Castle praises state poultry industry

By Sam Harvey
Staff Reporter

Castle traveled to Lewes on Nov. 4 to discuss his proposals in the background of the Microbiology Lab at Beebe Medical Center.

“President Bush’s speech earlier this week was filled with words like ‘pandemic,’ ‘global,’ ‘vaccinations.’ Well, I’m here today to talk about another word: prevention,” Castle said.

The congressman noted that he did agree with much of what the president proposed – including national stockpiling of vaccines and antivirals, commitment to developing new vaccine cell culture technology, creation and exercising of local and state response plans and a focus on medical personnel.

But Castle said the president’s plan did not put enough emphasis on international efforts in the agricultural community to prevent global spread of the H5N1 virus.

Castle praised the existing practices of the Delaware poultry industry, from the testing of birds to sanitation of delivery trucks, transportation and equipment, as well as the tri-state plan coordinated with Maryland and Virginia in regard to avian influenza.

“Needless to say, chickens and domestic poultry in the U.S. are perfectly safe,” the congressman emphasized.

Much of what must be done to prevent an avian flu pandemic, Castle said, must occur in other countries:

1) Establish proper poultry controls, such as the prevention of wild birds getting into commercial poultry practices, as well as monitoring of migratory patterns of wild birds to provide early alerts of infected flocks.

2) Monitor and reduce close contact between humans and domestic and wild birds, noting that close life with domestic fowl is a way of life in many of the countries with which scientists are already most concerned.

3) Quick access to infected samples in labs, as the disease spreads rapidly once it begins.

4) Looking at global transportation of animals and animal products to ensure infected animals are not exported to other countries, as well as extending transportation sanitation standards already in use in Delaware to the international community.

Castle’s program toward those goals includes international communication, particularly from countries scientists are most concerned about: Burma, Cambodia, China, Laos, Kazakhstan and Vietnam — which he noted are poor, rural and beset with communication problems.

He also proposed an incentive-based system to convince those countries to share information and act for the greater good. And he emphasized focus on programs such as a Delaware Technical and Community College program in Kosovo that provides training to veterinarians and government officials.

Castle also recommended study of past disease outbreaks, such as the 2003 SARS outbreak to see what approaches have proven effective. And finally, he suggested veterinary disinfectants, such as DuPont’s Virkon 5 be made available worldwide.

Castle was particularly critical of the small portion of the $7.1 billion in proposed funding that was targeted at assisting foreign nations improve their ability to detect and control flu outbreaks in humans and animals.

He said, “$251 million is a low number for such a crucial element in preventing this disease from spreading.”

Castle recommended the overall funding for pandemic flu programs be analyzed to ensure it was the right level and also to find a way to offset the spending in the country’s budget. He also proposed a timeline and plan for exactly how each dollar is spent, so that it is not used blindly.

“As President Bush said … there is no pandemic flu yet,” Castled said. “Prevention is the key in keeping it that way.”

Dr. Scott Olewile, an infectious-disease specialist at Beebe Medical Center, joined Castle in emphasizing that there is no current crisis with avian flu in the U.S.

Further downplaying the hype that has surrounded H5N1 in recent months, Olewile referred to the outbreak of a similar virus (H7N2) in chickens on two farms in Sussex County one year ago, noting that infected chickens were killed at that time and the disease was prevented from spreading.

Particularly, Olewile recommended against the stockpiling of flu drugs, such as Tamiflu, by individual doctors or the population at large, saying he was afraid that the people who would really need the drugs in the case of an outbreak would not be able to obtain them.

Olewile also explained that the biggest threat to humans would be if the H5N1 virus mutated to a form that was able to directly infect humans, rather than relying on birds as an intermediate carrier.

He described the physical differences between avian flu virus cells and those of the flu virus that infects humans – primarily a spiked surface versus a rounded one. If the H5N1 virus were to mutate to have that rounded surface, it could easily jump from human to human, he said. That would be a particular possibility if H5N1 were to infect a human who was already infected with a human flu strain.

But, for now, human cases of H5N1 have remained confined to Asia and Eastern Europe, and generally to those having close contact with infected birds. Castle aims to make sure that everything possible is done to keep it that way.