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Friday, March 17, 2006
Three people hospitalized for possible avian flu
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By Assaf Uni, Ran Reznick and Amiram Cohen, Haaretz Correspondents, Agencies and Haaretz Staff
Three workers at two Negev kibbutzim where more than 1,000 turkeys were found dead Thursday were taken to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva on Friday for treatment of possible bird flu.
Meanwhile, the bird flu was suspected of spreading to two additional sites Friday - Moshav Sde Moshe, near the southern town of Kiryat Gat, and Kibbutz Nachshon, 25 kilometers from Jerusalem.
One of the patients, a Thai laborer who works at Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, is being held in isolation. The other two, Bedouin from the Tel Arad region who work at Kibbutz Holit, said they had been feeling sick for the past few days but could not get off work. Hospital administrators said test results for the three kibbutz workers would be ready by Sunday.
The possible human infections came as lab tests appeared to confirm suspicions that more than 1,000 turkeys in Ein Hashlosha, Holit and Nachshon were infected by the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus.
However, the World Health Organization does not view the test conducted on the turkeys, called PCR, as a definitive confirmation of the existence of the viral strain. Israel is in the process of conducting a second, stricter test, whose results are expected by Sunday.
Meanwhile, Israel on Friday halted all exports of unprocessed chicken and turkey meat to overseas destinations.
Israel decided not to wait for the results of the stricter test, however, and authorities began preparations Friday to kill tens of thousands of birds suspected of being infected by bird flu. The culling, which will be carried out by poisoning the drinking water of birds within a three-kilometer radius of the kibbutzim thought to be affected by the virus, will begin Sunday in all three kibbutzim.
In addition, health authorities decided to fly four million doses of bird flu vaccines into Israel from Holland. The government will consider vaccinating all birds in Israel in an attempt to prevent the virus from spreading.
The initial confirmation marks the first time that the deadly virus - which has killed at least 97 people worldwide and led to the slaughter of tens of millions of birds - has been detected in Israeli birds.
Government officials attempted to calm the public, saying that the chance of human infection was low and that cooked poultry does not transmit the virus.
"The risk that people will contract [the virus] is very very low," Health Ministry Director General Prof. Avi Yisraeli said Friday.
Ministry officials stressed that there is no reason for people to stop eating poultry, since the virus cannot be transmitted via cooked food. However, poultry farmers said that their main fear is that the public will ignore this reassurance. Indeed, merchants said demand for poultry products, especially turkey, was low Friday. Poultry farmers said a panic-driven consumer boycott of poultry could do their businesses even more harm than the destruction of their flocks.
After the turkey deaths were reported in the south Thursday, the veterinary authorities imposed a quarantine on Ein Hashlosha and Holit as well as two neighboring kibbutzim, Nirim and Kissufim. The quarantine was extended to 10 kilometers Friday.
The quarantine means that no birds can enter or leave the kibbutzim, and
no people will be allowed into the coops except those who must care for the birds that are still alive.
These essential personnel are required to don suitable protective gear - masks, goggles and protective clothing - before entering.
Virus could have come from Egypt or Gaza
The H5N1 virus was detected in neighboring Egypt last month, and Agriculture Minister Ze'ev Boim said that the death of the birds in southern Israel might indicate that the disease entered the country from Egypt.
Another possibility is that the disease entered from Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces therefore asked the Palestinian Authority to deliver blood samples of poultry from Gaza Strip henhouses, in order to determine whether they were the source of the virus.
The suspicion that the virus had reached Israel first emerged Thursday morning, when veterinarians at Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha discovered 400 dead birds in one of the coops. At about the same time, nearby Kibbutz Holit reported suspicious deaths among its turkeys. Initial laboratory tests determined that at least one of the birds had died of avian flu, but further testing is needed to determine whether it was the deadly H5N1 strain.
Further deaths were reported at both coops later in the day, and the death toll eventually climbed to more than 1,000.
"They're dropping like flies. I've never seen anything like it," said Dr. Yariv Agur, an expert on avian diseases who visited the Holit coops on Thursday.
Veterinary authorities said Friday that the virus was suspected of having spread to Kibbutz Nachshon as well.
Agur said that anyone who was in contact with the affected birds ought to be given immediate preventive treatment. At Ein Hashlosha, he added, that could include more than just farmers and veterinarians, since there, "the coops are inside the kibbutz, so the virus surely exists in every nook and cranny."
However, the virus can only be caught via close contact with infected birds. As a result, though the Health Ministry also advised anyone who has been in contact with the birds on either kibbutz to contact the local health authority, it does not plan to issue any advisories to the general public or take any special steps that would affect the general public.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/695120.html
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