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OSU gets grant to develop bird flu test
Monday, February 27, 2006 | No comments posted.
CORVALLIS (AP) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded an Oregon State University researcher $100,000 to develop a test to quickly detect avian influenza in chickens and other birds.
Rapid, accurate diagnosis is crucial in preventing widespread outbreaks of disease in birds, as well as possible transmission to humans, said Manoj Pastey, an assistant professor of biomedical sciences at the university's College of Veterinary Medicine.
“Diagnostic tests currently available for identifying infected flocks suffer from a series of disadvantages such as high costs, long processing times and low sensitivity,” Pastey said.
Those problems often lead to a delay of a week or more for confirmation of infection, he said.
Pastey hopes to produce a test that gives reliable results within hours of testing.
Bird flu can cause severe economic losses to poultry growers.
But the threat of a deadly strain spreading from birds to people and starting a worldwide pandemic has pushed scientists to renew efforts to prevent and control the spread of avian viruses.
Most viral strains typically cause few, if any symptoms in infected birds, complicating efforts to detect disease within flocks. And relatively mild strains of bird flu are capable of mutating into highly virulent strains of the disease.
Despite isolated outbreaks, transmission of the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza virus to humans is rare, Pastey said.
Bird-to-human transmission can occur when particles from contaminated feces are inhaled. Human-to-human transmission of the strain is possible, but there are only a few cases where human-to-human transmission is thought to have occurred.
The H5N1 strain has killed 88 people since 2003.
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On the Net:
Oregon State University: http://www.orst.edu
Rapid, accurate diagnosis is crucial in preventing widespread outbreaks of disease in birds, as well as possible transmission to humans, said Manoj Pastey, an assistant professor of biomedical sciences at the university's College of Veterinary Medicine.
“Diagnostic tests currently available for identifying infected flocks suffer from a series of disadvantages such as high costs, long processing times and low sensitivity,” Pastey said.
Those problems often lead to a delay of a week or more for confirmation of infection, he said.
Pastey hopes to produce a test that gives reliable results within hours of testing.
Bird flu can cause severe economic losses to poultry growers.
But the threat of a deadly strain spreading from birds to people and starting a worldwide pandemic has pushed scientists to renew efforts to prevent and control the spread of avian viruses.
Most viral strains typically cause few, if any symptoms in infected birds, complicating efforts to detect disease within flocks. And relatively mild strains of bird flu are capable of mutating into highly virulent strains of the disease.
Despite isolated outbreaks, transmission of the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza virus to humans is rare, Pastey said.
Bird-to-human transmission can occur when particles from contaminated feces are inhaled. Human-to-human transmission of the strain is possible, but there are only a few cases where human-to-human transmission is thought to have occurred.
The H5N1 strain has killed 88 people since 2003.
---
On the Net:
Oregon State University: http://www.orst.edu
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