Preventing bird flu

Q: What can be done to prevent bird flu?

A: Well, this is a complicated question. Public health agencies around the world are asking this very question, and although they are doing their best to contain bird flu, they expect that ultimately, the virus will end up mutating enough to spread from person to person, killing millions of people around the world, including many of us on Saipan, Tinian and Rota.

One of the key measures to prevent spread of bird flu is containment. When infected birds are found, they are quickly killed. Last week farms throughout Romania were busy killing infected birds, and birds that might have been in contact with them, as a way to prevent spread of the virus. Since the virus can spread over long distances by migratory wild birds, it’s important to quickly eliminate the sources of a potential outbreak. This week in China, an new outbreak has again lead health authorities to kill poultry on a large scale. Most efforts right now are focused on quickly finding the infected birds and killing them along with the healthy birds that might have come into contact with them.

Migratory birds and ducks can carry the virus without becoming sick. They can travel from area to area, spreading the disease to other birds. So, another measure is to keep chickens away from these other birds that can travel and spread the disease. This involves changing farming practices.

As I mentioned two weeks ago, pigs can catch the bird flu. This is particularly dangerous, because pigs can also carry the human flu virus. If the bird flu and the human flu virus get together in the pig and mix, then there is a high chance for the virus to mutate into a deadly form of bird flu that can spread directly from one person to another. So, efforts are also directed at keeping chickens away from pigs.

Some farms use a lot of medications in order to keep the birds more healthy. They dose up the birds with anti-viral medications. Over long periods of time, this can result in the development of viruses that are resistant to these medications, becoming stronger and more deadly. Use of antiviral drugs on chicken farms is banned by the international community, but there are still farms around the world that use the drugs, leading to the development of such deadly strains.

Of course, each of us in some way contributes to the emergence of such diseases through our lifestyles and our eating habits. The worldwide demand for poultry results in farms that take up such practices that lead to the emergence of deadly diseases. In her book, The Coming Plague, Laurie Garrett discusses all the things we humans do that causes the emergence of deadly strains of viruses. It’s a scary book to read, but quite an eye-opener. It has long been recognized that the amount of animal products that we have are in our diets is far too high, leading to all kinds of chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes and high cholesterol. Sustaining our desire for animal products also takes a huge toll on the earth. The high demand for grazing land for cattle is one of the major forces in many countries behind deforestation.

Though the plague we face right now is bird flu, in the years to come we will face many such emerging diseases. Public health measures that are currently in place go a long way to containing bird flu. But in the long run, we will need to change things that are very hard to change—like our eating practices and our farming practices—that contribute directly to the emergence of such diseases. Eat vegetables instead of that hunk of chicken. It may not prevent bird flu, but in the long run, you’re making the world a safer place.

(David Khorram, MD is a board certified ophthalmologist, and director of Marianas Eye Institute. Questions and comments are welcome. Call 235-9090 or email eye@vzpacifica.net. Copyright © 2005 David Khorram.)