Long day yesterday, but back to relative normality today.

Interesting to see the mounting media hype regarding Avian Flu.

The incidence of the virus in Turkey has come as no great surprise, and there is now the strong possibility of an incident in Romania. Given the propensity for birds to fly (without regard to air traffic control and no-fly zones) the spread is likely. Gorse Fox sees this in a similar way to computer failure... you have to assume it will happen, and trust that you have adequate safeguards in place to ensure control when it does. It was good to see HMG (Chief Veterinary Officer) actually making a statement on the subject yesterday. GF actually has a few insights in this area, and whilst not dismissing the seriousness of the problem, and the potential work involved, believes the official statement yesterday to be an open, honest and factual assessment.

Gorse Fox does wish, however, that they would try and separate the Avian impact from the Human impact.

It would be quite possible for an outbreak of Avian Flu to decimate the bird population without having any significant impact on humans. This doesn't seem to be coming across. Even the Silver Vixen was under the impression that a human transmissible strain is the outcome of the Avian Strain. Currently this is not the case. Yes, humans can get infected through close proximity, but this is not transmissable at present, and should be treatable with retro-virals.


[File under: Avian Flu]