with ties to asia who might hold a grudge? (I'll assume the company doesn't buy smuggled chicks from China like the Nigerians do.)
I applaud the company for being forthright about the situation. Folk in the UK should make a point to buy this company's non-turkey products to help them through the economic hit--this sounds like a brand that is committed to keeping its product clean and well-monitored.
Carrier pigeon!!!....~groan...should I thank you or kill you, McGrath? Yow!
Posted by: Lisa the GP | February 3, 2007 9:23 PM
Um, to add--the rapidity with which the flu spread in the population of 160,000 birds is probably comparable to they way it would spread in a city of that population. Just wanted to point that out to the folk looking at tiny fluctuations and wondering if 'this is it'--I think 'it' is going to be obvious.
Posted by: Lisa the GP | February 3, 2007 9:25 PM
Lisa: of course there is a density difference and spead is a function of density.
Posted by: revere | February 3, 2007 9:37 PM
"It also alleged that some of the farm's 1,000-strong workforce were allowed to walk around the site and its 22 turkey sheds for two days before their movements were restricted."
Wonder who is covering their movements? If they go home and take off their shoes with some poop on it, their cat or dog could catch it. Or parrot. 1,000 workforce riding trains, etc. I am worried about their shoes. This probably was poop from a goose flying overhead that infected the turkeys. Unless the workforce leaves their shoes at home we may be in for something.
Posted by: Another | February 3, 2007 10:55 PM
I have a question: Does culling these birds really halt the spread of the flu? Why is it done, and what proof or science is available that supports culling as effective? I don't quite understand what is actually being accomplished.
John
Posted by: John F. Anderson | February 3, 2007 11:12 PM
Another-Screw their cats and dogs, atomized feces on the cameral lens in Gaza last year landed the TV crew from the BBC in isolation for 21 days and 10,000 bucks to pickup the van and disinfect the outside and then off to a cleaning facility for the inside. The dust carries the bug. If they tromp it into the house the cats and dogs could get it, but more like when they take those boots off they are going to get it on their hands and then you know what happens.
John F-No proof yet that it does. Its fairly apparent that it slows it down but in Indon there are so many vectors now such cats, dogs, pigs and likely pigeons but I havent seen that anywhere yet, but no testing either. Revere has commented in the past on the effects of the loss of the protein in their food supply (no pastures for cows) that the long term effect of this may just be starting to weigh in. Price of chicken is up to about 8 bucks in some places according to a well placed source. That could affect the mental development of the kids. It certainly has the adults in charge of this as they could have really whacked a blow into it two years ago. Might have bought them some more time. My buddy in the news service there says that while well educated they have no funds and the payout for the first cull is going to bankrupt them. Borrowed time and he works in the national news service and says that he has moved his family up into the high country away from volcano's, waves and now the friggin chickens. Basically put he is isolated by 3 kms in any direction before you hit the next house thats 3 kms from the next one. His encrypted message to me is that there are lots of cases of pneumonia in Jakarta and people are dying of that diagnosis. Lots of them. He also said as we start to close the vacation season that you will see more reporting of it there. Economics outweighing good sense.
Thinlina may be right that it is still stoppable but I dont believe that to be the case. It seems to be mutating more towards us than away from us. Previous posts indicated that 1918 flu may have actually been in France for at least two years, then Greece, Turkey and then China. China was the likely haven for it in the 1890's where the medical missionaries and the mandarins were the big recording agents for what whas going on. Mandarins there showed many cases of some disease that dropped people like a coke bottle from an airplane...straight down. Not a LOT of cases mind but whatever it was, it was wicked. Pneumonia was rampant in 1914-17 in the trenches of the Ardenne. Men literally living in water, crapping in water, dying in it. Cold too. Again many, many cases but not defined as flu as we know it. The ones that got it dropped like flies. Explainable for other causes? Sure but damned coincidental. Just as it is now.
Posted by: M. Randolph Kruger | February 3, 2007 11:45 PM
I'm not entirely certain that the population density in some megopoli isn't comparable to the population density in a turkey shed.
Unless you mean the density of individual humans compared to individual turkeys, which in a literal sense is probably denser for humans due to bone-structure differences, but certainly the humans would be most dense in areas with a high population of politicians, right?
okay, trying to be funny while I have a non-influenza fever and probably failing.
carrier pigeon...dang, wish I'd thought of that...
Posted by: Lisa the GP | February 4, 2007 1:42 AM
John: The culling is being done to protect the poultry industry. No one knows what the effect on human flu is. There is controversey about whether the way to do this is culling (thus elminating the reservoir) or vaccination (of birds).Regarding evidence, what kind of evidence would you think we might have? If you think about it, there isn't too much evidence that might bear on it except "thought experiments" (i.e., inferences) at this moment.
Posted by: revere | February 4, 2007 5:29 AM
K: the turkeys were 8 weeks old. Lisa: it was awful but I couldn't resist (and if you live in Britain I am inclined to compound the offence by observing 'Flu-tiful") and Revere is hardly innocent with his recent comment on Clue and Col. Mustard not cutting it.
Seriously: the BBC radio news today is that mortality was first seen in the shed on Tuesday and vets called in. The vets didn't suspect flu until the big die-off on Thursday.
Posted by: Peter McGrath | February 4, 2007 6:02 AM
Peter - at what age do they go to the farm from the hatchery?
Posted by: K | February 4, 2007 7:04 AM
I seem to remember a lot of comments last year in the media that western chucken farms couldn't get the avian flu because of security, etc. Ha, what a joke. Guess they thought they were immmune. What is most important to establish is how the infection got there. The bird poop theory is possible, but so are many others given worker access.
Posted by: Marissa | February 4, 2007 10:46 AM
Lisa-Maybe we can engineer it a bit to take all politicians....! ?
Posted by: M. Randolph Kruger | February 4, 2007 11:40 AM
Randolph. What is that saying about plans and wars? Thanks.
Posted by: Tom DVM | February 4, 2007 2:51 PM
OK answered my own question about what age the chicks go to the farms from the hatcheries - its one day. So if these were 8 weeks then the hatcheries are not the problem. While researching I found this site with some pictures showing the population density - While the streets of Bombay might at times look this dense I think it really surpasses the way that the people of India and other dense countries live.
http://www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/turkeys/
Bernard Matthews appears to be one of the biggest turkey companies in Britain. Also the farm is fairly near the East Coast (of course nothing in Britian is very far from the coast). So introduction from wild birds looks like the likely culprit.
Posted by: K | February 4, 2007 4:36 PM
McGrath, you have a more flu-id wit than I.
Posted by: Lisa the GP | February 4, 2007 7:23 PM
What were they feeding those birds?
According to this report from Grain.org, it is common practice in some parts of the world to grind barn sweepings (feathers, spilled grain, manure, even carcasses) and "reprocess" them into poultry feed. When I heard this I started asking questions at my local feed mill. It turns out I could special order a boutique chicken foodwith known ingredients, but the normal layer mash contained unexplained "animal by-products".
I don't know anything about how they make poultry feed in England. I do know that the price of corn has shot up in recent months due to the futures market and the sudden interest in ethanol. The price of chicken feed has gone up in tandem. The same 50 lb. sack that cost $7.00 a year ago is $11.50 now. If I were raising large quantities of birds commercially, I would be investigating alternate sources of feed. Enough economic pressure, and farmers will be considering sources that they previously would have thought were sketchy.
I should think that the details of this outbreak, at least so far, are enough to let migrating birds off the hook. It's funny to see the mental gymnastics required to fit this incident into the "spread by migratory birds" hypothesis.
(Early in November, my husband and I took advantage of some warm weather and turned our over-the-hill laying flock into freezer meat. If the price of corn is going to keep going up, I will start again in the spring with a flock small enough to subsist mainly on table scraps and garden waste.)
Posted by: Susan Och | February 4, 2007 8:06 PM
You might luck in, Susan. I think we're due for a plague of locusts.
Posted by: Greg | February 5, 2007 12:45 AM
A hatchery in Hungary? Maybe?
Posted by: Thinlina | February 5, 2007 1:39 PM
MRK: "Thinlina may be right that it is still stoppable but I dont believe that to be the case."
Heey man! OMG! I was joking! ;D
Posted by: Thinlina | February 5, 2007 1:55 PM
"Seriously: the BBC radio news today is that mortality was first seen in the shed on Tuesday and vets called in. The vets didn't suspect flu until the big die-off on Thursday.
Posted by: Peter McGrath | February 4, 2007 06:02 AM"
I wonder what else places the vets visited after Holtons'...
Posted by: Thinlina | February 5, 2007 2:02 PM