Fatal strain of bird flu confirmed in Turkey
By Elisabeth Rosenthal International Herald Tribune
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2005
ROME Thousands of birds that died in Turkey over the past week succumbed to the same deadly avian influenza virus that has ravaged Southeast Asia over the past five years, medical tests performed in England confirmed Thursday.
It is the first time that the disease has been reported in a European country, marking a new phase in the spread of the dreaded virus across the globe.
"We can now say that it was definitely the H5N1 virus" said Dr. Samuel Jutzi, director of the Animal Production and Health Division at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, the body that tracks animal diseases. He predicted that tests completed in the next few days would probably show that recent bird deaths in Romania were also caused by the virus.
But he suggested that the next stopping-off point for H5N1 would probably be adjacent countries and African nations rather than Western Europe, because the virus is believed to be traveling with migratory bird flocks moving south for the winter.
The dreaded H5N1 strain of bird flu has been responsible for tens if not hundreds of millions of animal deaths in Asia since its appearance in 1997 and its control has cost governments in the region billions of dollars.
The deadliest strain of all the bird flu viruses, H5N1, has also infected 120 humans, generally people in close contact with sick birds. About half of them have died.
The test results confirming the virus' presence in northwestern Turkey were first announced by the European health commissioner, Markos Kyprianou, at a press conference in Brussels on Thursday. He said the commission was proposing to set aside 1 billion, or $1.2 billion, to finance the manufacturing and distribution of anti-flu drugs and vaccines in case of a human pandemic. He urged countries to "stockpile antiviral" drugs "as the first line of defense" for man.
But Jutzi stressed that, for the moment at least, "we continue to state that this is an animal disease, an animal health problem, that we want to deal with aggressively in order to prevent a human pandemic."
Though the deadly H5N1 strain does not currently spread from man to man, scientists have worried that it might one day acquire that ability through naturally occurring processes, setting off a wave of death that would quickly travel the world.
The most effective way to prevent such a mutation and the spread to humans is to control and squash outbreaks in animals, Jutzi said, noting that only $30 million had been donated by UN member states for that purpose to date, though $175 million had been requested more than two years ago.
"The amount we have is rather ridiculous compared to what health authorities in many countries are investing in stockpiling medicines," he said. "The international community should invest in preventing the pandemic, rather than just pandemic preparedness."
Italy, for example, has ordered 35 million worth of human anti-flu medicines to protect its population in the event of a human pandemic, and the United States more than $100 million.
The spread of H5N1 into Europe had been predicted by many veterinarians after the disease moved westward from southeast Asia, where it is endemic. This summer it moved to Mongolia, Western China, Russia and Kazakhstan - just over the mountains that separate Asia from Europe - born by migrating birds.
In addition to the recent large scale bird deaths in Turkey and Romania, Iranian veterinary authorities at the Ministry of Agriculture on Wednesday notified the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health of "an emerging disease" of "high mortality" in wild ducks in the western part of the country. Nearly 4,000 animals had died since Oct. 2, the notice said.
Noting that bird flu could be "likely," the organization has requested further information, its Web site said.
UN authorities say that Turkey and Romania quickly took appropriate action to control and limit the newly arrived bird disease, limiting its spread.
"We do not expect a major outbreak or that it will become widespread as it did in Asia a few years ago, because the veterinary services in these countries reacted very effectively," Jutzi said.
In domestic poultry, the first line response is to kill all exposed birds and quarantine the area, although that is not a possibility among wild birds.
Turkey has killed 7,600 birds and disinfected land around a farm where 1,800 birds died of the disease. Romanian authorities killed thousands of domestic birds near a village in the Danube delta, a haven for migrating birds.
But Jutzi said that the disease would be much more difficult to control if it reached Africa, since poorer countries often lacked the disease surveillance capacity and health systems to orchestrate a swift response.
In Turkey, only a few hours after the EU announcement, a Health Ministry official, Turan Buzgan, gave a televised press conference assuring citizens that there was not a public health threat and that the virus had not been detected in Turkey. "The measures taken are sufficient," he said.
Still, there were reports of panicked citizens lining up for flu shots and buying antiviral medicines.
But conventional flu shots, which protect against seasonal influenza, would have no effect in protecting against a mutated human bird flu virus, said David Nabarro, the United Nations's chief official in charge of flu preparedness.
These are given during bird outbreaks as a public health measure, to insure that people in close contact with ill birds do not get infected with the bird flu virus and the conventional virus at the same time. Such coinfection allows the viruses to exchange genes and makes mutation of the bird flu more likely.
Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting for this article from Istanbul.
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