Jalandhar: Fear of the deadly H5N1 virus that plagued most of Europe, Africa, and Asia in the last fortnight catalyzed a workshop organized by the Punjab Forest Department. The workshop trained NGOs and forest officials to mitigate the crisis in the event of the outbreak of avian flu in India.

The two-day workshop was attended by forest and wildlife officials of the five north Indian states of Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Representatives of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) also participated in the workshop.

The workshop adopted several precautionary measures to allay the impact of avian influenza both in birds as well as in humans. The participants were provided with a set of prescribed tools for collection of samples in migratory birds for disease surveillance, mode of transmission of the virus, pathogenesis and post-mortem lesion. The participants were also apprised of the five regional disease diagnostic laboratories where samples could be sent for detection of the virus.

Bird influenza is caused by the lethal H5N1 virus, which can easily transmit into humans. More than 60 people have died since its outbreak in 2003. This year human casualties due to bird-flu were reported from several places in Asia such as China, Indonesia, and Thailand. WHO officials allaying fears have said that if suitable drugs are made available in the market soon, an international pandemic can be averted, which can save seven million people across the globe from this lethal virus.

Wildlife veterinarian Dr. Prajna Pratima Panda of WTI who had attended the workshop said that the wildlife department of J & K had requested WTI to help them in the monitoring of wetlands and in collection of samples of migratory birds in the state. Thousands of migratory birds from different parts of the world visit the wetlands in the state every year in their seasonal sojourns and make it prone to such pandemic in India. Various species of birds such as Bar-headed geese (Anser indicus), Great black headed gull or palla’s gull (Larus ichthyaetus), Brown headed gull (Larus brunnicephalus), ruddy shelduck (Tadorna ferruginea) and great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) etc are known to visit India every year.

According to Dr. Panda, all wildlife and forest officials of the five states would be closely monitoring the wetland areas, which the migratory birds are known to visit, in addition to domestic fowl and poultry animals. Avian influenza (H5N1 strain) is highly contagious and can become lethal in domestic and wild birds. In the past avian flu was seen to move from domestic fowl to wild birds however new evidence shows that the virus could also transmit among wild birds. Due to the highly pathogenic nature of the virus, it could easily spread to other parts of the world through these migratory birds, which can act as carriers.

At present, six diagnostic laboratories in India conduct such detection processes; they are located in Jalandhar (North), Kolkata (East), Bangalore (South), Pune (West), Bareilley (Central) and the high security Animal Disease laboratory in Bhopal. In the past, government scientists have screened more than 12000 samples, which include poultry animals such as chicken, duck, geese, guinea fowl, pheasants and pigs.

According to Dr. Panda, “The virus lacks the mechanism for “proof-reading” and repair of errors that occur during replication of the genetic material. As a result, the genetic composition of the virus changes and the existing strain is replaced with a new antigenic variant; the phenomenon is called (antigenic “drift”). As populations will have no immunity to the new subtype, no existing vaccines can confer protection which may lead to lethal pandemics.”

At present, the two antiviral drugs Oseltamavir, and Zanamavir would probably work to treat influenza caused by the H5N1 virus. However, there is no commercially available vaccine to protect humans against the deadly virus, which makes monitoring of domestic and migratory birds all the more important.

Pix credit: John Corder