Another great reason NOT to have wild pets

Wild Animal Trade Plays Role in Bird Flu Spread, Scientists Say
May 31 (Bloomberg) --

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.

``We have to focus on this issue of trade because it's the most frequent way if spreading disease from one region to another,'' said Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary officer at the Rome-based FAO. ``We're talking about illegal trade here as well, which is much more difficult to regulate. This includes legal and illegal trade in wild birds which is quite significant and often ignored.''

Exotic Birds

Health officials are worried the H5N1 virus may change into a form easily spread among people, touching off a pandemic similar to the one that began in 1918 in which as many as 50 million people died. Since 2003, H5N1 is known to have infected 224 people in 10 countries, killing 127 of them, according to the World Health Organization in Geneva.

Wild fowl in the pet or exotic bird trade may carry parasites, bacteria and viruses that don't cause disease in the host animal and become dangerous when introduced to new geographic areas or to new host species. Dangerous strains of both the avian flu virus and Newcastle's disease, another ailment that can affect birds, have been found in internationally traded non-domestic birds.

Decreasing contact among different species, including that between humans and birds, may be a better way of tackling the disease than trying to eliminate the virus or the wild species that may harbor them, Karesh said.

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