GERMANY - Dead swan in Dresden zoo tests pos for H5N1

[canagica]

Re: GERMANY - Dead swan in Dresden zoo tests pos for H5N1

FYI-
I am attempting to contact my source that told me it was a Mute Swan to reconcile it with the news report above [reporting a Black Swan]. I apologize for any confusion if my initial report turns out to be wrong...

[Neanderthaler]

Re: GERMANY - Dead swan in Dresden zoo tests pos for H5N1

Second bird in dresden suuspected with H5N1

http://www.nzz.ch/2006/08/04/vm/newzzEQGICD1M-12.html

The bird is a Reiherente a small black and white duck. The duck has proved positive for H5 and further tests are being performed.

This newspaper reports the Swan with H5N1 as a Trauerschwan which is a black swan.

[Theresa42]

Re: GERMANY - Dead swan in Dresden zoo tests pos for H5N1

FYI-
I am attempting to contact my source that told me it was a Mute Swan to reconcile it with the news report above [reporting a Black Swan]. I apologize for any confusion if my initial report turns out to be wrong...

Eh -- don't worry about. We're used to the confusion that usually surrounds breaking bf news.

Thanks for posting the info you have/will get!

[Neanderthaler]

Re: GERMANY - Dead swan in Dresden zoo tests pos for H5N1

[QUOTE=Kissa]IT must be open, what irony, i dont know to listen to Tom Waits or Janis Joplin


I do not see the Irony. H5N1 exists in the environment here. The chances of contacting this disease from birds seems remote in the extreme. I swim along with tens of thousands of others in a lake where ducks and swans were found with H5N1. Statistically the greater danger is the drive to the lake or drowning or having a heart attack, not the contacting H5N1. We are creatures that grow accustomed to certain dangers and rightly or wrongly we aportion a certain risk level to the realm of acceptable behaviour. I drive my car on the freeway I swim in the lake of Constance. The chances of contacting this disease without repeated close contact and a lot of bad luck are extreme. You get used to it, you accept the risks where necessary.

[Neanderthaler]

Re: GERMANY - Dead swan in Dresden zoo tests pos for H5N1

Well the Zoo's response is that every single bird in the Zoo will be destroyed. Every type of animal will be tested and should it prove positive all 600 birds will be destroyed.

http://www.fr-aktuell.de/in_und_ausl...?em_cnt=941976

This is more of a public relations exercise for the Zoo at the cost of the birds. If the swan in the Zoo caught the infection from wild birds then every pond in europe is suspect to some degree of harboring asymptomatic carriers. If the other brids that shared the same pond are not all infected there seems little to fear of a cross species transfer. Not that I want to dismiss caution but there is a strong emotional reaction that is out of all proportion to the risk. Close the zoo until the situation is clarified is probably a wise thing to do, it seems however that H5N1 is about to become or is already endemic and with experience the true nature of the risks will become apparent. Of course with the ever evolving nature of the DNA virus we will never know for sure.

[Snowy Owl]

Re: GERMANY - Dead swan in Dresden zoo tests pos for H5N1

Seems that the Swan was not positive

cf:
Duck from Dresdner zoo did not have H5N1
Le canard du zoo De Dresde n'avait aucun H5N1
Ente aus Dresdner Zoo hatte kein H5N1