British birdwatchers to warn of avian flu threat

The Guardian
Aug. 25, 2005

Birdwatchers will be enlisted to provide an early warning system amid increasing fears that avian flu will reach Britain, it emerged today.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is meeting the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the British Trust for Ornithology following the spread of bird flu from Asia to western Russia, a Defra spokesman said.

"We are meeting with the organisations to see how we can work more closely on surveillance and get advice on the migratory patterns of wild birds," the Defra spokesman added.

The department's plan emerged as senior vets from around Europe met in Brussels to examine the threat from bird flu amid growing concerns it could spread to the west. A strain of the H5N1 virus, which infects poultry, has reached the Ural mountains in Russia.

Asked whether British ornithologists will be relied upon to be the eyes and ears of Defra against the threat of bird flu, the spokesman said: "Absolutely."

The government wants birdwatchers to be particularly vigilant for "die outs" - the deaths of groups of migratory birds for unexplained reasons

Scientists are also involved in examining bird droppings for signs of the influenza A virus which has led to the death of millions of birds and around 60 people in Asia.

The president of the British Veterinary Association, Dr Bob McCracken, today said avian flu would "undoubtedly" spread to the British fowl population because of migrating birds over which there is no control.

"I don't think we should be bringing birds indoors, but we must ensure we have a sensitive surveillance alarm system so we detect it at the outset," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Experts believe the key to stopping a devastating outbreak is catching the virus before it has time to spread to native birds or poultry.

There are fears bird flu could mutate into a form which could be contracted by humans, leading to a possible flu pandemic similar to that which killed 40 million people around the world in 1918.

"This is a very, very serious issue," Professor Hugh Pennington, a retired University of Aberdeen microbiologist, said.

"This is a very nasty virus. It's doing enormous damage in the Far East at the moment, and it's got into Russia. If it got here, it would be economically disastrous, never mind the human impact, so we do need to be spending more than we have been spending."

He said he had heard some senior public health figures saying "this is the one thing that really keeps them awake at night".

"I don't know if we should be scared, but I think we should be putting pressure on for the resources to be made available to do the things that we know are at least going to make the problem less if it arrives," Professor Pennington said. "This virus that we're talking about now could be even nastier than that of 1918."

Philip Tod, the European Commission spokesman for health and consumer protection, told BBC Breakfast: "We are hoping that the veterinary experts called together today by the Commission will discuss the situation ... and also assess the risks of migratory birds carrying the virus to western Europe.

"We hope they will issue some recommendations as to how we can increase our vigilance, perhaps by increasing surveillance of wild birds and by advising farmers to be more vigilant when checking their poultry."

Migratory wild birds have been blamed for spreading the H5N1 flu strain in Russia, and officials there warned the birds could carry the virus to Europe and North America next spring.

EU nations banned the import of live birds from Russia and Kazakhstan after the Siberian outbreak was detected.

The environment and farming minister, Ben Bradshaw, last week insisted the risk of bird flu reaching Britain remained low.