BIRDS AS VIRUS CARRIERS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28920, 13 June 1959, Page 10

BIRDS AS VIRUS CARRIERS

Migration Routes To Be Studies

(By a Reuter Correspondent) MANILA.

Migratory birds may be the carriers of viruses which strike thousands of people and animals every year in all parts of the world, according to World Health Organisation experts. Scientists are now studying the theory that acute encephalitis (sleeping sickness) and other diseases are being spread from country to country and from continent to continent by migratory birds, the World Health Organisation regional office here reports. This theory was broached at a veterinary public health meeting held recently in Tokyo under the sponsorship of the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation. The World Health Organisation report, released in Manila, stated that a long-term plan to prove the theory and find ways of controlling the disease concerned, particularly encephalitis, was formed during the seminar. Different types of encephalitis virus are found in Africa, America, Australia, Central Europe and Japan, the report said. In some countries sporadic human infections are diagnosed every year and from time to time encephalitis appears ip widespread outbreaks involving thousands of victims both human and animal.

The World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation are now co-ordin-ating efforts of ornithologists, zoologists, entomologists and other- specialists in veterinary and human health to find out how Japanese encaphalitis, for example, has been diagnosed in Malaya,. and Russian encephalitis has appeared in India. Scientists have also discovered strains of both Japanese and Australian encephalitis in the Pacific Islands. Migratory birds, carrying infected ticks or having the virus in their blood, may be spreading the disease, the experts concluded in Tokyo. To prove this, a plan to study migration routes and to take blood specimens from birds and man in infected areas evolved. The blood specimens will be stored for 10 to 15 years and when by then the scientists know more about the disease, it is hoped a complete picture of the encephalitis viruses can be formed. It should then be possible to develop a vaccine that will stop the spread of the disease, experts say.

The study will become part of a proposed expanded world-wide research, co-ordinated by the World Health Authority into certain unsolved disease-problems such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and virus diseases. The Tokyo seminar was the first of its kind to be held in Asia. It included participants from Australia, Nationalist China, Fiji, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, the Federation of Malaya, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, the United States of America, Pakistan and Denmark. Ostrich Abattoir CAPE TOWN. The Klein Karoo Agricultural Co-operative is planning a £20,000 ostrich abattoir, the only one in the world. The co-operative is the only organisation in the Union of South Africa permitted to slaughter ostriches and make biltong for sale. The abattoir could handle 2500 birds a month. Farmers have been advised to strengthen their flocks, depleted by droughts in the last few years. The total number of birds in the district is estimated at about 12,000, the lowest for 25 years.