Wild bird trade plays role in bird flu spread
Bloomberg
May 31, 2006

The legal and illegal trade of wild birds is playing a role in spreading the H5N1 avian flu virus that's killed 127 people, scientists said.

``We still don't understand this movement of wildlife,'' William Karesh, the New York-based director of the field veterinary program at the Wildlife Conservation Society said today at a conference in Rome. ``We have good records for legal trade, but that's only a bit of what's going on and it's probably not where the problems are.''

About 350 million live animals are moved worldwide to become pets or serve other domestic purposes in a trade worth about $20 billion a year. About one-quarter of this trade is thought to be illegal and so isn't inspected or tested. Disease outbreaks resulting from wildlife trade have caused hundreds of billions of dollars of economic damage globally, Karesh said.

Scientists from more than 100 countries are meeting in Rome to try to shift the focus of bird flu prevention back to the animals that incubate the disease. The H5N1 virus has killed almost two of every three people infected this year, leading governments to buy antivirals, including Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu, and to sponsor vaccine development. Focusing on controlling the disease in animal populations would be better, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says.

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