Bird Flu Confirmed in United Kingdom

Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News

April 7, 2006

A dead swan pulled from a harbor in Britain has tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza, officials announced yesterday. The bird was found floating nine days ago in the Scottish town of Cellardyke.

Professor John Oxford, influenza virologist at St. Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospital, told the Times of London that there was no reason for panic.

"The danger to humans at this stage is virtually zero," he said. "The danger for chickens and turkeys in the immediate area will be much higher."

To date, H5N1 remains a threat mainly to birds. Scottish officials sprang into action to protect domestic flocks.

With tests pending on more than a dozen birds, the Scottish government created a surveillance zone of some 965 square miles (2,500 square kilometers).

The area includes about 175 poultry properties and over three million birds—including more than a quarter million free-range animals.

Local farmers have been asked to move their birds indoors or take other measures to separate them from wild birds—one possible source of the bird flu virus in domestic poultry.

Experts are unsure how the virus reached Scotland. They can't say if the infected swan was a permanent resident or a swan from the Baltic Sea fleeing cold weather.

(Read an excerpt of National Geographic magazine's "Tracking the Next Killer Flu.")

Public Asked to Stay Alert

Debbie Reynolds, the U.K.'s chief veterinary officer, told the BBC that her agency will continue extensive testing. The agency has examined over 3,000 wild birds so far this year.

Hugh Pennington, a microbiologist at Aberdeen University in Scotland, stressed that the public can help by staying alert.

"The most important thing the public can do is keep their eyes peeled," he told the BBC.

"You know, people who go to the country—particularly people who go to the shores of lochs and lakes and rivers and so on where aquatic birds live, because this is a virus of aquatic birds," he said.

Like most experts, virologist Todd Hatchette, of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, expects the virus to continue its global spread.

"There has been ongoing debate over how much of [H5N1's] spread has been due to entrenchment in wild birds and how much has been due to illegal movement of poultry," he said.

He added that the swan find suggests the bird-flu threat may become more pronounced as birds follow their migratory pathways.

(Read "Bird Flu Will Reach U.S. and Canada This Fall, Experts Predict.")

"I think the fact that it's showing up in swans is further evidence that the wild bird population is going to be problematic," he said.

Industry Nervous

There is no evidence to suggest that humans can acquire the virus from eating properly cooked poultry products.

But bird flu's arrival in the U.K. has some worried about consumer confidence.

Britain's National Farmers' Union (NFU) reported that Scotland's poultry industry earns over 115 million British pounds (202 million U.S. dollars) a year.

"If people panic, they are putting livelihoods at risk," NFU's James Withers told the Associated Press.

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