bird flu follies
So, how did H5N1 (bird flu) get into a turkey farm in the U.K.? A wild bird, of course! It must have flown in through a vent. So what if birds aren't migrating now? No, no, the virus couldn't possibly have been imported from Hungary, where there have been outbreaks, and where the Bernard Matthews company owns plants. Bernard Matthews sez:
All our birds and eggs are English! It's just a coincidence that the strain found in Suffolk is identical to the strain found in Hungary! We have no idea how it got here!
Except... they do. They may have been technically accurate when they claimed they hadn't imported birds or eggs. What they did import from Hungary were rendered turkey parts, apparently contaminated with H5N1.
So far it seems like they're doing a good job with containment, but PR-wise, this is a shining example of how not to respond to an infectious disease outbreak. It's bad enough the Bernard Matthews people were lying through their biohazard suits, when the Environmental Minister says, "there is no Hungarian connection," and then it turns out there is (and you knew there could be), that's a great way to ensure that in the future people won't trust you, even when you are telling the truth.
You may be wondering what this poultry outbreak in the U.K. means for the risk of a human pandemic.
Nada. Zip. Sweet fuck-all.
I feel like the media doesn't do a great job of making this clear when they do their "scientists fear it could turn into a pandemic strain blah blah blah," so I'm gonna try: when it comes to a possible human pandemic, your country's chickens don't really matter. Unless you're in or invested in the poultry business in the U.K., turkeys there getting this strain of bird flu is going to affect you very little.
I'm glad whenever the media sits up and pays attention to bird flu, because I think a pandemic developing out of it is a legitimate possibility. (I'm not saying it will happen, but people who know better than me seem to agree it could.) But people seem to feel it's more of a threat to us (whoever us is) when it's nearer to us in birds. If the birds are literally in your neighborhood, that might be a valid worry. But as long as the virus isn't any good at being transmitted between humans, a human pandemic won't happen. And if the virus ever does get good at being transmitted between humans, it will be everywhere very quickly. Your country could keep poultry in Level 5 biosecurity labs and it wouldn't make you the slightest bit safer from a human pandemic.
Poultry outbreaks in developed countries with decent surveillance are likely to be smothered quickly, before human cases occur. When there are human cases, they are likely to be isolated and tested with dispatch. (Two people involved in the Suffolk cull have already tested negative; they were always unlikely to be cases, but they were tested as soon as they developed upper respiratory symptoms.) The fewer cases there are, bird and human, and the better they are contained, the less likely it is that the virus will have the opportunity to "learn" efficient human-to-human (H2H) transmission. So it's unlikely that a pandemic would start in the U.K. (or the U.S., when and if H5N1 is detected in poultry here).
For that reason, it's not the U.K. we should be concerned about. It's wherever they can't or won't spot it and stamp it out. It's places like Nigeria, where their recent first confirmed human case was only detected because a grieving father arranged for an autopsy. It's places like Indonesia, where the virus is now endemic in birds, and seven of ten confirmed human cases have died since Jan 1. It's Hungary, and Azerbaijan, and Turkey, and Egypt, and Iraq, and Pakistan, and China (where they may well isolate and cull, but we probably won't hear about it). It's North Korea and Myanmar, whence we won't ever hear anything.
Counter-intuitive as it may be, what happens with this virus in Indonesia matters a whole lot more than what goes on in the U.K., even if you live in the U.K.
If you're curious, you can find a summary of human H5N1 cases in graph form here.
In other flu news, the CDC's new guidelines say they'd recommend schools close for three months in a severe pandemic (Level 5 on a new hurricane-type scale). If you had to stay in home for three months, could you?
All our birds and eggs are English! It's just a coincidence that the strain found in Suffolk is identical to the strain found in Hungary! We have no idea how it got here!
Except... they do. They may have been technically accurate when they claimed they hadn't imported birds or eggs. What they did import from Hungary were rendered turkey parts, apparently contaminated with H5N1.
So far it seems like they're doing a good job with containment, but PR-wise, this is a shining example of how not to respond to an infectious disease outbreak. It's bad enough the Bernard Matthews people were lying through their biohazard suits, when the Environmental Minister says, "there is no Hungarian connection," and then it turns out there is (and you knew there could be), that's a great way to ensure that in the future people won't trust you, even when you are telling the truth.
You may be wondering what this poultry outbreak in the U.K. means for the risk of a human pandemic.
Nada. Zip. Sweet fuck-all.
I feel like the media doesn't do a great job of making this clear when they do their "scientists fear it could turn into a pandemic strain blah blah blah," so I'm gonna try: when it comes to a possible human pandemic, your country's chickens don't really matter. Unless you're in or invested in the poultry business in the U.K., turkeys there getting this strain of bird flu is going to affect you very little.
I'm glad whenever the media sits up and pays attention to bird flu, because I think a pandemic developing out of it is a legitimate possibility. (I'm not saying it will happen, but people who know better than me seem to agree it could.) But people seem to feel it's more of a threat to us (whoever us is) when it's nearer to us in birds. If the birds are literally in your neighborhood, that might be a valid worry. But as long as the virus isn't any good at being transmitted between humans, a human pandemic won't happen. And if the virus ever does get good at being transmitted between humans, it will be everywhere very quickly. Your country could keep poultry in Level 5 biosecurity labs and it wouldn't make you the slightest bit safer from a human pandemic.
Poultry outbreaks in developed countries with decent surveillance are likely to be smothered quickly, before human cases occur. When there are human cases, they are likely to be isolated and tested with dispatch. (Two people involved in the Suffolk cull have already tested negative; they were always unlikely to be cases, but they were tested as soon as they developed upper respiratory symptoms.) The fewer cases there are, bird and human, and the better they are contained, the less likely it is that the virus will have the opportunity to "learn" efficient human-to-human (H2H) transmission. So it's unlikely that a pandemic would start in the U.K. (or the U.S., when and if H5N1 is detected in poultry here).
For that reason, it's not the U.K. we should be concerned about. It's wherever they can't or won't spot it and stamp it out. It's places like Nigeria, where their recent first confirmed human case was only detected because a grieving father arranged for an autopsy. It's places like Indonesia, where the virus is now endemic in birds, and seven of ten confirmed human cases have died since Jan 1. It's Hungary, and Azerbaijan, and Turkey, and Egypt, and Iraq, and Pakistan, and China (where they may well isolate and cull, but we probably won't hear about it). It's North Korea and Myanmar, whence we won't ever hear anything.
Counter-intuitive as it may be, what happens with this virus in Indonesia matters a whole lot more than what goes on in the U.K., even if you live in the U.K.
If you're curious, you can find a summary of human H5N1 cases in graph form here.
In other flu news, the CDC's new guidelines say they'd recommend schools close for three months in a severe pandemic (Level 5 on a new hurricane-type scale). If you had to stay in home for three months, could you?