ON A (BIRD'S) WING AND A PRAYER
By Michael D. Evans
The announcement by Israel's Agriculture Ministry last week that bird flu had been found at a kibbutz near Jerusalem was an ominous indication that the disease has not been confined to the country's South, where it first broke out about a month ago. Despite Israel's quick action to stem the outbreak, its arrival in the center of the country – as well as in neighboring Jordan – means that it is relentlessly spreading northward.
Israel acted quickly in attempt to prevent the spread of infection, destroying some 1.2 million turkeys and chickens in just nine days. This was amazingly fast, compared to other advanced countries. According to Israeli Agriculture Minister Ze'ev Boim, Japan took 23 days to destroy and bury the poultry at just one site, and 31 days to do the same at another. Canada, he said, destroyed 13 million infected birds over seven months and it took South Korea over three months to destroy and bury some 5 million fowl.
Closer to home, Israel faced the unusual problem of denial in Egypt, where Boim said the flu spread throughout the country before President Hosni Mubarak's government was forced to admit that it had a problem.
Even before the outbreak of avian flu in Israel, the country came to the aid of another country fighting the disease. At the beginning of March, Israel sent eight tons of emergency medical supplies to Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, to help it cope with its own outbreak of bird flu. The supplies, which included protective equipment against infection, were distributed to medical aid centers throughout the country, in the hope they would help prevent the epidemic from spreading to Nigeria's neighbors.
Today Israel is particularly concerned about the infection in the Gaza Strip, with its poultry population estimated at some 2 million. Israel has provided the Palestinian Authority with know-how and even poison to kill infected birds and has asked the World Bank to help out. Last weekend the bank agreed to give the PA $2 million to help compensate farmers for the loss of their fowl.
Meanwhile, Israel is compensating its hard-hit poultry farmers on its own as it continues to fight the outbreak, which the government is confident it has brought under control. It has done so by employing such sophisticated measures as setting up a central command center to coordinate all professional elements combating the disease and to update all government ministries.
The good news – so far – is that the disease has not been found in a single person in Israel. Several poultry handlers initially suspected of having been infected were found to be free of the virus.
Immediately following the discovery of the outbreak, the ministries of Health and Agriculture followed established procedure and began culling affected birds. On instruction from the World Health Organization, all birds in a 3-kilometer radius of the center of infection were destroyed. All persons who regularly handle poultry or who are often in their proximity are being tested by the health authorities.
But despite the fact that Israel's health and agricultural systems are among the best in the world – and the supervision of animal and public health, as well as food products, is meticulous – its very geography poses a tremendous challenge. Israel is right in the middle of the main bird migratory route between Europe and Africa.
Thus it was only a matter of time before avian flu was transmitted to Israel. The disease had already become endemic in the region, striking Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, and Cyprus. Nevertheless, for the most part Israelis continue consuming poultry products, knowing that the virus very rarely infects humans and cannot survive the heat of cooking.
Even though Israel is a major rest stop for migrating birds, they may not necessarily be the principal agent in the spread of avian flu, according to Dan Alon, director of the Israel Ornithology Center. He insists that the best way to curb the spread of the disease is to make poultry farms more secure.
"The main thing to do is to reduce the connection between migrating and natural birds to farm birds. If a sparrow can get into a chicken farm or turkey farm, he can carry the flu and probably impact the entire farm," Alon said.
Unfortunately, that single sparrow isn't one in a million. Israel's unique location at the junction of Europe, Asia, and Africa places it in the center of the world's avian superhighway, crossed by some 500 million migrating birds twice a year. And while Israelis pray that their countermeasures will be effective, new outbreaks were reported in neighboring Jordan and Egypt just last week.
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