- (AFP) -- As bird flu takes a greater hold of Asia and
answers are sought to what brought the scourge, officials are lining up
to blame migratory and wild birds for spreading the virus.
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- National health and agriculture chiefs have joined World
Health Organisation (WHO) officials in making foreign birds the scapegoats
for the present outbreaks.
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- At the same time experts are providing more and more
scientific evidence to support the politicians' claims.
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- The Philippines Wednesday became the latest country to
suggest migratory birds were the cause of unprecedented outbreaks in 10
different countries.
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- "Don't feed them (wild birds), don't go near them,
don't touch them," Ronel Avila, quarantine chief at the Philippines
agriculture department warned a nation that regularly hunts and eats wild
fowl.
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- On Monday, Hong Kong health chief Yeoh Eng-kiong made
no bones about his government's stance.
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- "I have ... asked (agriculture department) colleagues
to step up our surveillance on wild birds," Yeoh said. "This
is still the current proximate, that the wild birds -- migratory birds
-- are carrying the virus."
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- Hong Kong has been carefully monitoring bird flu since
the H5N1 strain, which is ravaging parts of Asia at the moment, first appeared
in humans in a 1997 outbreak that killed six people.
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- Yeoh pointed to the discovery of a dead Peregrine falcon
with the H5N1 virus last week as evidence that visiting birds were bringing
in the disease. Tests showed, however, it had not infected nearby poultry
farms.
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- As the rhetoric has begun heating up, scientists have
begun lending their weight in support.
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- Bob Dietz and Peter Cordingley, officials with the UN's
World Health Organisation (WHO), which is coordinating international efforts
to halt the virus' spread, have also gone on record saying migratory birds
could be to blame.
-
- And in Australia, scientists affiliated to the nation's
leading scientific institution have warned farmers to protect their flocks
from wild birds.
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- "It is important to have housing for the chickens,
which prevents wild birds from entering to minimise the risk of diseases
being introduced," Dr Brian Eaton, a virologist with the Australian
Animal Health Laboratory said Wednesday.
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- One of the few links between the 10 countries so far
infected is their proximity to the East Asian Flyway, the natural aerial
route that millions of birds take on their annual north-south migrations.
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- Scientists suggest migrating birds could have introduced
the virus in their droppings or passed it on to domesticated birds during
stop-offs in their winter journeys south for the warm weather and summer
flights north.
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- Fearing a spate of attacks on birds, environmentalists
have dismissed the claims arguing that wild birds don't actually mix with
domesticated breeds and that any suffering from flu would be too weak to
reach the region.
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- Hong Kong City University microbiologist Desmond O'Toole,
however, suggested close proximity to domesticated birds was not necessary.
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- "You don't have to touch a bird to become infected
from one -- the virus can travel very easily in the air and over great
distances," O'Toole told AFP.
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- He cited studies of the British foot and mouth outbreak
among livestock in 2001, which he said showed the virus had blown into
the British Isles from continental Europe.
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- "The virus is very hardy -- most viruses are --
and can live for days in the air or in droppings before they find a suitable
host."
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