Russian bird flu epidemic to fade soon -WHO By Denis Pinchuk
Tue Aug 9, 8:45 AM ET
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - A bird flu epidemic in Russian Siberia is subsiding and should disappear altogether in 10-15 days, a World Health Organization (WHO) specialist said on Tuesday.
But Russian health and emergency officials were less optimistic, suggesting the disease could still spread to new regions -- and as far away as the United States.
"Things are quietening down. The (epidemic) will vanish in 10-15 days," Oleg Kiselyov, head of a research institute operating under the WHO's auspices, told reporters in Russia's second city of St Petersburg.
"It won't spread further because of changing weather conditions. It's never warm enough in Siberia in late August ... The measures undertaken have helped localize the outbreak."
The highly potent H5N1 strain, which has struck mainly in the Siberian region of Novosibirsk, has killed over 50 people in Asia since 2003.
Outbreaks that have killed wildfowl and poultry in Russia and Kazakhstan since mid-July have raised fears the disease could spread to humans on the Eurasian land mass, sparking fears of a worldwide epidemic.
Some health officials fear that the virus could mutate into a lethal strain rivaling or even exceeding the Spanish flu pandemic that killed up to 40 million people at the end of World War One.
In a another sign of calm, the Emergencies Ministry said that the number of deaths among domestic and wild birds was just 15 overnight compared with a total of 5,583 since mid-July.
But Russia's top epidemiologist, Gennady Onishchenko, said it was too early to draw rosy conclusions.
"The (epidemic) is being localized. Its spread is currently limited to five regions, but that does not mean that birds could not be dying somewhere else," he was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency in Novosibirsk region.
"We would've been drinking champagne by now if it had been pinned down," he added.
There were also fears among Russian veterinary officials that migrating birds could take the virus to other countries.
"It's possible that they (birds) have already spread it (beyond Russia)," Yevgeny Nepoklonov, deputy head of the state veterinary watchdog, told Interfax.
"They (birds) fly not only over Siberia but also along the far eastern coast on to the United States of America. Some birds fly along the Kazakh border from Novosibirsk water reservoirs and then on to the (Volga town) of Volgograd."
There was no word on Tuesday on Kazakhstan, where bird flu had been registered in several regions bordering Russia's Siberia.
In another Central Asian country, Uzbekistan, the agriculture ministry said it was suspending imports of poultry and eggs from Russia and Kazakhstan due to the outbreak. The move followed similar plans by the European Union, although Brussels buys no poultry from the two ex-Soviet countries. |
