H5N1

Avian flu still spreading in Turkey

Turkey hasn't reported any new human cases of H5N1, but Turkish Press.com says Number Of Bird Flu Positive Cities Rises To 31.

Bird Flu National Coordination Center stated on Monday that the number of bird flu positive cities rose from 28 to 31.

The number of bird flu detected localities is 67, added the center.

Meanwhile, the number of bird flu suspected cities dropped from 27 to 26, and localities from 73 to 66.

A total of 1,596,000 poultry have been culled across the country due to bird flu so far.

The Iraqis claim to have culled half a million poultry in just a couple of days, while it's taken Turkey a month to destroy just three times that number. Even if the Iraqis are telling the truth, I doubt that their methods have been sanitary.

Top candidates for the Darwin Awards

Never mind the Oscars. Some young Romanians, with little or no training, have vaulted to the front of the many idiots vying for the Darwin Awards: Romanians Torture and Kill Wild Birds Near Danube.

Romanians have been torturing and killing wild birds stranded by freezing weather close to where the country's first bird flu outbreak was detected in October, a wildlife organisation said on Tuesday.

"Around 15 young men, aged between 20 and 25, were catching the birds, throwing them in the air, using birds which were still living as soccer balls, and tearing off their heads," Razvan Popescu, director of the Oceanic Club wildlife protection organisation told Reuters. The birds had been too cold and tired to fly as temperatures plummeted as low as minus 20 Celsius near the Danube delta.

The Darwin Awards go to those who remove themselves from the gene pool through acts of truly sublime stupidity. I don't want to think about acts more sublime than what these guys did.

WHO sends experts to Iraq

Via Voice of America News: WHO Sends Experts to Probe Avian Flu in Iraq. As usual, you have to read to the end of the story to find the important point:

[WHO spokesman Ian] Simpson says the surveillance system in Iraq is weak because security problems make it difficult to move around and get accurate information.

"There clearly is a surveillance system," he said. "At a basic level it is working because it picked up this case. But, we do have concerns about how good the surveillance system is and we particularly have concerns, as in the case of Turkey, about the surveillance system of animals. You can imagine, if the human health surveillance system is relatively basic, then the system for animals surveillance is likely to be even more so."

So Iraq has security problems because the US thought it had security problems regarding weapons of mass destruction, and now H5N1 is flourishing in a little island of anarchy, where the WHO experts could be picked up by kidnappers and beheaded to score a point against President Bush.

This is not to say that Saddam Hussein, had he stayed in power, would have culled chickens as energetically as he used to cull his enemies. But once he was out of power, the Iraqis had a right to expect their occupiers to provide something better than anarchy.

All this sorrow and violence suffered in the name of "security," and look at how much security we now enjoy.

Iraqi hunters hang up their shotguns

Via Knight-Ridder: A part of Iraqi life - hunting - has been lost to the war. The story quotes Aws Abdul Raheem, who once found solace, plus a little extra income, hunting birds:

"Hunting is banned this year," he explained. "But it wasn't very good anymore."

For example, take the Francolin, a favorite sport bird of Iraqi hunters. Known locally as Deraj - walking birds - they used to be plentiful, foraging off the seeds in the grain fields between and around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. But since the war, with water hard to find and remote areas dangerous, farmers have abandoned their fields, and the fertile green patches have turned gradually to dust. The birds have vanished with all other life.

In fact, Ali Ibraheem, the head of the Ministry of Agriculture's Animal Protection Department, said officials had banned hunting both out of a fear of bird extinction and the threat of the deadly flu.

"Hunting wild birds is forbidden," he said. "But wild birds are now unwanted visitors here."

US military plans for H5N1 European outbreak

Via the Wall Street Journal Avian Flu Watch, a story in Stars & Stripes: Military lays out plans should avian flu break out in Europe.

The U.S. military in Europe would consider restricting the movement of troops, families and civilians as a way to combat the outbreak of the avian influenza, in the event the virus mutates and starts spreading from human to human.

The military's plan, as discussed at a conference earlier this month in Stuttgart, would be orchestrated with host nations and U.S. embassies.

It strives to shield troops and families from the disease while also allowing U.S. military missions to continue unfettered.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said that genius lies in the ability to hold two opposing ideas in one's head at the same time, and still function. Judging from that last paragraph, geniuses are thriving in the American military.

Questions about Algeria

I've been aware for a couple of days about news stories reporting no avian flu in Algeria. I didn't pay much attention, because we're now jumping at any sudden noise. Even poultry breeders can die of something besides H5N1.

But a reader raised the question this morning, and that led me to explore a little more:

Algeria said on Monday that tests for bird flu on a dead poultry breeder had proved negative, easing fears that had depressed the price of poultry by more than 50 percent.

The authorities said last week they were carrying out blood tests after a poultry breeder died and three of his relatives fell ill and were taken to hospital.

"There is no sign of bird flu. The tests were negative," a health ministry official told Reuters.

Algerian media had reported that the four people had shown flu-like symptoms in the western city of Oran.

When a possible outbreak gets attention in the major online media, I like to go to a local source. But what are these "Algerian media" that Reuters talked to? Doing a Yahoo regional search, I found exactly two links. One didn't work and the other took me to a porn site.

So if anyone can direct me to an English- or French-language Algerian news source, I'd be very grateful. Even when a sudden noise isn't a burglar (or a pandemic), it deserves investigation.

Kurds unprepared for H5N1

According to a story from the Kurdistan Regional Government, Iraqi Kurdistan faces acute shortage of Tamiflu.

Iraq's Kurdistan region, which has confirmed its first human death from bird flu, is facing an acute shortage of the vital drug to fight the disease, a medical official said Tuesday.

Local authorities in northern Iraq, meanwhile, have culled half a million birds in the border areas with Turkey and Iran.

"We are suffering from a lack of medicine to combat the virus," Tahseen Nameq, head of a joint Kurdish committee set up to combat the spread of the disease, told AFP.

"We have received only 50 pills of Tamiflu," or just medicine for five cases, he said.

Azerbaijan bird deaths aren't likely H5N1

Via Baku Today: Research Does Not Find Bird Flu Viruses in Azerbaijan Regions.

Ismaylov said the dead birds have been examined by the State Veterinary Service, which did not find traces of the bird flu virus. Ismaylov added that cold weather most likely caused the birds' death. Birds already weakened by migration and poor nourishment have often been victims of cold weather; such occurrences have been noted in the past, he said.

BBC on H5N1 in Iraq

BBC Online has a good survey of the bird flu scare in north Iraq. Twelve persons are now being treated as suspect cases.

New York Times on the Kurdish outbreak

Elizabeth Rosenthal has a good summary of the situation in northern Iraq: Iraqi Teenager's Death of Bird Flu Suggests Rapid Spread. As is often the case, the real shocker is buried near the bottom of the story:

Over the past few months, there have been occasional reports of large- scale bird deaths in both Iran and northern Iraq, places that veterinary officials had tagged as high risk because they are on bird migration routes. But H5N1 was never implicated.

In October, there were large-scale deaths on commercial farms in northern Iraq, Dr. Kennard said. Birds were tested and "we were told it was negative," he said, "but we're not entirely sure how reliable that is."