US Health Sec. Bird Flu Coming
Face it, folks - for months we've been tracking the avian flu virus around the globe, it's only a matter of time before it lands here in the US. The reports will no longer be of poultry farm populations dying or being killed off in unrecognizable locations around the world.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The lethal avian flu that is spreading rapidly around the world could soon infect wild birds and domesticated flocks in the United States, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said on Wednesday.
In testimony to a congressional panel on his agency's budget for combating a possible avian flu outbreak among humans, Leavitt told senators that no one knows when or if the virus will pose a threat to people. But, he said, "it's just a matter of time -- it may be very soon" when wild birds and possibly poultry flocks contract the disease.
This below is from an October article on some potential domestic issues relative to the virus arriving. It isn't all pessimism.
The recent spread of avian flu in Asia and Europe has rattled consumers and battered poultry producers in those parts of the world. So far, the U.S. poultry industry has been spared -- in part, say industry experts, because differences in U.S. production methods make an outbreak less likely here. But analysts say the multi-billion industry remains vulnerable to further global spread of the disease -– and to public fears that could reduce Americans' appetite for poultry in the coming months.
Poultry farming is big business, and the U.S. is the world’s leading producer and exporter of poultry meat. About 75 percent of that comes from chicken production, the rest from the sales of eggs and turkey. And in recent years, the business has been sizzling: American poultry farmers served up $29 billion worth of birds last year, some 24 percent more than in 2003.
