H7 Bird Flu in North Korea and Indonesia - Eating the Evidence
Recombinomics Commentary
April 6, 2005
>> The United States and Pakistan had outbreaks of H7 avian influenza last year, in addition to the outbreak in the Netherlands two years ago. The presence of the disease in northeast Asia is new and surprising, and will require careful scrutiny, said Hans Wagner, a senior animal production and health officer for the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization.
"We have to look where it comes from," <<
Although North Korea is said to be transparent and cooperating, there is said to be no H7 virus to test. The conclusion that H7 is in Korea is indirect. North Korea isolated the virus from infected chickens and used it to make a vaccine. The live chickens have antibodies to H7, so the assumption is that H7 caused the infections. The H7 infected birds are said to have been killed and buried (and some rumors suggest they were subsequently dug up, sold in the market, and then presumably they were eaten).
Although H7 is said to be new to the area, H7N1 has been reported to be spreading in Indonesia. Sequences comparisons between isolates from South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, and several provinces in eastern China, have molecular feature in common that are absent from Vietnam and Thailand.
This suggests that H7N1 may be in these other countries, and analysis of H7N1 may give some idea about H7 in North Korea. In addition, H7 is easily transmitted human to human, so testing of humans in Indonesia may give additional insight into such transmission there and by extension, North Korea.
Although media reports continue to say H7 is new to the area, the Area has been steadily shrinking, going from Asia, to eastern Asia, and now to northeast Asia.
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