Avian Flu in Afghanistan?
Athens, Ga. – Just back from Afghanistan, where she helped
diagnose that country’s first case of bird flu, University
of Georgia veterinarian Corrie Brown has a new perspective
on the disease that threatens to become the world’s next
pandemic.
“I saw the human-animal bond in another way,” said Brown,
professor and international activities coordinator in the
College of Veterinary Medicine. “It’s a survival and a
sustenance kind of bond – and that bond is going to be
disrupted by bird flu.”Brown, a globe-trekking pathologist with a passion for
international service, was at Kabul University helping its
veterinary school craft a mission statement that would help
it reemerge from decades of disuse. The school, used as a
military base during the Afghans’ war with the Soviet Union
and closed during the rule of the Taliban, is housed in a
three-story building riddled with bullet holes and stripped
of its electrical wires. Brown said that despite their
crumbling facilities, the veterinarians in Kabul were eager
to learn the skills that will help rebuild their country’s
agricultural base.Brown taught the veterinarians to perform animal autopsies
known as necropsies. Based on reports of bird flu in
neighboring Pakistan and anecdotal reports about unexplained
bird deaths in Afghanistan, she half-expected to encounter
an infected bird.The first animal that she necropsied was a pigeon that was
brought to the diagnostic laboratory after mysteriously
falling out of the sky. Thoughts of finding bird flu raced
through Brown’s mind.“We did the necropsy,” Brown said. “And it had been shot. We
all laughed because that was a pretty good reason for
falling out of the sky.”The next animal she necropsied had canine distemper, an
incurable viral disease that infects dogs. Next, she helped
a local farmer diagnose Brucella melitensis, a bacterial
disease that terminates pregnancies in lambs and goats and
can infect humans, causing flu-like symptoms and, in rare
cases, neurological problems and long-term joint pain and
fatigue.“We made the diagnosis and the farmer went home with
vaccines for his flock,” Brown said proudly. “So I like to
think we did a very important thing.”Three days after her necropsy workshop finished, a local
farmer gave her a burlap bag with a dead rooster in it.
Opening it, she saw a blue coloring on the bird’s once-red
comb that was a tell-tale sign of bird flu. “I said, ‘This
is probably it,’” she recalled.A real but brief sense of panic came over her as she looked
down at the bird. It had been killed by a virus that has
decimated poultry populations in Asia, killed more than 100
people worldwide and has the potential to kill millions if
it were to develop the ability to pass from humans to humans.
That panic passed as she thought, “Well, this is what I’ve
been trained for.”The necropsy revealed hemorrhaged lungs, water around the
heart and other signs of organ failure characteristic of
bird flu. A researcher on hand made a preliminary
confirmation of the viral strain using DNA testing, and a
lab in Italy that had received samples from previous birds
gave the final, definitive confirmation of the feared H5N1
influenza virus.After performing the necropsy, Brown returned to the heavily
fortified U.S. embassy in Kabul, where she was greeted with
a bag of fresh clothes, promptly escorted to a shower on the
outskirts of the embassy for decontamination and given the
antiviral drug Tamiflu.That night, the Afghan government formally announced that
bird flu had penetrated its borders, paving the way for aid
dollars that will help fight the disease in that country.After her initial excitement faded, Brown began to consider
the implications of her discovery. She knew that being
exposed to the virus put her at risk, but also thought of
the Afghan veterinarians who would be testing for the virus
without the benefit of antiviral drugs and protective gear.She thought of what disruptions to the poultry supply would
mean to Afghan boys selling their family’s eggs on the
street and to a population that already does not get enough
protein. She thought of the potential for widespread human
infections and realized that the global problem of bird flu
has very personal implications for millions of people.“It gave me renewed enthusiasm to do something positive,”
she said.
This was written and circulated as of 2006, I hope you enjoy this article.
Here’s also another article of interest on the bird flu:
This one explains that the bird flu hysteria is not what the media makes it out to be, and was also circulated throughout the departments in the Poultry Diagnostic Research Center.
Response to “Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America.”
For your information: On May 9th at 8 o’clock ABC will be running a made for TV movie “Fatal Contact, Bird Flu in America.” This movie is a Hollywood depiction of some future, yet-to-be-identified human pandemic. Unfortunately they have chosen to use the current situation of H5N1 Asian avian influenza, the animal health issue, as the basis for the plot. We first wanted to make sure you were aware this will occur, and second that you might understand how to respond if approached by customers.
Once again, first and foremost, we need to make the distinction between avian influenza, the bird disease—which is what we have now—and human pandemic—which has not occurred. Any time someone brings up the subject of “bird flu,” please take the opportunity to educate them on this very critical distinction.
Obviously, this movie carries the idea of pandemic to an incredibly sensational extreme. But it is sweeps week, and the networks are looking for ratings. The good thing is that this program is running opposite another “AI” TV show: American Idol, for some time running the top-rated show in the country, which will incidentally be in their “final four” stage—kind of a tough contender for audience, as are the CBS offerings of “NCIS” and “The Unit.”
We’ve been told by ABC—and we have every reason to believe this is true—that they will be running PSAs before, during and after the movie, indicating that it is a work of fiction, and that the pandemic virus that’s the subject of the movie is different from the H5N1 strain of avian influenza currently circulating.
Something else from which we might take some comfort: A couple of weeks ago, on “Dateline NBC,” they ran a similar “dramatization” of how pandemic might spread. Our consumer research from the week following the program showed absolutely no change in consumer behavior or intentions. So it’s appearing as though consumers are sorting through this issue, separating fact from fiction.
This was also circulated throughout their departments. It’s obvious that terms like ‘pandemic’ and ‘epidemic’ should be avoided though they may work in areas where there are few people or where many people are close with their chickens.
Any of you worrying about the bird flu should have nothing to worry about.
