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H5N1 Spread Across Russia's Southern Border Toward Europe
Recombinomics Commentary
August 2, 2005
According to him, it became known that in The zav'yalovskeye region following the village by deep, where the first in the edge cases of bird influenza were registered, a similar situation occurs in the village Gonokhovo. "laboratory tests show the great probability of bird influenza ", said Lapin.
Information about the mass case of bird entered on Tuesday also from The volchikhinskeyeo, Novichikhinskeyeo and Rubtsovskeyeo regions. A quantity of killed hens, geese and weft is not thus far calculated. The specialists of boundary station in the fight with the separately dangerous diseases of animals and boundary veterinary laboratory here left.
"clinic similar, but final results are not thus far obtained. Entire preventive work in the regions is conducted ", noted Lapin.
"Specialists consider that the appearance of Asian type influenza- mutant is connected with the possible migration of birds. Confirm this and the local hunters, which described that they saw a large quantity of dead wild birds in the lakes in The rubtsovskeye region, ITAR- TASS reports"
The above machine translation indicates H5N1 has spread across five southern regions of Russia, from Altay, which borders China and Mongolia in the east, to Tyumen in Russia's poultry rich region to the west. In between are Altaskity Kray, Novosibirsk, and Omsk. All are along Russia's southern border shared with Kazakhstan. The five regions cover over 700 miles along Russia's southern border and clearly indicate the H5N1 migration will reach Europe soon.
Thus far the have been five suspected human cases in northern Kazakhstan near the Chany Lake region in Novosibirsk. However, most of the regions in Russia and Kazahkstan are not densely populated. As H5N1 moves into the poultry rich region of Tyumen, more human cases may be expected.
Since the H5N1 in Russian and Kazakhstan appear to trace back to the outbreaks in Qinghai Lake and Xinjiang in China, the H5N1 is probably sensitive to Amantadine and Rimantidine, two anti-viral drugs that are less expensive and more readily available than Tamiflu. The sequences of 12 H5N1 isolates from Qinghai Lake all lacked the two polymorphisms in the M2 gene that produces Amantadine resistance in H5N1 from Vietnam or Thailand. In vivo data on Tamiflu indicated an effective dose against h5N1 may be higher than the FDA approved treatment and prophylactic protocols for Tamiflu.
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