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Forum: North American Governments Accountability II

19 August 2006

Bronco Bill – at 22:10

Continued from here


Z – at 21:50

www.vet.osu.edu/assets/pdf/depts/prevMed/extension/confWorkshops/2006. A very good presentation on the basics by Dr. Richard Slemons.

Small but important bits out of news articles:

The Washington Times,August 15, 2006. On the announcement of H5N1 in Michigan, “This is an expected development. It’s not surprising,” said Dr. Richard Slemons, an associate professor of veterinary preventive medicine at Ohio State University and bird-flu specialist. “Now that we have a lot of money available to look for these viruses, we’ll find them,” he said.

Toledo Blade, Tuesday, March 28, 2006. “Dr. Richard Slemons has been poking ducks’ behinds for nearly 30 years and no one ever paid much attention. Dr. Slemons has been doing this sort of testing for decades…Dr. Slemons said the H5N1 virus has been detected in Ohio but not the deadly or “highly pathogenic” form. Bird flu viruses are relatively common, infecting about 4 to 7 percent of the ducks he has sampled over the years, he said. Most are harmless, even the H5N1 strains. “There are hundreds of kinds of H5N1 viruses,” he said.

Toledo Blade, March 26, 2006. “Actually, bird flu has been in North America before, said Dr. Richard Slemons, an Ohio State University researcher who’s studied bird viruses for more than 20 years. Flu viruses always have circulated in birds, he said, so technically speaking, “bird” flu is not any more unusual than human flu. What researchers like himself are trying to determine is what factors make it more likely that a bird flu virus will suddenly become deadly to birds and mutate into a form passed on to humans.

Same article, information officially attributed to DHHS: “The U.S. Department of Education is asking schools nationwide to coordinate with local health departments. “As we understand from the Department of Health and Human Services, we can expect bird flu to affect bird flocks in the United States possibly by this fall,” said Valerie Smith, spokesman for the Department of Education. “If we wait for that, it is too late to begin preparing, so this is a practical, sensible issue to consider right now.”“

The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine, 2005. “Dr. Slemons made a breakthrough in research about thirty years ago when he discovered that migratory ducks infected with avian influenza harbor the virus in their intestinal tracks. He collects samples of bird feces annually from the Lake Erie marshes as part of an early-warning program to help protect Ohio’s poultry industry. The area is a common stop for fowl on their migration to the southern United States and the Caribbean for the winter. Although avian influenza has been found in North America before, the strains have always been of the low pathogenic variety. What Dr. Slemons and other researchers are trying to determine is where the viruses are and where they are most likely to move between species.”

Concern about H5N1 opens opportunities to solve mysteries of avian influenza, Helen Branswell, Nov. 19, 2005. “We would be so far ahead of the game right now if we knew more about the actual natural history and what the wild-type viruses actually do in these waterfowl populations or bird populations in general,” says David Stallknecht, an avian influenza specialist at the University of Georgia’s college of veterinary medicine in Athens. “Most people have felt that the story of avian influenza in wild, free-flying birds is not particularly important,” admits Dr. Richard Slemons.

Avian flu viruses vary greatly in threat, impact, Canadian Press, Nov. 21 2005. “The term “low path” Swayne uses describes another important distinction between avian flu viruses. Most are what is known as low pathogenicity - low path for short. When they jump into domestic poultry, they don’t even kill chickens. Typically egg production drops off. Only the H5 and H7 subtypes produce viruses that are high pathogenicity or “high path,” explains Dr. Richard Slemons, an avian influenza expert at Ohio State University.”

“So when H5N1 viruses have been found in Russia, Turkey and Romania, scientists needed to perform genetic analysis on them to see how closely matched they are to the Asian viruses. Unfortunately, they have been found to be closely related to that lethal virus. But they might not have been. For instance, Slemons found a low path H5N1 in a mallard in Ohio in 1986. It would not have posed a fraction of the threat to human health that the Asian H5N1 does.”

anonymous – at 23:15

http://wildlife1.usask.ca/en/aiv/aiv_reports.php

Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre Wild Bird Survey

From last winter and no longer available:

Avian Influenza H5 Subtype Analysis

 Total samplesH5 PositivesH7 PositivesConfirmed Subtypes
Alberta79600N/A
Atlantic717350Low Pathogenic North American H5N2
BC7041740Low Pathogenic North American H5N9
Manitoba54850Low Pathogenic North American H5N1
Ontario78690Low Pathogenic North American H5N1
Quebeco782280Low Pathogenic North American H5N3

20 August 2006

Z – at 14:27

University of Alaska research department newsletter, http://www.alaska.edu/inbre/newsletters/2006Summer.pdf#page=1

Scientists Analyze Avian Influenza Screening Results - “In 2006, we’re verifying the results from last summer,” said Runstadler. “We identified some locations that warrant going back to for several years, and the development of projects that would take us beyond surveillance.”

“Jynene Black and Nancy Gundlach, research technicians in Statewide INBRE Director George Happ’s lab, spent the winter assaying RNA extracted from the cloacal samples. Using primers and probes developed by Jeff Taubenberger, a collaborator at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, the samples were screened with real time polymerase chain reactions (RT-PCR) for the avian influenza matrix gene segment. Of the specimens tested at both Happ’s UAF lab and Taubenberger’s facilities, 392 were positive for the influenza matrix protein. None were positive for the highly pathogenic H5 or H7 strains of the virus. Viral subtypes are being determined, either by viral isolation with Richard Slemons at the Ohio State University and Dennis Senne at the National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames, Iowa or by RTPCR at UAF.”

~

Avian Influenza Research in Alaska Planning Workshop, October 28, 2005.

Question 5. What is the plan to notify the state and the public if an H5N1 subtype were identified from surveillance in Alaska? [Question posed by Joe McLaughlin of the Alaska State Division of Epidemiology]

Background - Joe McLaughlin of State Epidemiology asked how State Officials would be notified if an H5N1 strain were found in Alaska. In the face of an influenza pandemic, the AK Division of Public Health will be responsible for the following: surveillance, disease control, communications, laboratory testing, vaccine and antiviral management (as available), and maintenance of essential health and medical services.

Response - Richard Slemons stated that notification would depend on the organization recovering the virus and circumstances related to the isolation. He then described the procedure to be followed a subtype of concern were found in the samples from UAF which he is now screening. Following recovery, the UAF isolates are subtyped at the USDA, APHIS, NSL at Ames Iowa. If an H5N1 [or other H5 or H7 NA combination] isolate is identified, NVSL would evaluate the pathogenicity properties of the isolate by standard protocols (intravenous pathogenicity index assay [IVIP] and the amino acid sequence across the HA cleavage site). If, as expected, the isolate is a low pathogenic influenza virus (LPAI) as determined by either IVIP or the amino acid sequence, the result would be reported back to the UAF group. If the isolate proved to be a high pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI) by IVIP or amino acid sequence, the NVSL would notify the UAF group and the appropriate officials including the Alaska State Veterinarian, the Alaska Division of Public Health, and the USDA, APHIS. USDA and state officials would then notify appropriate state, national, Alaska Native, and other groups in Alaska.

For wild-bird avian influenza viruses recovered by USGS or other units within the Department of Interior, the virus would be subtyped and reported using agreements established between the National Wildlife Health Center and the USDA, APHIS.

The issue of what is a “positive” avian influenza of public health concern (e.g. subtype H5N1) is more complicated. The virulence of a new H5N1 isolate cannot be firmly established from sequence alone but requires laboratory investigation. There are many strains of LPAI of the H5N1 subtype that have already recovered from wild birds in North America but these are different from the HPAI of the H5N1 subtype, which, in southeast Asia, is of such concern at the present. To this date, none of the H5N1 strains that have been isolated from wild birds in North America were associated with disease: none were classified as LPAI viruses in domestic chickens, and none caused infections in humans. Even those highly pathogenic strains of H5 or H7 which have been recovered from domestic poultry in the US, which cause high morbidity and mortality in domestic poultry, and which fit the HPAI criteria’‘ (IVPI assay or the amino acid sequence) have seldom been shown to infect humans in spite of significant exposure.

Z – at 14:30

Link - http://www.alaska.edu/inbre/avianflu/AAIWorkshop051028.pdf

19 October 2006

Closed - Bronco Bill – at 20:39

Closed to maintain Forum speed.

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