Word: waterfowl
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...found antibodies?evidence of an earlier infection?in a Chinese badger. Those results probably confirm the long-dreaded notion that overly close cohabitation of man and animal is brewing up new, fatal plagues. Hong Kong's bird flu of 1997 was just such a creation: a virus harmless in waterfowl that jumped species to infect chickens and then mutated again, killing six people before authorities got it under control by wiping out 1.4 million chickens...
...virus has mutated from its animal carrier so that it can infect humans, who have no immunity from the alien invader. The most obvious examples of this are HIV and influenza, and the latter disease has disturbing parallels with SARS. The flu virus lives usually in the stomachs of waterfowl, and the two are co-adapted?the birds don't get sick. It is widely believed among virologists, however, that with the domestication of ducks in southern China 2,000-3,000 years ago, flu jumped species...
...park preserves some of Thailand's finest shoreline habitat, as well as sprawling marshes teeming with waterfowl. More than 200 bird species are regularly sighted, including egrets, kingfishers, herons and raptors. Spelunkers flock to this nearly 10,000-hectare park, which features several easily-explored caverns. At the mouth of the largest stands a four-gable, roofed pavilion that dates to the 19th century...
...Since the 1997 outbreak when Hong Kong authorities' citywide slaughter of 1.4 million chickens was largely credited with stopping the flu's spread, the government has instituted several preventive measures: increased testing of imported chickens, segregating live waterfowl from other poultry at markets and enforcing a monthly market "rest day" to disinfect cages...
...Mainland officials well know that chicken flu is bad for business. After each H5N1 outbreak, Hong Kong has banned poultry imports from China, if only temporarily. When Macau detected H5N1 in Chinese geese last May, Chinese waterfowl imports were banned for three months. And after avian flu was detected in Chinese duck meat by Seoul authorities in mid-2001, Japan and South Korea imposed a two-month ban. Within days of Hong Kong's latest outbreak, sales of chicken plunged 80%?an estimated loss to retailers of $13 million. "This is supposed to be our peak season," says Wong...