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From: "Whittaker, Mark" <>
To: 'Ian May' <>,
Subject: Migratory birds and bird flu.
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 16:44:00 +1100
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G'day
I don't know about H5N1, but I can tell you that Graeme/Graham Laver at
ANU
first discovered the presence of influenza antibodies in wild birds in
1969.
I remember him telling me a few years ago that, in part, he was looking
to
solve the puzzle of where the flu hid between outbreaks. He tested
about 320
otherwise healthy wedge-tailed shearwaters at Tryon Island on the
Barrier
Reef and found that 18 of them carried Type A flu antibodies.
I just dived into Google and found this reference.
(Dasen and Laver , Bull. World Health Org 42, 885-889, 1970).
in the article I just found, (by putting Laver influenza shearwater into
Google) he mentions that "In 1961 an H5N1 virus killed many terns in
South
Africa".
Hope this helps
Mark Whittaker
-----Original Message-----
From: Ian May
Sent: Tuesday, 3 February 2004 4:03
To:
Subject: Migratory birds and bird flu.
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.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994614>
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/66821/1/
.html
<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://onenews.nzoom.com/onenews_detail/0,1227,251469-1-6,00.html>
http://www.unwire.org/UNWire/20040127/449_12492.asp
<http://www.unwire.org/UNWire/20040127/449_12492.asp>
http://www.iht.com/articles/126685.htm
<http://www.iht.com/articles/126685.htm>
http://www.komotv.com/healthwatch/story.asp?ID=29521
<http://www.iht.com/articles/126685.htm>
What are the facts?
Regards
Ian May
Price, SA
0409 474 575
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