	Generational Dynamics
	Forecasting America's Destiny ... and the World's

\| HOME \| WEB LOG \| COUNTRY WIKI \| COMMENT \| FORUM \| DOWNLOADS \| ABOUT \|

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 9-Feb-06
Bird flu spreading through western Africa

Web Log - February, 2006

Bird flu spreading through western Africa

This week's Nigeria announcement clears up a mystery.

Last week, in an article I wrote on bird flu in Northern Iraq, I quoted a a UN FAO press release that warned that bird flu "could be further spread by migratory birds particularly coming from Africa in the spring."

This was somewhat mysterious, since no one had announced a bird flu finding in Africa, and seemed to imply that FAO knew of bird flu but wasn't admitting it.

Well, now we know. This week's announcement that bird flu has been confirmed in Nigeria, based on samples taken on January 10, shows that FAO officials did, in fact, know that this announcement was coming.

Furthermore, since the confirmation is based on samples taken a month ago, there has already been several weeks -- plenty of time -- for the virus to spread much farther.

Indeed there are already unexplained deaths of large numbers of birds in northern Nigeria, and in other regions of western Africa.

As far as Europe is concerned, it's been found in Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, and Roumania, and it's endemic and firmly established in Turkey.

Long-time readers of this web site will recall a report from July of last year that bird flu had infected birds at Lake Qinghaihu, a huge lake in mid-China that served as an international meeting point and breeding ground for migratory birds, and that from there, bird flu was poised to spread around the world.

That appears to have happened for much of Asia, Europe, and now Africa. There has been no H5H1 in North America so far, but that may happen in the the spring as birds migrate from Asia, across the Bering Straits, into Alaska. American and Canandian officials are continually conducting tests.

An analysis on Henry Niman's Recombinomics web site shows that the H5N1 strain that's reached the Mideast and Africa originated in Lake Qinghaihu. Furthermore, while spreading around Turkey, the virus mutated slightly, picking up the "S227N polymorphism." This gives it the ability to infect humans a little more easily than before, through physical contact with an already infected bird or human.

So far as is known, no mutation has yet occurred anywhere that would permit easy human to human transmission, such as happens with the regular human flu. However, since it takes several weeks to find, test, and report results of new H5N1 infections, especially in remote areas of the world, we many not even know of such a mutation until it's already begun to spread rapidly around the world. (9-Feb-06) Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

Web Log Pages

Current Web Log

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 9-Feb-06 Bird flu spreading through western Africa

Web Log Pages

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 9-Feb-06
Bird flu spreading through western Africa