VIRUS-HOST INTERACTIONS AND THE UNUSUAL AGE AND SEX DISTRIBUTION OF HUMAN CASES OF INFLUENZA A(H7N9) IN CHINA, APRIL 2013

CHINA - A new scientific paper 

from Canada highlights from the 

available surveillance findings an

 unexpected age/sex distribution 

of reported influenza A(H7N9) 

cases. 
The age range spans from 2 to 91 

years but two-thirds of influenza 

A(H7N9) cases have been 50 years 

of age or older and two-thirds 

have been male.

Human infection with avian influenza A(H7N9) virus in China - update

25 APRIL 2013 - As of 25 April 2013 

(14:30CET), the National Health and Family 

Planning Commission (NHFPC) notified WHO of 

an additional four laboratory-confirmed cases of 

human infection with avian influenza A(H7N9) virus.

The first patient is an 84-year old man from Zhejiang province who became ill on 15 April 2013, the second patient is a 62-year-old man from Zhejiang province who became ill on 15 April 2013, the third patient is a 91-year-old man from Anhui province who became ill on 14 April 2013, and the fourth patient is a 36-year-old man from Shandong province who became ill on 16 April 2013.

Additionally, a patient earlier reported from Zhejiang province has died.

To date, a total of 108 laboratory-confirmed cases of human infection with avian influenza A(H7N9) virus in China, including 22 deaths have been reported to WHO. Contacts of the confirmed cases are being closely monitored.

National authorities continue to implement prevention and control measures.

Investigations into the possible sources of infection and reservoirs of the virus are ongoing. Until the source of infection has been identified, it is expected that there will be further cases of human infection with the virus in China. So far, there is no evidence of ongoing human-to-human transmission.

WHO does not advise special screening at points of entry with regard to this event, nor does it recommend that any travel or trade restrictions be applied.

At the invitation of the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China, WHO has convened a team of experts who will visit areas affected by avian influenza A(H7N9) in China in order to provide recommendations on the prevention and control of the disease.

For more information, please see:

• Transcript of the media briefing by Dr Michael O’Leary, WHO Representative in China: Situation update on avian influenza A(H7N9) in China

Vietnam province declares bird flu epidemic among farmed swfits

 

Swifts raised for their nests inside a house in Vietnam

Ninh Thuan on Friday became the first province in Vietnam to officialy acknowledge that the bird flu outbreak has taken place among swifts raised for profitable nests at a local farm.

Around 10,000 swifts at Thanh Binh farm in Phan Rang Town have been culled as of Friday, the Ninh Thuan provincial adminsitration said.
The mass cull was ordered Thursday after the influenza A (H5N1) virus has been found among the farm's 100,000 swifts  for the first time in Vietnam and the world.
Dang Pham Minh Loan, general director of Yen Viet Company, which runs the Thanh Binh farm, said the cull would cause her company to incur losses of tens of billions of dong.
The Vietnamese government has not chalked out any plans to bail out farm owners whose swifts are subject to compulsory cull because of an epidemic.
At a meeting on Tuesday, the Animal Health Center VI announced that samples taken from dead birds at the farm– where nearly 5,000 swifts have died since the end of March – tested positive for H5N1, Tien Phong (Pioneer) reported Wednesday.
The samples taken from living birds, their nests and feces, however, tested negative for the virus, said the center, which is under the agriculture ministry’s Animal Health Department.
Conversely, the Nha Trang branch of the Pasteur Institute did find H5N1 in the five samples of living birds it took from one of the two farms, the newspaper quoted Phan Thi Lai, vice director of Ninh Thuan Health Department, as saying.
According to Nguyen Xuan Binh, director of the Animal Health Center VI, these cases represent the first two outbreaks of bird flu to ever be recorded among farmed swifts worldwide.
All the swifts at the farms must be destroyed, while their nests must be exposed to high temperatures, as the virus dies at 80 degrees Celsius, the official explained. 
Experts in the field have urged health authorities to proceed gingerly before officially announcing a bird flu outbreak among swifts.
If it is concluded that the birds were killed by H5N1, it will be a “big problem” and severely affect bird nest businesses, they said.

Since the business cropped up in Vietnam in 2004, thousands of families have made their livings on it and invested as much as tens of thousands of dollars in their farms, she said.

In fact, since it was announced that some dead swifts had been found with H5N1, many bird nest shops in Ninh Thuan have seen their sales plummeting.
It has been reported that one kilogram of bird nest is now estimated to be US$1,600-1,800.
The H5N1-caused bird flu has caused at least 62 deaths among 123 infected patients in Vietnam since 2003, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The first human fatality from H5N1 in Vietnam in more than a year – a four-year-old child – was reported last week.
People can become infected from direct or close contact with fowl carrying the virus, which is deadly among domesticated ducks and chickens.
To combat human cases of bird flu, Vietnam has been vaccinating farmed fowl and treating infected people with the antiviral Tamiflu.

Kepentingan sound system designing

Setelah berbulan - bulan membuat penambahbaikan secara berkala dalam rumah burung walet sendiri bagi mendapat hasil yang significant, akhirnya sound system designing mendahului berbanding dengan lain - lain penambakbaikan sebelum ini dan ia memberi kesan yang sangat ketara bagi memikat burung walet tidur dan bersarang ( populasi baru  6- 10 ekor dan 1 sarang jenis cup 80% siap dalam masa 21 hari di kawasan/NP yang baru ). Bagi mendapat hasil sebegini  rupa adalah amat - amatlah sukar bagi tempat yang penuh dengan persaigan tanpa belas kasihan.Sound system designing adalah seperti berikut :1. Jenis suara    2. susunatur internal tweeter
3. susunatur pulling tweeter 4. susunatur LAL tweeter dan 5. Seni pembikinan suara.
Sekiranya aliran ini berterusan atau bertambah baik, maka satu lagi skill baru yang  berharga bagi wanzulswiftlet untuk terus bersaing dengan pemikat -  pemikat burung walet.

Guangdong Province's Poultry Industry Hit Hard by H7N9

16 April 2013

CHINA - The H7N9 bird flu outbreak in eastern and northern parts of China has seriously affected the poultry business in Guangdong province over the past weeks.

Prices for chickens, ducks, geese, 

doves, quail and other domestic poultry 

have plummeted in many cities in the 

southern province that is known for its 

boiled sliced chicken and other chicken dishes.

In Foshan, about 20 kilometers from 

Guangzhou, the provincial capital, prices 

for live poultry have fallen by about 50 

per cent since 7 April.

In the city's wholesale markets, a kilo of 

live chickens has fallen to 4.6 yuan (74 

cents) from 10.6 yuan in previous

 months, according to the Foshan bureau of agriculture.

Compared with previous months, the

 price of duck fell to 5.4 yuan (from 9.4

 yuan) and goose to 11.6 yuan (from 14.4 yuan) a kilo.

Deadly strain ( H7N9 ) spreads to central province as two Shanghai deaths push national toll to 13

BEIJING (AFP) - China’s H7N9 bird flu spread west to the central province of Henan on Sunday, as govt websites and state media reported two deaths and 11 new cases nationwide. The new strain of the flu had been confined to the  city of Shanghai and nearby Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui until Saturday. In total 60 people have been infected and 13 have died of the disease since Chinese authorities announced two weeks ago they had found H7N9 in humans for the first time. Two new cases were reported in Henan on Sunday by Xinhua, as govt websites also announced four new instances in Zhejiang, two in Jiangsu and three in Shanghai along with two deaths in existing cases.

TRENDING DISCUSSIONS

Nine of the 11 new victims were male and seven of them were in their sixties and seventies. 
The Beijing-based patient was the seven-year-old daughter of poultry traders and her condition had improved.
Experts fear the prospect of such viruses mutating into a form easily transmissible between humans, which would have the potential to trigger a pandemic.
But the World Health Organization (WHO) said last week there was as yet no evidence of human-to-human transmission of H7N9.

Gula Stevia pengganti kepada gula tebu yang boleh menyebab kencing manis

Satu lagi produk yang bermutu sebagai makanan kesihatan dan dalam masa yang sama dipercayai dapat merawat penyakit kencing manis/diabetes.

Kita ( Malaysia ) juga mengimport ayam beku ( Proses ) dari China

Pak menteri mengakui malaysia mengimport ayam beku daripada negara yang sangat berisiko akan atau telah di cemari virus yang boleh menyebabkan kematian kepada manusia iaitu H5n1 dan strain terbaru H7N9 kedua - dua strain berstatus highly pathogenic virus atau virulent atau penyebab HPAI apapun istilah ia boleh menyebabkan Kematian kepada manusia. 
Persoalan di sini kenapa kita begitu susah untuk mengesport Sarang burung walet ke negara China?? sedangkan malaysia sudah ada kerjasama ekonomi dalam Import - export Produk berasaskan AVIAN/unggas dan keadaan sekarang rakyat malaysia sangat berisiko tinggi mendapat penyakit yang boleh menyebabkan kematian  kerana kita masih lagi mengimport ayam dari negara yang  sudah lama   menpunyai Virus higly pathogenic avian influenza..... Kenapa perkara hidup mati boleh diteruskan lagi sedangkan sudah diakui sarang burung walet tidak akan dicemari oleh mikroorganisma penyebab kematian kerana Burung walet tiada Contact/hubungan dengan manusia  ...InshaALLAH Kecuali yang diternak didalam sangkar........Wanzulswiftlet







PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia bebas daripada jangkitan selesema burung (H7N9) berikutan tiada tanda-tanda jangkitan wabak itu pada ternakan unggas di negara ini, kata Menteri Pertanian dan Industri Asas Tani, Datuk Seri Noh Omar. 

Sehubungan itu, katanya negara masih berstatus bebas 'highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)' sejak 2 Sept 2007. 

"Saya nak beri jaminan bahawa setakat kajian yang dibuat oleh Jabatan Perkhidmatan Veterinar, jangkitan H7N9 tidak ada di Malaysia. Kita masih bebas daripada semua jenis jangkitan influenza ini," katanya. 

Noh bercakap kepada pemberita selepas menerima kunjungan pihak berkuasa China yang melakukan lawatan dan pemeriksaan terhadap premis pemprosesan sarang burung walit tempatan, di kementeriannya di sini, hari ini. 

Katanya, susulan laporan kes kematian akibat jangkitan H7N9 di Shanghai, Anhui, Jiangsu dan Zhejiang di China, Jabatan Perkhidmatan Veterinar sentiasa mendapatkan maklum balas daripada pihak berkuasa China untuk mendapatkan perkembangan terkini mengenai wabak penyakit itu. 

Noh berkata, Malaysia mengimport keratan daging ayam sejumlah 4,806 tan metrik dari utara China dan orang ramai tidak perlu bimbang kerana negara tidak mengimport keratan daging ayam dari kawasan lain di negara itu. 

"Kita import dari kawasan utara China dan ayam kita import ini adalah ayam beku, tak boleh bawa penyakit ini," katanya. 
Jelasnya, tiada virus HPAI termasuk H7N9 dikesan berdasarkan 1,043 sampel yang telah diuji dan kesemuanya didapati negatif sejak Januari 2013 hingga kini. 

Beliau juga berkata, ayam dan produk ayam yang dibawa masuk ke Malaysia melalui prosedur pemeriksaan di loji atau rumah sembelih yang diiktiraf kerajaan dengan penyelarasan jabatan berkenaan bagi semua permohonan mengimport produk. 

"Semua daging ayam, itik dan telur di pasaran sama ada daripada sumber tempatan atau import adalah selamat untuk dimakan," katanya. 

Bagaimanapun, Noh meminta penternak dan orang ramai segera melaporkan sebarang tanda-tanda jangkitan H7N9 ke Pejabat Perkhidmatan Veterinar berdekatan. 

No H7N9 Epidemic Among Poultry, Says Expert

10 April 2013

CHINA - A preliminary analysis 

shows that H7N9 bird flu has not 

triggered an epidemic among 

poultry, according to a Tuesday 

report in the "People's Daily" that 

cited a veterinary expert....No 

epidemic that mean no worsen

 outbreak if the virus mutates to spread 

among humans, a pandemic could 

follow...... Wanzulswiftlet

Of the 738 samples collected from three live poultry markets in Shanghai, where the first known human deaths of the disease were reported, only 20 samples contained H7N9 virus, including ten from chickens, three from pigeons and seven from environmental samples, the report said.

The government's chief veterinarian Yu Kangzhen was quoted as saying that it was the first time the Ministry of Agriculture had detected the virus in domestic animals.

The relationship between the virus detected in poultry and the virus that has infected humans has yet to be determined, Dr Kangzhen said.

The possibility of infection among animals in other regions has not been ruled out and the ministry has called for epidemic monitoring for animals across the nation, the report said.

It quoted Dr Kangzhen as saying that it's still safe to eat poultry meat purchased from regular channels, such as supermarkets, as long as they are thoroughly cooked.

"The virus could be killed under high temperature," he said.

China akan periksa 15 pusat pemprosesan sarang burung walet di Tujuh negeri

PUTRAJAYA: Sebanyak 15 loji pemprosesan sarang burung walit di seluruh negara akan diaudit dan diperiksa bagi membolehkan produk itu dieksport semula ke China, kata Menteri Pertanian dan Industri Asas Tani Datuk Seri Noh Omar.

Beliau berkata pihak berkuasa China yang tiba semalam akan melakukan pemeriksaan itu selama dua minggu membabitkan loji di Selangor, Sarawak, Pahang, Melaka, Johor, Pulau Pinang dan Kedah.

Katanya delegasi enam orang itu merangkumi pakar daripada Certification and Accreditation Administration (CNCA), China Entry Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau (CIQ) dan Chinese Academy of Inspection and Quarantine (CAIQ), yang diketuai Timbalan Ketua Pengarah CNCA, Li Chunguang.

?Sebelum ini, kita hantar permohonan 20 syarikat yang ingin mengeksport sarang burung walit ke China tetapi selepas ditapis dan dihantar semula ke kementerian ini dan Kementerian Kesihatan, hanya 15 syarikat sahaja yang layak untuk diaudit dan diperiksa.

?Kita berharap jika 15 premis atau kilang ini diluluskan oleh delegasi yang datang pada hari ini, maka masalah yang kita hadapi untuk mengeksport sarang burung walit dapat diatasi,? katanya kepada pemberita selepas menerima kunjungan delegasi itu, di sini semalam.

Sebelum ini, China mewajibkan pengeksport sarang burung walit ke negara itu memenuhi tiga syarat kualiti iaitu sijil penanda kesihatan veterinar, perakuan Sistem Pengenalan Gelombang Radio (RFID) daripada Suruhanjaya Komunikasi dan Multimedia serta sijil daripada Kementerian Kesihatan.

Bagaimanapun, penggunaan RFID dibantah beberapa persatuan yang mendakwa tidak praktikal dan bakal menjejaskan dagangan sarang burung walit di negara ini.

Pada September lepas, China bersetuju membenarkan pengusaha Malaysia menggunakan teknologi selain RFID..........     RFID Ini sistem untuk kroni buat duit

Menurut Noh, Malaysia dan China telah bekerjasama melalui beberapa platform rundingan untuk membolehkan sarang burung walit dieksport semula ke republik itu.

Katanya, antara persetujuan yang dicapai ialah pihak berkuasa China melihat dan menilai sendiri sistem keselamatan produk yang dilaksanakan Malaysia bagi memastikan produk sarang burung walit yang dihasilkan sesuai untuk dieksport ke negara berkenaan.

The bird's nest industry faces total wipeout if export issue to China is not handled properly, says Malaysia Birds Nest Alliance

PUTRAJAYA: About 500 swiftlet farmers submitted a memorandum to the Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Ministry today asking to be included in future negotiations with regard to the bird’s nest industry....... Wasted, MOA Never listen to you all.This is not the first time memorandum sent to MOA.......wanzulswiftlet

Malaysia Birds Nest Alliance president, Lim Lai Soon, said nearly all of the country’s raw and unprocessed bird’s nest producers and farmers are currently in limbo.

About 250 tonnes of Malaysian bird’s nests were exported to China before the country imposed a ban in July 2011 after finding high levels of nitrites in the products.

“We want to draw attention of the authorities on a possible wipeout faced by growers if the situation is not properly handled and managed. It could spell an end to the industry.

“We urge the government to include us in all future negotiations concerning the bird’s nest industry,” said Lim.

He claimed that although the Nanning Protocol was signed in September 2012, which allowed for the re-entry of edible birds’ nest into China, till today none of the cleaned bird’s nest from Malaysia have been cleared for export to China.

“The protocol ignored the larger community of growers who merely produce original raw bird’s nest which are not included in the agreement. This community of growers take up 95% of the total production of birds’ nest in the country,” he said.

He added that as a result, the raw bird’s nest could not find an avenue for consumption, which has since resulted in a serious glut.

Negotiations still ongoing

Lim also claimed that the present scenario is due to the “scheming” acts of individuals who recommended to both the authorities in China and Malaysia, to impose strict guidelines for export of bird’s nest, which were made central to the protocol negotiations.

“We wish to reiterate to the government of the day to listen to the voices of swiftlet farmers to expedite the raw bird’s nest export to China,” Lim said.

Later at a press conference, chief secretary of the Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Ministry, Mohd Hashim Abdullah, said a series of discussions between the ministry and authorities in China are on ongoing to resolve the issue.

He added that the Cabinet has come out a directive to the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy to China, Ong Ka Ting, to assist in solving the issue.

“We hope that with his experience and connections, the process can be hastened. He will try to ensure the Chinese come here as soon as possible.

Hashim said that the Chinese will come over to audit the processing plants besides observing the plantation’s system.

“We are at the final hurdle right now; currently we are just waiting for China to come here and audit our system and I hope bird’s nest can be cleared for export as soon as possible.

Veterinary Services Department director-general, Abdul Aziz Jamaluddin, also said that a meeting will be held to discuss the issue further on March 14 with Ong in attendance.

Novel Influenza A(H7N9) Virus Linked to Human Disease in China, April 2013

CHINA - A novel influenza virus of avian origin

, influenza A (H7N9), has been isolated from patients with

 severe respiratory disease in China. Eleven 

human cases have now been confirmed, 

including five deaths. Monitoring of the cases' 

contacts suggests that the new virus currently 

does not spread easily from human to 

human.........Good news it not easily 

transmitted  human to human but bad news 

this new strain more virulent than H5N1........ 

wanzulswiftlet



Try understand the human animal 

interface below:

Influenza viruses circulating in animals pose threats to human health. Humans can become ill when infected with viruses from animal sources, such as avian influenza virus subtypes H5N1 and H9N2 and swine influenza virus subtypes H1N1 and H3N2. The primary risk factor for human infection appears to be direct or indirect exposure to infected live or dead animals or contaminated environments.

Predator is a big problem to Bh owner

Ular di bawah dikenali sebagai sawa tikus, kerana kegemarannya memburu tikus. Sawa tikus selalu dijumpai di dalam rumah terutama rumah kayu kerana rumah kayu terdapat banyak tikus. Sekarang sawa tikus sering dijumpai di dalam RBW kerana tarikan suara burung yang dimainkan itu. Persoalannya kenapa masih terdapat ular ini, didalam RBW yang sudah ada aluminium belting???. Saya yakin ular masuk sebelum aluminium dipasang atau masuk melalui lubang air keluar atau celah2 pintu atau sebarang lubang yang boleh dimasuk ke dalam rbw.

Sawa tikus tidak mempunyai bisa yang boleh memudarat manusia