Background on Avian Influenza

The avian influenza H5NI virus that has mutated to become highly pathogenic has now spread to more than 50 countries. More than half of these countries reported outbreaks for the first time in 2006.

Hundreds of thousands of wild birds have died, mostly waterfowl. The types of wild birds that have died with H5NI are hawk, goshawk, gull, crow, sparrow, starling, swan, goose, duck, cormorant, pelican, buzzard, stork, pigeon, myna, and magpie. I am writing to tell you how the disease is spread and how to recognize the symptoms, so that you can communicate this information to the wild birds. With information, they can avoid becoming infected. Please help to get this message out to save the birds.

The disease is spread primarily by excreta - the urine and feces of infected birds. The virus is very hardy and can last for weeks in soils in warm moist temperatures and months in cool water. The virus lasts indefinitely in freezing conditions. Once a bird has become infected, it excretes large quantities of virus for a couple of weeks - if it lives. Domestic chickens tend to die very quickly, within days. However, domestic ducks and wild ducks may survive infection and simply shed the virus without symptoms. To date, all other types of birds appear to have died quickly.

If the bird develops symptoms upon infection, the virus causes significant hemorrhaging which shows in bruising of the legs. Other signs of illness are drooping and discoloration of a chicken's comb, eye closure with conjunctivitis, ruffled feathers, and loss of coordination. Images may be seen at this site, if it will help you to telepathically send warnings to the wild birds. These are not easy to look at, but they will help in sending the warning.

Here's the experiment:

Find a wild bird outside or remember one you saw recently or find a photo of one. Close your eyes and tune in to the bird by opening your heart and sending love. Tell the bird mentally or out loud that you are going to send some information about how to stay healthy. Then open you're your eyes and say or think the instructions below, while focusing internally on the bird. Just trust that the bird will receive the content of what you are saying or thinking.

Instructions to Birds:

Stay away from the manure of poultry, in general, and particularly where sick birds are seen. Stay away from ponds near poultry farms, as the virus has been significantly affecting water fowl through the contaminated drainage into surface waters.

Scavenging birds should avoid any dead birds. Also, birds like sparrows, crows, and starlings need to avoid eating the feed with free-range poultry, and sparrows should avoid going into chicken pens to eat the feed.

When you finish reading or thinking the instructions, send another feeling of love and say goodbye.

More Info About Avian Influenza

Beside birds, the disease has been killing domestic cats, and there have been a few incidents of major losses of large cats in Asian zoos that feed raw poultry. At least one seal has died from the virus.

In over 30 of the affected countries, farm birds have been significantly affected, and over 209 million domestic birds have died or been culled. For every farm bird incident, all domestic birds in a radius of at least 3 km. are culled, and sometimes within a radius of 10 km. The types of domestic birds that have died are ostrich, guinea hen, peacocks, quail, turkey, pigeon, fighting cock, and chicken.

The early stages of this variety of avian influenza began in 1996 in China, and it has been slowly expanding, with the largest spread in the past year. It has affected:

• 8 African countries with human cases in 2 of these;
• 13 European Union countries, with 8 having only wild bird cases, and none having human cases;
• 14 non-EU European countries and Caucasus countries, with 5 having only wild bird cases, and 2 having human cases;
• 5 Middle East countries, with 1 having only wild bird cases, and 1 having human cases;
• 14 Asian countries, with 2 having only wild bird cases, and 5 having human cases.

For more detail on the countries and incidents, the most recent FAO update report is available on line at: http://www.fao.org/docs/eims/upload//209858/AVIbull040.pdf

For information that is useful for your own planning and protection, the CIDRAP site gives a good overview. While cooking does kill the virus, handling the infected bird carcass in a kitchen can lead to virus spread in the kitchen that may survive for 1-2 days. Also, slaughtering and plucking infected birds can lead to infection and death. Several young girls died in one country simply from plucking the feathers from a dead swan that had the virus.

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/avianflu/biofacts/avflu.html.