COMMENTARY
Avian flu — be informed, but not fearful
By Douglas K.Y. Chang, D.V.M.
As a veterinarian who treats a number of exotic birds, many people have asked my thoughts about avian flu.
In short, it's important to be informed about avian flu but not fearful of it. Wild birds — mainly water birds and fowl — have carried a number of weak or innocuous flu viruses since the beginning of time. A specific flu strain — known as H5N1— was identified in 1997 as being particularly aggressive. Its mutations have been closely followed ever since, and it attracted media attention when it mutated from a bird-to-bird strain to a bird-to-human strain.
Today, the big question is whether the virus will mutate into a human-to-human strain, which has fueled wide speculation of a possible pandemic. While it's important to acknowledge this possibility, it's more important to act on reliable, accurate information. Whether such a mutation can or will occur is unknown. What is known is that avian flu has never been detected in North America.
A number of agencies, including the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S. Geological Survey, conduct regular field sampling and surveillance in order to immediately detect its presence in the U.S. or Canada. Should it be detected, emergency response protocols are established.
The handful of humans who contracted avian flu in Asia were living and working in rural areas in close proximity to domesticated fowl. They were in day-to-day contact with infected chickens, ducks or turkeys, as well as their contaminated surfaces and body excretions.
This doesn't mean that people should fear having contact with birds. Instead, they should be especially thorough when it comes to sanitation. Anyone who keeps domesticated fowl on their property — or who has bird baths or feeders — may want to be particularly vigilant at this time. Additionally, anyone who hunts and/or cleans their own game should following these routine guidelines:
These tips come from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Those who keep poultry or water fowl on their property should fence them in to protect them from outside game birds or wild migratory water fowl. Special attention should be given to keeping their cages sanitized. It's wise to scrub and disinfect shoes, clothing and the birds' feeding equipment after leaving their area. Anyone who visits a feed store or live bird market should completely disinfect their clothes, shoes and vehicle before coming into contact with their own birds.
The vast majority of us do not come into regular contact with birds, so we simply need to follow basic common sense by not touching any dead or obviously sick birds. Instead, reports can be made to the state Department of Agriculture's Animal Industry Division or the Hawaiian Humane Society.
In the event that avian flu is detected in the Islands, it's important to know that a quarantine of some type will be necessary. Depending on how widespread a quarantine may be, an emergency preparedness box — including food, water and medicine — is a sensible thing to have on hand. No different, really, than a hurricane preparedness kit.
We at Aloha Animal Hospital hope, as you do, that Hawai'i will never encounter avian flu. In the meantime, we can all follow these basic guidelines to minimize any potential effect of an outbreak or quarantine.
Douglas K. Y. Chang is a veterinarian with Aloha Animal Hospital Associates . He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.
