As bird flu marches west across Russia toward Europe, health experts expressed optimism Wednesday that European countries could stamp it out before the virus takes hold and spreads among people.
"Will this make its way to Western Europe? I think most of us have no doubt," said Michael Osterholm, an expert on bird flu and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota in the US.
But he and other experts say that while the situation is worrisome, Europe is better equipped than Southeast Asia to quickly attack the disease that scientists fear could unleash a pandemic.
The scenario of a bird flu outbreak in Europe would be very different from that in Asia, said Juan Lubroth, an animal health expert with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, one of the agencies responsible for tracking the virus.
It would not only be detected more quickly, he said, but people don't live in close quarters with animals, as they do in much of Southeast Asia.
The European poultry industry also is better able to shelter its birds from contact with the wild ducks blamed for the disease's spread. Italy and the Netherlands have previously stamped out outbreaks of bird flu.
Also, experts noted that the health care system is better able to deal with human exposure to bird flu and other animal-produced diseases.
"Theoretically, because it's going to be stopped in its tracks, it's not going to infect humans because of the quick detection, and therefore it would have less of a chance to become adapted to humans," Lubroth said.
On Wednesday, Russian veterinary workers incinerated thousands of birds in an intensified effort to stop the epidemic spreading across the Ural Mountains, which lie about 1,200km east of Moscow and divide the Asian part of Russia from the European side.
The Russian epidemic, first registered in western Siberia in July, has been blamed on two kinds of wild ducks -- mallard and pochard -- migrating from Southeast Asia, ministry spokesman Sergei Vlasov said.
The country's public health chief warned this week that the virus could reach the Black Sea and Caspian Sea regions later this year -- and from there move to the Middle East and Mediterranean, and speed through European Russia by spring.
The danger to the European poultry industry could be substantial. The larger worry is that the virus could mutate into a form that is both deadly to humans and easily spread between people.
Most flu pandemics originate from bird flu viruses. While the virus currently ravaging poultry in Asia has killed people there, it has not spread among them.
Osterholm noted that each time the virus passes from one bird to another presents another opportunity for it to mutate.
"This is genetic roulette," he said. "Every bit of spread just adds that much more potential for a mutation to occur that results in a strain that would be more readily transmitted between humans."
Scientists are monitoring the migratory bird pathways that cross from Siberia, over Western Europe to Africa.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
RSS