To me it sounds a little bit bizarre given that so many of the disease outbreaks even among people (let alone animals) are undiagnosed in India.
Recent history has shown that a country will declare itself “bird flu free” and not much longer (sometimes the same week) a new outbreak will surface in that same country. I find the declarations - laughable.
Maybe hoping that saying it out loud will make it so…
Then there is China, from who nothing is heard.
Let’s see. It’ Sunday now. Two days passed after India’s declaration. I’m guessing… next Thursday ; D
LEG – at 11:36 Do you mean China, the well-known country in Asia, Where-According-a-Rumour-a-Whole-Village-Disappeared-After-an-Undiagnosed-Disease-Outbreak?
I think that countries that declare themselves “birdflu free” may do so for economic reasons and not because they believe that BF is gone for good. Other countries will be forced to accept their imports under these conditions. Just my opinion.
Imagine if you will … a battle scene… the war is raging and bodies are lieing about… and shells and bullets are whistling through the air. Standing amid the chaos is a troop leader - standing tall. He turns to his men and says:
“I declare victory! We have won (because I say so)… nothing more to do here… let’s go home.”
Declaring a country “bird flu free” despite the obvious evidence to the contrary - is just as much a fiction.
It fits easily into the category of “tell them what they want to hear and they will believe it”.
Actually, it doesn’t matter whether we believe it or not. There are specific agreements internatioally concerning the status of countries with regards to agricultural product exports, for example. India is doing no more than what is required or what is allowed by international agreements, both under WTO and WHO.
We should interpret statements like these as bureaucratic necessities. They may not be accurate reflections of reality, but then neither is anything else, so we should just make the best use of whatever information is available.
anon_22 – at 12:13 “We should interpret statements like these as bureaucratic necessities. They may not be accurate reflections of reality, but then neither is anything else, so we should just make the best use of whatever information is available.”
Should we interpret the WHO declaration of the world being in Phase 3 also as a statement of this kind…?
All declarations by any organization/government body are subject to many different interpretations at different levels. If read literally, the WHO declaration of Stage 3 is correct; if reading and interpreting the reports coming out of Indo and Asia all together, then the Stage 3 interpretation is somewhat amiss and should likely be a bit higher.
As anon_22 says, make the best use of whatever infomation is available.
Thinlina,
“Should we interpret the WHO declaration of the world being in Phase 3 also as a statement of this kind…?”
Good question. There is in fact a slight but important distinction between the India situation and the WHO stagging. in that whether India is BF free is a quantitative measure (which can be biased by NOT measuring it, but still it is a measure) whereas the WHO staging is a descriptive and therefore an entirely subjective parameter.
For example, whereas I can go and find 1 H5N1 infected chicken in India and thereby break down their myth of being BF free, I can’t force the WHO to admit that we should be in Stage 4 even if I find more cases of h2h2h, since there is no quantitative definition of what is ‘efficient’ h2h.
So here’s the moral of the story: definitions are important, as is context (of official statements eg India being BF free), intention (of India, of WHO, of myself, etc), and the audience to which a particular statement is primarily directed.
As long as Bird Flu is undiagnosed in India, they can rightfully claim to be Bird Flu Free.
Moral to the story, if you do not look for it aggressively, you will not find it. They have had hundreds of people die in northern India this year, and they have never typed the virus that is doing all the killing.
Funny that, because they didn’t type it last year and the year before that. The people keep on dying nevertheless.
In all the numerous cattle deaths reported from India do you ever remember reading that they have identified the mystery virus that killed them? I have never seen it, and I look almost every day.
At least in the Ukraine when their cattle all over the country started falling over dead, they tried to come up with a plausable excuse when they said that they were poisoned.
Joe Neubarth – at 14:22
Are you suggesting that cattle deaths in India are due to bird flu?
Are you a scientist? Any credible source?
Thanks.
Joe-you are right…here is one of my favorites from about 4 March 2006.
Bahamas says bird flu unlikely in flamingo deaths
The Bahamian government dispatched experts to Inagua in the southern Bahamas on Tuesday after reports that 21 birds, including 15 of the island’s famous flamingos, had died. The reports sparked immediate concern for the tourism industry, which employs 40 percent of the work force in the Atlantic island chain of 300,000 people. Atlantis, Nassau’s premier resort owned by Kerzner International <KZL.N>, reported a slump in bookings following the bird flu reports.
Christie downplayed the possibility of an outbreak in a statement to parliament late on Wednesday, saying scientists had not ruled out the theory that the flamingos died of old age.
Well, even flamingos have to die sometime. Old age. LOL.
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