Avian flu refers to a disease that primarily affects birds, especially chickens and ducks. It is caused by a specific type of virus that can make birds very sick, and sometimes even cause death. Occasionally, this virus can also transmit to humans, leading to flu-like symptoms. So,
avian flu is a sickness that mostly impacts birds but can sometimes affect people too.
Full definition
Naturally, the digestive tract of birds — the primary location
of avian flu viruses — provides just such a calcium - rich environment, so that the birds can make egg shells.
The U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Department of Agriculture published the genetic analysis of a mixed - origin HPAI H5N1
avian flu virus in the journal Genome Announcements today.
The relatively recent
avian flu outbreaks in Southeast Asia remain largely contained geographically and limited in scope, but if the virus were to mutate into a fully transmissible human pandemic virus, it would spread worldwide and affect all populations.
In the first two months of 2006, the spread of
avian flu strain H5N1 in Africa and Europe fanned fears that it might also spread among humans.
Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in Minneapolis, points out that the 2004 document was based on input from an international panel of 22 scientists and public - health officials, in response to the threat of the deadly
H5N1 avian flu virus.
An outbreak of
avian flu in particular could put eggs in short supply, restricting the amount of vaccine that could be produced.
Responsibilities include research on crop pests and diseases, the effects of pesticides, and the response to animal diseases such
as avian flu — which has been on the rise.
Yet in 2005 scientists were so terrified of a lethal
avian flu pandemic that they devised all sorts of preparations, which surely helped inspire the CDC's Zombie Apocalypse campaign.
If the covered lagoon method (pictured) proves to be globally valuable for business, the upshot is a large scale incentive to prevent lagoon flooding or leakage, and the resulting loss of raw material (the poop) needed profit from a waste that, if not carefully retained to extract economic value, offends neighbors, is a potential disease vector (
for Avian flu for example) and poses an ecological hazard to downstream waters.
The findings come amid ongoing concerns about flu pandemics launched
by avian flu viruses and the global rise of obesity.
PowderMed, based in Oxford, is developing a DNA - based vaccine that works by spraying gold particles coated
with avian flu genes directly into human skin with high - pressure helium.
Scientists proposing studies that make viruses more dangerous will have to convince the HHS board that there are no feasible, equally effective alternative ways to obtain the new information — such as, does a specific genetic change
make avian flu more deadly?
Valuations are favorable here, because many investors are scared
about avian flu.
The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) on March 30 recommended the publication of two controversial
avian flu papers.
Wednesday, April 25th, 2018 - When a
deadly avian flu outbreak threatened the nation's poultry industry in 2015, Purdue Veterinary Medicine faculty member Pat Wakenell was at the forefront of efforts to contain the spread of the disease.
So Richard Smeyne of the St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, sprayed a solution containing a highly pathogenic subtype of H5N1
avian flu into the noses of 225 mice.
The fear that civilization could collapse in some kind of armageddon has increased in the last 15 years, be it with September 2001, global warming,
avian flu scares, and more recently Ebola.
Emory influenza researchers Richard Compans, Anice Lowen and John Steel are co-signers of a statement announcing the end of a self - imposed moratorium on H5N1
avian flu research.
«Mineral layer
around avian flu pathogen may be the cause for human infections.»
Others are Ebola in Africa, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in North America, Venezuelan equine encephalitis in South America, Hendra disease in Australia, and
lethal avian flu in Asia.
Now, in a study published in Nature Communications, an international team of researchers shows how evolution can favor mutations that make
avian flu more transmissible in mammals.
These contaminants are implicated in a long list of health problems, including neurodegenerative disease, cancer, emphysema, and perhaps even pandemics
like avian flu.
... Thus, acknowledging that the aims of the voluntary moratorium have been met in some countries and are close to being met in others, we declare an end to the voluntary moratorium
on avian flu transmission studies.
In addition, chicken prices look set to fall, as demand outside the U.S. has dropped due to the
recent avian flu outbreak.
When word got out that two virologists had engineered
avian flu so it could spread among ferrets, the reaction was swift and savage.
Six years after the H5N1
avian flu first appeared in China, it reemerged in December 2003 in Korea and Japan and spread like wildfire.
Authorities have culled more than 175,000 birds this winter to stamp out local outbreaks of H7N9 and
other avian flu strains.
The United States's move came amid long - running concerns about GOF studies involving highly
pathogenic avian flu strains such as H5N1.
One study from Taiwan
tracked avian flu outbreaks downwind of Asian dust storms and found that the flu virus might be transported long - distance by air spiked with the dust.
That means that an antibody that recognizes this region alone could protect against a variety of flu strains, possibly including the one that
causes avian flu, the researchers conclude.
(Some people are mistakenly avoiding chicken, even though there is no chance of
getting avian flu if the chicken is properly cooked.)
Government chief vet declares «prevention zone» for England as highly infectious strain of
avian flu hits Europe
In 2007, the European Union banned imports of wild - caught birds, concerned that they might
carry avian flu.
Poultry manufacturers in Thailand and China are reportedly in recovery
after avian flu created a supply shortage.
The combined pressures of climate change and epidemics sweeping through intensive animal agriculture such as
H5N2 avian flu and porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) are growing challenges for industrial agriculture, and workers organizing to demand fair pay and conditions combined with increasing consumer pressure for greater transparency and better treatment of land, animals, and workers, are having an effect.
Head of gamekeeping and game shooting, Stewart Scull, said: «I was involved in the original discussions about establishing the poultry register in 2005 when Defra gave assurances that any information provided would only be used for its intended purpose, to
combat avian flu.
Although avian flu made few headlines in 2007, the virus continued to claim lives in Asia, particularly in Indonesia.
Molecular pathologist Jeffery Taubenberger of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, who has analyzed the 1918 flu strain, H1N1, says it shared characteristics with
modern avian flu strains.
The markets of Guangdong are also the source of H5N1, a strain of
killer avian flu that first jumped from animals to people in 1997 and then reemerged last year.
Extreme shifts in surface proteins explain why existing vaccines offer no protection against the
new avian flu.
Before SARS, before worries about
widespread avian flu, the Nipah virus infected humans with surprising ease.