Deadly Version of Bird Flu Found in Romania

CMan0 writes "The BBC reports that a deadly version of the bird flu has been found in Romania. Several ducks and chickens have died on a farm in Romania this month of the disease, it has been confirmed. It's mentioned that the disease is spreading very rapidly, as the last known location of the disease was Siberia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan in August and the 1st of October in Turkey." From the article: "People appear dazed by what is happening, but since it was confirmed that this is the strain of the bird flu virus found in Asia, they have begun co-operating closely with officials sent to collect their birds, our correspondent says. Turkey has already reported the discovery of the lethal strain of the virus among birds in the west of the country. The EU has banned imports of live birds and poultry products from Romania and Turkey. EU veterinary experts said on Friday that the bird flu outbreak did not represent a risk to the general public 'at present'."

Comments

Yes bet on the web page with Last Updated April 05

[shis-ka-bob]

This is a REAL virus, not a computer virus. Influenza can actually mutate (very fast because it uses RNA rather than DNA to encode its genome.) It may well be, and we must certainly hope, that this is not going to make the jump to our specie and also become highly contagious, in which case it becomes another pandemic. But, even if the odds are 100:1 against this happening, spending resources addressing this are well spent. In the last century, there have been multiple infuenza outbreaks. The largest of this in 1918 dwarfed the First World War as the leading cause of death in 1918. This is very high stakes.

So forgive me if I am underwhelmed by a web site that quotes ten year old research papers and where the emerging deseases pages don't list (any strain) of influenza and hasn't been updated since April.

They're not on their "high horses".

[CyricZ]

The poultry farmers aren't just motivated by money. Poultry to them, especially in some of these poorer nations, is what provides them their ability to live.

I don't think you would like it much if your nation's government came along, proceeding to confiscate and destroy your computers, even those running Linux or OS X, to prevent the spread of a computer worm. Now remember, you most likely could get by without your computers, unlike many of the poultry farmers.

Perhaps the richer countries should purchase these birds at market prices, and then proceed to destroy them. It gives the farmers incentive to get rid of the birds, and helps ensure a greater number are destroyed. It costs a bit of money, but probably far less than if the flu were to spread.