May 31, 2006

 

Experts say wild fowls not totally to blame for bird flu

 

 

Experts at a conference on bird flu said Tuesday (May 30) that wild birds were not entirely to blame for the spread of the deadly H5N1 strain, and urged countries to refrain from mass killings of wild birds.

 

"The message is: Don't blame only the wild birds," Joseph Domenech, head of the Animal Health Service at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, said on the sidelines of the two-day conference that opened Tuesday in Rome.

 

"We don't know if wild birds can become long-term reservoirs of the virus," he said. "We are not supporting actions on wild birds, such as killings. If wild birds have a role, the only answer is to monitor them."

 

The conference gathered more than 300 scientists and animal experts from 100 countries to discuss the role of wild birds and other questions in hopes of finding ways to control the further spread of the disease. The conference is organised by the Rome-based FAO and the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health.

 

"Wild birds can introduce the virus to an area, but disease spread is usually due to human actions," such as poor hygiene in poultry farms and bad surveillance of poultry trade, said Juan Lubroth, a senior officer for animal health at the FAO.

 

The H5N1 strain has ravaged poultry flocks in Asia, Europe and Africa, but experts are unsure if migratory birds or the commercial poultry trade

deserve most of the blame for spreading the disease.

 

Lubroth said experts were still puzzling over what wild bird species were more susceptible to the virus, and how long they could keep flying and spreading the virus once they were infected. "Dead birds don't fly," Lubroth said.

 

Experts also wonder why the virus, widespread in South-east Asia since 2003, only started moving to Europe and Africa last year, said Samuel Jutzi, director of FAO's animal production and health division.

 

"Why all of a sudden that happened is not entirely clear," Jutzi told the Associated Press on the eve of the conference. "And if the wild birds had a role in that, why didn't they have one before?"

 

Evidence on the role of wild birds is not always conclusive in the areas where H5N1 has appeared. Migratory birds introduced the disease in Russia and Eastern Europe, but in the case of recent outbreaks in Africa no evidence has yet been found pointing to wild birds, Jutzi said.

 

Also on the agenda of the conference is surveillance of wild birds and poultry, risk assessment and disease management.