Birds [sic] flu found in market near Saudi capital-report

This is truly scary stuff. Bird flu infected birds are starting to make it into the food supplies. Its bad enough a few families might eat home grown birds with the flu, but this is a public market.

Thank god this was discovered before the annual haj in Mecca.

Bird flu has been found in birds at a poultry market on the outskirts of the Saudi capital Riyadh, newspapers reported on Tuesday.

Al-Watan newspaper carried photographs of an agriculture ministry team in masks and white coats in the Aziziya market south of Riyadh, saying bird flu cases had been found there. It was not clear what strain of bird flu had been detected.

The discovery comes just a few weeks before nearly 2 million faithful arrive for the annual haj pilgrimage season in Mecca.

Arab News said birds had been culled in the area after four cases of bird flu were found during a random inspection.

Agriculture and health ministry officials were not available for comment.

Saudi authorities last week culled 50,000 birds at a poultry farm in al-Kharj, 150 km (94 miles) south of Riyadh, after 1,500 birds died of unspecified causes.

Officials said this week 220,000 birds have been culled so far, as teams combed other areas near the capital which has a population of around 4 million.

Via Reuters.

Indonesia to resume sending H5N1 samples to WHO

Hahaha. Those sneaky Indonesians.

Just joking. This is a shrewd move on their part. Its about time countries insist they be treated equally. Jakarta had a trump card and played it.

Indonesia will resume sharing bird flu samples with the World Health Organisation (WHO), but under a new mechanism aimed at ensuring developing nations get access to vaccines, the health minister and the WHO said on Friday.

In a controversial move, Jakarta last week declared it would only share its H5N1 bird flu virus samples with parties who agreed not to use them for commercial reasons and had stopped sharing them with the WHO.

"We agree to responsible sharing practices and we're going to do it soon," Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari told reporters.

She said that a proposal would be drawn up that would be fair and guarantee access for any products resulting from the sharing of samples to other developing countries.

(read more)

Possible H5N1 avian flu in Philippines via Japanese egret

This demonstrates the danger of H5N1 avian flu. Its carried by birds and birds fly. Duh. No country is safe from it.

The Philippines urged people on Tuesday not to touch migratory birds in case they are infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus, after an egret believed to have flown from Japan died two days after being captured by a farmer.

"You can watch, but don't capture or touch migratory birds," Theresa Mundita Lim, director of the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau, told Reuters by phone.

The Philippines, a known sanctuary for migratory birds, has remained free of the virus that has killed at least 166 people worldwide but the death of the egret, captured on Feb. 5 in a village in central Sorsogon province, has sparked concern.

"There is no evidence at this time that would prove that the egret died of avian influenza," Lim said, adding it was not wise to exhume the bird for testing.

"The egret has a leg band that indicated it came from Japan."

Village officials in Sorsogon, 350 km (220 miles) southeast of Manila, presented the dead bird to the mayor, who ordered its immediate burial for fear it had avian flu, a newspaper reported.

Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes urged the public not to touch migratory birds, to prevent any possible human infection.

(read more)

Indonesia declares bird flu a national disaster

Bird flu isn't going away whether you want it to or not. The WHO (World Health Organization) is predicting a world-wide pandemic.

Indonesia is set to declare bird flu as a national disaster, giving the government access to special funds to combat the disease that has killed 63 people nationwide, the planning minister said today.

“It has become an epidemic,” Paskah Suzetta said in the capital, Jakarta, where authorities are preparing for the compulsory slaughter of thousands of backyard chickens as part of high-profile efforts to fight the H5N1 virus.

“The president has indicated he will declare it a national disaster so money can be allocated from the state budget’s disaster fund,” he added.

Indonesia, which has suffered more than a third of the world’s human deaths from bird flu, has been criticised in the past for failing to crack down on the disease when it first appeared in poultry stocks nearly four years ago.

It is now endemic in chickens almost all over the country and, despite optimism late last year that it may have been contained, killed six people in the last month. Many of the 63 people who have died lived near Jakarta, home also to more than 100,000 backyard chickens, ducks, doves and song birds.

Authorities, who gave residents weeks to voluntarily get rid of their birds, will now go door to door in some neighbourhoods to make sure the order is carried out, said Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso.

(read more)