Microorganisms do not need passports

Background information on poultry flu in Southeast Asia

 It is unlikely that the poultry flu that is currently rampant in Southeast Asia will be brought to Europe or even Germany. However, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Neumann from the Clinic for Poultry at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover the possibility of further expansion in Southeast Asia. According to a statement by a WHO expert, '' Microorganisms do not need passports '', the transport of live poultry or poultry products across the '' green border '', i.e. past controls and trade barriers, could encourage such a further spread. An outbreak of the epidemic in Germany is only to be feared if infected poultry or poultry products were imported before the import ban was imposed on January 23 and if they came into contact with local poultry stocks - or after this date infectious poultry products, eggs or even live birds were illegally imported would have been.

In contrast to the outbreak in the Netherlands in 2003, Prof. Neumann has so far had no detailed information on the origin of the current epidemic. In the Netherlands, in the course of the extensive work of the virologist Prof. Osterhaus from the Erasmus MC University Rotterdam, the avian influenza virus H7N7 was identified as a recombinant from wild ducks with a high probability as the origin of the epidemic. To what extent the origin of the bird flu now caused by the H5N1 pathogen in Southeast Asia can also be found in wild birds can be determined at the earliest in an extensive scientific follow-up.

According to the latest media reports, the World Health Organization (WHO) is concentrating its efforts to contain the epidemic in Southeast Asia on medium-sized farms, each with around 500 animals. The large number of small village poultry farms can hardly be reached. In addition, the keepers are likely to show little motivation to have their animals killed as a preventive measure if they show no signs of illness. Larger animal holdings are the most likely to submit to the rigorous control measures - not least because of the huge financial losses and consequential costs caused by this animal disease. ''In Germany in 2003, as a precautionary measure, poultry in farms with grassland pens were locked up in stables for a few months in order to be able to better protect the stocks from the entry of the virus. Because the risk of infection is naturally greater in open housing systems'', says Prof. Neumann. And further: ''If, despite the shielded husbandry, intensive farms with large numbers of animals are affected, then this is often wrongly perceived by the public as if intensive husbandry is the trigger for this animal disease.''

Rather, the decisive question is how the pathogens are entered into a stock, the expert describes. ''The introduction and spread takes place via almost all conceivable animate and inanimate vectors. First and foremost, ignorance of epidemic hygiene or lack of insight into epidemic hygiene on the part of people themselves play the decisive role. As a result, the choice of transport routes, animal or feed transport with contaminated vehicles, egg cartons, contaminated poultry products or weekly poultry markets contribute to the spread, and finally also rodents and wild birds.'' Since the viruses are capable of surviving for 10 days at appropriate temperatures, the presence of highly infectious pathogen strains in the affected regions automatically entails a corresponding risk of infection.

Source: Bonn [ ilu ]