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USA: RESEARCHERS SAY DEADLY BIRD FLU NOT IN US March 10, 2006
Apunyu Bonny
(SomaliNet) The U.S. government researchers announced on Thursday that the H5N1 avian flu virus has not yet made its way to North America, although many experts believe it will, Reuters reports Friday.
According to the team at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center, eight (8) months worth of sampling migratory birds has turned up no evidence of the dangerous H5N1 strain.
Migratory waterfowl, considered to be the most likely carriers of influenza viruses from east Asia across to western North America, notably Alaska and Canada. Have been sampled by the team. Several viruses were found but not H5N1.
"Avian influenza viruses are common in North American waterfowl and shorebirds, and the finding of a variety of avian influenza viruses is not unexpected," said Dr. Leslie Dierauf, director of the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin.
The USGS said in a statement that with its partners it would "aggressively" monitor and test for avian influenza in wild birds this year due to the increasing number of countries that have discovered highly pathogenic H5N1 in their migratory birds.
The US based agency said biologists from several federal and state agencies, universities and nongovernmental organizations planned to collect between 75,000 and 100,000 samples from migratory birds this year.