December 15, 2005
By Mike Bradley, Emergency Preparedness Program and Traditional Food Safety Program Manager, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium
You can’t read a newspaper or news magazine or listen to a news cast without hearing something about bird flu. Is this something to be concerned about? If it is, what could people do to protect themselves?
What’s fact?
Since 1918 three world-wide influenza epidemics referred to as pandemics have occurred. The last one was in 1968.
Flu pandemics occur periodically. The longer the period of time since the last pandemic the more likely a new pandemic will occur. Since the last one was 37 years ago, a new pandemic is becoming more probable.
Pandemics occur because of the incredible ability of the influenza virus to change. When a new strain develops that can easily infect people and people have no immunity against it, a pandemic can occur.
But because of the unpredictable behavior of influenza viruses, neither the timing nor the severity of the next pandemic can be predicted with any certainty.
The emergence of the bird flu strain in Southeast Asia in late 1997 could be the source of a new pandemic.
What’s hype?
Is a pandemic from the bird flu imminent? Public Health officials haven’t changed their assessments of the risk from bird flu since 2003. The dramatic increase in stories about bird flu is more a media phenomena--not an increased perception of threat by health experts. We do not know enough to accurately predict when a new pandemic will occur.
How dangerous is the current bird flu strain? Much is made of the human cases in Southeast Asia. In reality, the ability of this strain to infect humans is very poor. From 1997 to November 2005 less than 150 human cases of bird flu have been confirmed. Domestic poultry in Southeast Asia are often raised on small family farms and have very close contact with people. Millions and millions of birds have been infected and died from bird flu. And many millions of people have been exposed but less than 150 human cases have been documented, but about half of these have died.
Is there a threat in Alaska from bird flu? A number of agencies do bird flu surveillance in Alaska, about 6,000 samples were collected in 2005. The bird flu strain in Asia has not been found in Alaska or North America. Migratory wild birds could carry the virus to Alaska next season and an increased surveillance plan is being developed.
What Hunters Should Know About Bird Flu
The Asian H5N1 strain has not yet been found in Alaska. But it could get here in birds that migrate through areas where it does exist.
To date there are have been no known human cases of the current H5N1 bird flu that have come from wild birds. Nearly all cases have been in people with close contact to sick chickens.
It may be possible that H5N1 could be acquired from infected wild birds.
Hunters or others who clean wild birds should take the following precautions:
- Do not handle birds that are obviously sick or found dead.
- Keep game birds cool, clean and dry.
- Do not eat, drink, or smoke while cleaning birds.
- Use rubber gloves when cleaning birds.
- Wash hands with soap and water or alcohol wipes after dressing birds.
- Clean tools and surfaces immediately after cleaning birds: use hot soapy water, then disinfect with a 10% chlorine bleach solution.
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Cook game meat thoroughly (155 -- 165F) to kill disease agents and parasites.