Migratory birds and bird flu.

[Ian May <>]

g'Day all

In the past week several media sources have repeated that migratory birds are likely to cause the spread of the bird flu.  I would like to find out more of the facts.  As Michael Hunter pointed out to this forum recently, we know that some water birds carry undesirables such as Ross River vir us but is there evidence and not just assumption, that migratory birds are responsible for spreading the bird flu vir us H5N1?   If so would somebody be kind enough to quote references please.

An internet search of  "bird flu"  "migratory birds" source about 100 hits to one statement  "Migratory birds are what carry the disease," said World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman Bob Dietz.  It appears to me that this one unsupported statement could be be the source of much of this media hysteria.   And this morning a spokesman for the Australian Quarantine Service (Carson?) during an interview on Adelaide radio 5AA said "migratory birds are spreading the vir us"

A variety of articles relating to the subject are linked below;

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994614
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/66821/1/.html
http://onenews.nzoom.com/onenews_detail/0,1227,251469-1-6,00.html
http://www.unwire.org/UNWire/20040127/449_12492.asp
http://www.iht.com/articles/126685.htm
http://www.komotv.com/healthwatch/story.asp?ID=29521

What are the facts?

Regards
 

Ian May

Price, SA

0409 474 575