UN warns of possible resurgence of bird flu virus, signs a mutant strain spreading in Asia

ROME — The United Nations warned Monday of a possible resurgence of the deadly bird flu virus, saying wild bird migrations had brought it back to previously virus-free countries and that a mutant strain was spreading in Asia.

A mutant strain of H5N1, which can apparently sidestep defences of existing vaccines, is spreading in China and Vietnam, The UN Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement Monday. It urged greater surveillance to ensure that any outbreaks are contained.

Last week, the World Health Organization reported that a 6-year-old Cambodian girl had died Aug. 14 from bird flu, the eighth person to die from H5N1 avian influenza this year in Cambodia.

Vietnam suspended its springtime poultry vaccination this year, FAO said. Most of the northern and central parts of the country where the virus is endemic have been invaded by the new strain.

Elsewhere, FAO says bird migrations over the past two years have brought H5N1 to countries that had been virus-free for several years, including Israel, the Palestinian territories, Bulgaria, Romania, Nepal and Mongolia.

“Wild birds may introduce the virus, but people’s actions in poultry production and marketing spread it,” said FAO’s chief veterinary office Juan Lubroth in urging greater preparedness and surveillance.

WHO says globally there have been 331 human deaths from 565 confirmed bird flu cases since 2003 when it was first detected.

The virus was eliminated from most of the 63 countries infected at its peak in 2006, but it remained endemic in six countries: Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.

The number of outbreaks in poultry and wild bird populations shrank from a high of 4000 to 302 in mid-2008, but outbreaks have risen progressively since, with almost 800 cases reported in 2010-2011, FAO said.

“The general departure from the progressive decline in 2004-2008 could mean that there will be a flare-up of H5N1 this fall and winter, with people unexpectedly finding the virus in their backyard,” Lubroth said in a statement. More

CMA urges prescription-only antibiotics for agricultural use

Antibiotics shouldn’t be used in Canada’s agricultural sector except by prescription from veterinarians, the nation’s doctors say.

Arguing that antibiotic misuse in the agricultural sector is rampant, delegates to the Canadian Medical Association’s 144th annual general meeting in St. John’s, Newfoundland, adopted a resolution Wednesday urging the implementation of mandatory veterinary prescriptions for all antibiotics used in animals.

The motion was among a raft of sharp rebukes issued by delegates at the gathering. Others include a condemnation of the Conservative government for continuing to block the inclusion of chrysotile asbestos in the Rotterdam Convention, as well as a stern warning to the public to find safer ways to use cell phones so as to minimize the potentially harmful effect that radio frequencies may have on the brain.

The motion to press for introduction of mandatory antibiotic prescriptions in agriculture flies in the face of the federal government’s unwillingness to develop a concerted national response to antibiotic misuse in agriculture or to contain antibiotic resistance within medicine. Critics have repeatedly charged that Ottawa’s inaction is deliberate, particularly its failure to establish a Canadian Centre for Antimicrobial Resistance after dissolving a national committee (www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.109-3109) Ottawa has also failed to tighten off-label drug usage on farms (http://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.091009. Nor did it act to close a legal loophole allowing massive imports of unapproved drugs for agricultural use (www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.090525).

Delegates argued the government’s inertia on the file must end.

"Because agriculture accounts for the highest volume of antibiotic use, the farm environment serves as a reservoir of resistant genes," British Columbia delegate Dr. Bill Mackie told council.

"Low concentrations of antibiotics used in animal feed have been found to induce random mutagenesis," while the dispersal of antibiotics into soil and water have been shown to enhance the risk of breaking natural barriers between bacterial groups via "horizontal transfer of genes" conferring resistance to bacteria that may not have even come in direct contact with the antibiotics, he explained.

This has serious health implications for patients, some of whom are dying as a consequence of resistant infections, particularly as the most common antimicrobials used in agriculture are either identical or related to those administered to humans, Mackie said. 

During the early 1990s, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) was detected among patients in Europe and a search for a community reservoir of that resistance found VRE in meat and manure on farms where the antimicrobials were used as growth promoters, he explained. Humans exposed to livestock that are colonized with the super bug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus have also been found to have a 138-fold higher risk of becoming colonized with those bacteria, Mackie said.

Countries such as Denmark that have restricted the use of antimicrobials in agriculture have substantially reduced both antimicrobial consumption and resistance with little economic impact on industry, he argued. Between 1992 and 2008, for example, Danish farmers increased swine production by 47% while halving their use of antibiotics.

Some delegates countered that mandatory prescriptions would indiscriminately raise barriers for Canadian hobby farmers, who are already strictly regulated and make only marginal contributions to the spread of antibiotic resistance, while others questioned whether veterinary prescriptions would be an effective measure of control.

"I believe farming and agricultural processes need to be addressed but I'm not sure this council has a firm knowledge of what those processes are in order to decide on the one and only mechanism by which we have to do that," Alberta delegate Dr. Carolyn Lane explains in an interview. "Veterinarians may just be coerced by their clients to write prescriptions, so I think they and physicians should work together to decide on a way in general that they could address intensive farming practices that have created the need for widespread antibiotic use in agriculture." More

FAO says bird flu reappearing

World-Grain.com, Aug 29, 2011 by World Grain StaffROME, ITALY — The United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) on Aug. 29 urged heightened readiness and surveillance against a possible major resurgence of the H5N1 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza amid signs that a mutant strain of the deadly bird flu virus is spreading in Asia and beyond, with unpredictable risks to human health.

The H5N1 virus has infected 565 people since it first appeared in 2003, killing 331 of them, according to World Health Organization figures. The latest death occurred earlier this month in Cambodia, which has registered eight cases of human infection this year — all of them fatal.

Since 2003 H5N1 has killed or forced the culling of more than 400 million domestic poultry and caused an estimated $20 billion of economic damage across the globe before it was eliminated from most of the 63 countries infected at its peak in 2006.

However, the virus remained endemic in six nations, although the number of outbreaks in domestic poultry and wild bird populations shrank steadily from an annual peak of 4000 to just 302 in mid 2008. But outbreaks have risen progressively since, with almost 800 cases recorded in 2010-2011.

At the same time, 2008 marked the beginning of renewed geographic expansion of the H5N1 virus both in poultry and wild birds.

The advance appears to be associated with migratory bird movements, according to FAO Chief Veterinary Officer Juan Lubroth. He said migrations help the virus travel over long distances, so that H5N1 has in the past 24 months shown up in poultry or wild birds in countries that had been virus-free for several years.

"Wild birds may introduce the virus, but peoples' actions in poultry production and marketing spread it," Lubroth said.

Recently affected areas are to be found in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Bulgaria, Romania, Nepal and Mongolia.

A further cause for concern, Lubroth said, is the appearance in China and Viet Nam of a variant virus apparently able to sidestep the defenses provided by existing vaccines.

In Vietnam, which suspended its springtime poultry vaccination campaign this year, most of the northern and central parts of the country — where H5N1 is endemic — have been invaded by the new virus strain, known as H5N1 - 2.3.2.1.

Vietnam's veterinary services are on high alert and reportedly considering a novel, targeted vaccination campaign this fall. Virus circulation in Viet Nam poses a direct threat to Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia as well as endangering the Korean peninsula and Japan further afield. Wild bird migration can also spread the virus to other continents.

"The general departure from the progressive decline observed in 2004-2008 could mean that there will be a flare-up of H5N1 this fall and winter, with people unexpectedly finding the virus in their backyard," Lubroth said.

The countries where H5N1 is still firmly entrenched — Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Vietnam — are likely to face the biggest problems but no country can consider itself safe, he said.

"Preparedness and surveillance remain essential," Lubroth said. "This is no time for complacency. No one can let their guard down with H5N1."

B.C attempts to keep information on salmon death private

VANCOUVER — B.C. provincial lawyers applied at the Cohen commission last week to keep private a database of its audits of dead fish at salmon farms. 

Environmental groups are fighting the suppression effort at the inquiry, which is examining the collapse of the 2009 Fraser River sockeye.

The environmental groups say the information is important to make public because it will give more insight into what types of diseases are occurring in salmon farms.

The province argues that revealing the audit data would put a chill on disclosures from farms of all types — including chicken and cattle farms — which provide voluntary information on possible disease outbreaks.

“Our concern is if the province is known to give out confidential information, and not try to protect it, then voluntary disclosure could stop occurring. And this is a concern because there have been outbreaks in the province before, (for example), avian influenza,” provincial lawyer Tara Callan told the inquiry.
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/attempts+keep+information+dead+farmed+salmon+private/5320397/story.html#ixzz1WR9EIJhY

New funds for bee virus testing

The Ontario Beekeepers Association has received $244,000 in funding for a project aimed in part at improving the bee breeders program in the province.

Les Eccles, lead specialist with the association’s technology transfer program, says the funding comes from the Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Council. The total project cost is more than 300,000. The association is providing the balance of the money through an in-kind contribution.

Funding for the project is completed in September 2013. But Eccles says the project will continue beyond that because there are always improvements that can be done in agricultural research.

The project includes virus testing to find resistance to bee viruses. “That’s the new frontier of bee research as far as diseases go,” he explains.

They’ll also be doing research on fertility testing on queen bees to improve their longevity. This part of the project will involve working with the Queen Breeders Association to improve their breeding program in general. “We’ll give them a better guide on what to follow and how to use the information they have better.”
Researchers will produce a manual for breeders as part of the project. More

Sales halted after arsenic found in chicken drug

Sales of two drugs routinely fed to chickens for decades have been suspended in Canada after tests showed the birds contained small amounts of inorganic arsenic, a carcinogen.

Health Canada says there are no immediate risks to public health. But consumer advocates say the findings provide evidence that many of the drugs given to animals could be unsafe and that more action is needed to protect the public – particularly since similar drugs remain on the market.

The drugs, 3-Nitro-20 and Super Nitro-12, also known as roxarsone, and have been added to animal feed for years in order to combat parasites, as well as improve weight gain, feed efficiency and help give meat a pink colour. The drugs are sold by Alpharma Canada, a subsidiary of Pfizer, and Dominion Veterinary Laboratories.

The drugs contain organic arsenic, which is much less toxic than inorganic arsenic. As a result, it was believed animals given the drug would pose no danger to humans.

But mounting evidence in recent years suggests organic arsenic can change into inorganic arsenic, raising fears it could remain in the tissue and cause potential harm to humans. More

Veterinary training expanded; Olds College

Olds College is offering a new Veterinary Technical Assistant program in January to respond to an industry shortage of entrylevel employees.    Enrolment is already underway for the 15-week certificate program, with about one-third of the available spots filled.

Students can get jobs in veterinary clinics, animal shelters, boarding facilities and pet stores once they finish the program.  Those in the veterinary field have indicated that finding the time to train new employees is exceedingly difficult. This program is designed to fill the gap.

Students will learn how to safely handle and restrain animals that are being cared for in a veterinary hospital, animal shelter, boarding or pet facility, with a primary focus on cats and dogs. More

Simulation to test pork producer preparedness

The Ontario Pork Industry Council (OPIC) and Ontario Pork are collaborating on an emergency preparedness project for the swine industry, specifically a foreign animal disease event simulation.
The simulation will be a two-stage event carried out in September involving five or six selected farms. The first stage will be the onset of the disease at one farm and the second stage will be dealing with the spread of the disease to the rest of the selected farms. Selected producers will be notified and they will be acquainted with the newly developed farm planner so that the simulation can test how that works.

Lori Moser, OPIC managing director, said the September dates are not being released. However, part of the simulation will be the use of widespread communication through Ontario Pork so producers and stakeholders will know about the simulation as it progresses. All communications will be identified using the word “simulation” to avoid concern and confusion. More

Vietnam lifts ban on livestock

Vietnam has lifted its eight-year-old ban on Canadian live breeding cattle, sheep and goats, becoming the first Asian country to do so since a 2003 discovery of mad cow disease, Canada's trade and agriculture ministers said on Sunday.

The move, which takes effect immediately, gives Canada a share in a market worth $50 million, International Trade Minister Ed Fast said in a statement, praising the impact of closer ties with Southeast Asia.

Vietnam reopened to Canadian beef last year.

Nearly all countries that had banned Canadian beef since 2003 have agreed to resume imports. China agreed last year partly to reopen Canadian access, but commercial shipments have not yet restarted.  More

Grocer's animal welfare initiative rolling out to Canadian stores

Consumers concerned about the past life of their meats are about to get clarity from one chain of organic grocery stores.
Whole Foods Market Inc., a U.S.-based retailer that operates the country's largest chain of natural and organic food supermarkets, is extending an innovative animal welfare labelling program to its six Canadian stores this week. Rolled out earlier this year across the United States, the labels on all chicken, beef and pork sold at Whole Foods tell consumers exactly how the animals were reared.  

Motivating the retailer is the fact that food savvy consumers are increasingly interested in on-farm conditions, propelled by closer relationships with farmers established through booming local food movements and the popularity of movies such as Food Inc., a 2008 documentary examination of corporate farming in the United States that garnered mass audiences. More

Minnesota officials confirm case of inhalational anthrax

By Lisa Schnirring 

Aug 9, 2011 (CIDRAP News) – A person hospitalized in Minnesota has contracted inhalational anthrax after traveling in western states, officials from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) announced today. 

In a release, the MDH said that the agency and its partners at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are investigating the infection, which apparently stemmed from environmental exposure.

The individual is hospitalized in Minnesota after traveling to North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota. Lab officials in Minnesota confirmed the illness. The MDH did not disclose the patient's name, age, gender, or medical condition, but said he or she is not a Minnesota resident.

Ruth Lynfield, MD, Minnesota state epidemiologist, said evidence suggests the patient was exposed from a natural source. The person had been exposed to soil and animal remains. She added that anthrax disease in hoofed animals occurs annually in certain parts of the country, including the Midwest and West. Animal infections can occur as far south as Texas and as far north as the Canadian border. More