WHO Urges Close Bird Flu Watch in Russia, Kazakhstan
Date: 19-Aug-05
Country: RUSSIA
Author: Stephanie Nebehay
It also urged checks on respiratory patients who may have been exposed to sick birds.
In a statement, the UN agency expressed concern about the "expanding geographical presence" of the deadly H5N1 virus beyond southeast Asia, but said that no human cases had been detected in either former Soviet republic.
Russia officials said on Wednesday they were investigating mass bird deaths in a Caspian region to the west of the Ural mountains in what could be the first case of the virus reaching Europe after killing more than 50 people in Asia since 2003.
Health officials fear the virus will mutate and mix with human influenza, creating a deadly pandemic strain that can easily be transmitted and could kill millions of people.
The WHO said the outbreak in Russia, initially in Siberia, had spread westward to affect six administrative regions, while several Kazakh villages were now known to have diseased poultry.
Avian influenza outbreaks in the two countries have involved large farms and small backyard flocks, with "close to 120,000 birds dead or destroyed in Russia and more than 9,000 affected in Kazakhstan," it said.
"The expanding geographical presence of the virus is of concern as it creates further opportunities for human exposure," the WHO said in an update posted on its Web site www.who.int.
The virus had repeatedly demonstrated its ability, in outbreaks in Hong Kong in 1997, in Hong Kong in 2003 and in south-east Asia since eary 2004, to "cross the species barrier to infect humans, causing severe disease with high fatality".
"Each additional human case increases opportunities for the virus to improve its transmissibility ...," it added.
The pathogenic virus does not transmit easily from poultry to people and most human cases have been linked to direct exposure to dead or diseased poultry, notably during slaughtering, defeathering and food preparation, it said.
However, tight surveillance for outbreaks among poultry and mass "die-offs" of migratory birds was called for, according to the Geneva-based WHO.
