Bird Flu Found in Scotland While the US Plays a Waiting Game

By Linda Orlando

Tests over the weekend have confirmed that a swan in Scotland died from the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu that has already killed 109 people worldwide. The dead swan makes Britain the 13th country to report cases of the strain in wild birds, according to the European Commission. The swan was discovered at a harbor more than 450 miles north of London. British government officials have established a 2-mile protection zone around the harbor and have restricted the movement of poultry. Although the National Farmers’ Union is concerned over the arrival of the flu in Britain, they have cautioned the public to stay calm. Union president Peter Kendall said, "There are no implications for public health or consumers."

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said that it will perform daily checks in nature reserves in Scotland to see whether the disease has infected any other birds in the area. RSPB Scotland director Stuart Housden said, "We are now stepping up our bird monitoring work on our reserves, particularly those where swans and wild fowl are found." The British government is considering whether to house or isolate domestic birds within a protected zone away from wild birds, enact a short-term ban on the movement of poultry, or cull some birds.

A wave of outbreaks of the H5N1 strain swept through Asian poultry populations in late 2003, according to the World Health Organization, resulting in thousands of birds being slaughtered. The National Farmers’ Union said that Scotland’s poultry industry is worth more than $202 million per year, so a bird flu outbreak could be an economic disaster. So far most cases in humans have been proven to come from contact with infected birds, and the virus is not easy for humans to catch. But health experts fear that the H5N1 virus will eventually mutate into a form that can be spread among people, possibly sparking a global bird flu pandemic.

Satellites have been tracking infected flocks of birds, which began in Asia and are now heading north to Siberia and Alaska, where they will eventually mingle with flocks heading southward into North America. "What we’re watching in real time is evolution," said Laurie Garrett, a researcher with the Council on Foreign Relations. "And it’s a biological process, and it is, by definition, unpredictable." A worst-case scenario projection prepared by federal scientists using a hypothetical outbreak on an East Coast chicken farm suggested that once humans were infected, without a vaccine almost half the country would have the flu within three months.

Richard Lobb of the National Chicken Council said that the American poultry industry is prepared for quick action as soon as the flu arrives. "All the birds involved in it would be destroyed, and the area would be isolated and quarantined," said Lobb. "It would very much [look] like a sort of military operation if it came to that." The huge chicken farms in Lancaster County, PA, are the site of the last great outbreak of a similar strain of bird flu over 20 years ago, and 17 million birds were killed at a cost of $60 million. Intense precautionary procedures are already being put into place there, with everyone other than the farmers dressing as though they are entering a hospital operating room.

Lobb said that the poultry industry is determined to prevent a worst-case scenario by putting in place an aggressive strategy to contain and destroy infected flocks and prevent the virus from mutating to a more dangerous form. The current bird flu strain has been around for at least 10 years and has already mutated in various ways. The strain is now showing up in cats in Europe, where officials are advising owners to bring their pets inside.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt warned earlier this year that birds cannot be prevented from flying into the United States, so citizens should begin preparing for that eventuality now. He even went so far as to recommend that Americans start storing canned tuna and powdered milk underneath their beds, because the flu is being spread through an airborne delivery system that no government can stop. "There’s no way you can protect the United States by building a big cage around it and preventing wild birds from flying in and out," U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Michael Johanns said.