Avian Flu - What we need to know

North Korea denies human bird flu case

North Korea has denied a report that a woman in its capital Pyongyang became infected with bird flu and said it had had no outbreaks of the disease, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said on Friday.

The group Rescue the North Korean People! Urgent Action Network said earlier this week a woman was infected after chickens carrying the disease were found in Pyongyang.

From Reuters. The North Korean government's credibility is not the best, but their position is probably still worth mentioning.

FAO: North Korea H7 outbreak contained

The recent outbreak of avian influenza in North Korea (DPRK) has been successfully contained, FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations] said today, urging the country to continue surveillance on the affected farms and elsewhere to ensure that no residual infection remains.

An H7 strain of the bird flu virus had been detected recently on three poultry farms near the capital Pyongyang. Although this virus caused severe disease in chickens it is not directly related to the H5N1 avian influenza virus circulating in other parts of Asia.

"The virus appears to have been eliminated from the three infected farms by combining culling of around 218 000 infected chickens, vaccination of unaffected birds in unaffected poultry houses and strict biosecurity measures," said FAO consultant Les Sims, who travelled to Pyongyang to advise the North Korean veterinary authorities on bird flu control.

North Korea has acted promptly and appropriately and has provided essential information in a timely manner, Sims said, and the official declaration to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) was done in due time. FAO sent three experts to the country to assist national authorities in diagnosis and disease management. This was done through the East Asian Regional Network on Avian Influenza set up by FAO.

Full story.

EU bans imports from North Korea

The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, announced Thursday it is banning the import of feathers and pet birds effective immediately in the wake of a bird flu outbreak in the Asian country.

As North Korea is authorized to export only feathers and pet birds to the EU, the ban only applies to these products.

Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, China, Vietnam, Pakistan and Malaysia) are banned from exporting poultry products and pet birds to the EU until Sept. 30, 2005.

Full story.

North Korea asks for international help

Historically North Korea and other similar communist dictatorships tried to hide from the world any domestic problems they experienced. The latest decision by Pyongyang to ask for international help in dealing with the flu could be a sign that the outbreak is worse than previously thought.

North Korea only recently admitted to having an outbreak. Pyongyang first tried to deal with the problem itself. A South Korean reporter initially learned about a potential avian flu outbreak in the North, prompting the World Health Organization to pressure Pyongyang into releasing more information.

H7 in North Korea?

North Korea seems to be the first East Asian country to report the H7 strain of avian influenza.

The recent bird flu outbreaks in North Korea are likely to have been the first in East Asia involving the H7 virus, creating a "new situation" for experts tackling the disease, a senior official at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said Tuesday.

Laboratory tests "have shown indirect evidence that it was a virus of subtype H7," FAO bird flu expert Hans Wagner told Kyodo News upon his return from Pyongyang, where he assisted the country in diagnosing the virus.

Although the H7 type was reported in Pakistan in 2004, there are no records of outbreaks involving the virus in East Asia, FAO spokesman Diderik de Vleeschauwer said.

The virus is the same type that caused outbreaks in the state of Delaware in the United States and Canada in 2004.

Wagner said it was still unclear how pathogenic the virus involved in the North Korea case is.

The North Korean government told FAO last week that it has culled 219,000 birds at three chicken farms owned by the same company.

Full story here.

Why do I not believe either source?

North Korea, which has culled tens of thousands of chickens and clamped down on bird movements, may be able to contain its first suspected bird flu outbreaks on three farms, a top U.N. bird flu expert said on Friday.

"For the time being, everything indicates that it can be contained," Hans Wagner, a senior official with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, told Reuters by telephone from the North Korean capital Pyongyang.

Here is the story.  Here is a brief article on totalitarianism and lies.