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dougal
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 Posted: Sun Feb 04, 07 1:40 pm Post subject: |
 
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| Barnie wrote: |
On another forum the source is said to be, and I quote....
"cheap birds bought in by Bernard Matthews a few weeks ago from East Europe where a small out break occurred"
Makes sense, I bet BM uses it's finacial power to keep that one out of the news  |
Does it make sense?
The incubation period of the disease in domestic poultry is a matter of hours, or days at the most.
So if the birds had only newly arrived, that might, just possibly, be the case.
There was an H5N1 report last week from Hungary. (3,000 geese.)
If these birds really were recent arrivals from abroad, that important fact will emerge soon enough.
However, personally, I'd want to establish the bona fides and reliability of such an 'internet source' before giving any credibility whatsoever to such rumours.
Throughout Europe there are stringent controls on movement of birds in areas where cases have been reported. However, there is some doubt as to the effectiveness and accuracy of the spotting of the virus in wild bird populations.
The thing that is surprising me is not how MANY turkeys seem to have died of the disease, but how FEW of the 160,000 or so on site.
That would seem to indicate that the source of the infection was isolated to a small fraction of the birds on site. More likely than the whole flock being infected abroad might be an infected wild bird getting into ONE turkey-house, and reasonably good biosecurity admin preventing it running through all the houses.
But we don't *know* and speculation is only that.
I'd suggest that, much as I disapprove of intensive poultry rearing, this is a BAD moment to try and blacken Mathew's reputation.
Doing so would tend to suggest that the disease (currently) poses a threat to human health - which it (currently) does not, unless you are in close contact with infected birds.
Cooked eggs and poultry simply don't present any risk to the eater.
At a time when the media are hype-ing human casualties from the disease (about a few million times less than the number of bird casualties) there are serious threats to the poultry industry.
Firstly of a fall in demand affecting people's livelihoods.
And secondly the direct threat to the life of the birds - of which the birds that are most at risk, tragically, are free range birds, as having the greatest chance of contact with wild birds.
The disease has the potential to evolve over a few years (maybe less, maybe more) into a very serious human disease. It hasn't yet - in terms of the numbers of people affected. It is very, very nasty in people, but its very, very, very rare in people - so far and fortunately.
If it ever does evolve in that way, the new human disease will be spread quickly around the world by human air travellers, and not by poultry, eggs or wild birds.
Is that too complicated a concept for the broadcast media? |
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guyandzoe
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RichardW
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saffranne
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I don't think it will happen though 
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