Russia Cuts Down On Polish Poultry Due To Bird Flu Reports

Russia slapped additional limits on imports of live poultry, eggs and other products from Poland following reports of a bird flu outbreak in the country, Russia’s veterinary control service said.

‘In addition to the existing ban on meat and poultry meat from Poland we put a temporary limit to imports of live birds, incubation eggs, all kinds of products including feathers and down, food for birds, as well as equipment for keeping, killing and dissecting birds,’ the service’s spokesman said as quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency.

The highly pathogenic avian strain H5N1, commonly known as bird flu, was detected on two turkey farms in central Poland on Dec 1. Bird flu was found last year in the country, but in wild birds.

Report: Better Bird Flu Warning Needed

A U.S. researcher says international scientists need to do a better job of tracking avian influenza viruses.

Walter Boyce, co-director for the Center for Rapid Influenza Surveillance and Research, said current efforts are piecemeal and risk missing important virus sources or subtypes, the University of California, Davis, said Friday in a release.

In a commentary published in the journal Nature, the UC Davis professor said surveillance has focused too heavily on Europe and North America, where few wild birds are infected. He said more surveillance should be done in places where the virus is endemic, such as China, Southeast Asia and Africa.

Boyce is also concerned that a reluctance to share data and samples hampers health officials’ ability to track and respond to potential pandemic viruses. Boyce recommends that the scientific community set a standard of releasing data no more than 45 days after it is generated.

China – Fears of Human To Human Bird Flu Transmission

The father of a Chinese man who died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu last week has also been diagnosed with the disease, authorities said on Friday.

The National Disease Authority has confirmed that a 52-year-old man surnamed Lu from the Nanjing, capital of the eastern province Jiangsu, was feverish with the H5N1 strain on Thursday, the Ministry of Health reported on its Web site www.moh.gov.cn.

This latest case raises troublesome questions about how the man was infected.

Humans can contract H5N1 from close contact with infected birds, but scientists fear the disease could mutate into a version that spreads from person-to-person, risking wider outbreaks or even a global pandemic.

Lus son died on Sunday from the same disease, making the question of how these two infections occurred especially important.

The Xinhua news agency had earlier reported that the son had had no contact with dead poultry and there had been no reported poultry outbreak in the province.

The latest report did not say whether contact with infected poultry had been confirmed in either of the infections.

With the worlds biggest poultry population and millions of backyard birds roaming free, China is at the centre of the fight against bird flu.

This latest case brings the number of confirmed human infections of bird flu in China to 27. The Ministry of Health said the World Health Organization had been notified of this latest case.

WHO representatives in Beijing could not be contacted for comment late on Friday evening.

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