Avian Flu flies West

Up to August 2005, the new Avian Flu was reported to be exclusively in East Asia. However, in August it struck 45 Russian regions in the space of two months since first appearing in Siberia and there were investigations going on as to whether avian disease in Finland heralded its arrival there in its inexorable move West. The fear is that it will transmute to cross between humans in a virulent form like the avian flu of 1918 which killed 40 to 100 million people depending on which scientific study you believe.

 

In Russia, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Kurgan, Tiumen, Chelyabinsk, Altay Kray and Kalmyk Republic, declared the Supervision Service of Consumers Rights. A spokesperson for the Russian Federation's Ministry of Exceptional Situations said on 21 August that no Russian bird had died from bird flu. Media reports contradicted this, quoting other government sources that said the virus had killed 8,347 birds by 9 August.

 

Alexey Gordeev, Russia's minister of agriculture, tried to calm fears by saying that it is known the birds are coming from the south east. "The situation is better now and the epidemics have been localised," he said, arguing that the main task was to prevent the disease from spreading in battery farms. The Ministry of Agriculture said it will use government reserve funds to assist the affected areas and is preparing a report on the problem for prime minister Mikhail Fradkov.

 

Levels of compensation given to farmers in exchange for killing affected birds have not been encouraging, However. Media reports claim a few farmers in Siberia have been hiding their chickens in the forests to prevent vets from taking them away.

 

The authorities have set up 'sanitary zones' around all farms in Kaliningrad, and all the roads coming to them from the borders are closed. Siberia is the epicenter of the epidemic. Thailnd currently favors RFID tagging of one bird in 100 or so as one form of traceability, once it is proven in trials.