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OSU Professor Tracks, Identifies Avian Flu Virus

Posted on: Tuesday, 18 October 2005, 06:00 CDT

CLEVELAND -- A veterinary professor at Ohio State University is part of a national effort to identify and track the avian flu virus that many fear will fuel a pandemic.

Richard Slemons spends days wading through knee-high marsh in a Lake Erie preserve teeming with wild birds. One day last month, Slemons' van contained fecal samples from about 130 ducks.

While there has been avian flu in the United States, it has not been the H5N1 strain that has spread through poultry farms in southeast Asia and into eastern Europe. In two years, it has infected 117 people, all in Asia. More than 60 people have died.

Slemons and other U.S. scientists are tracking wild birds -- a common reservoir for influenza viruses -- so they know when strains are on the move.

"It could become the next pandemic," said Slemons. "But you cannot predict what a flu virus will do. The more we understand about flu viruses, the more complicated they become."

Public health experts do not know if the H5N1 strain will spread to birds and other species in North America, but they aren't taking chances.

Animal scientists are examining birds along North America's five key avian routes, including a waterfowl route through southern Ontario and western Lake Erie before veering southwest across Ohio and Indiana to the Mississippi River.

Ohio State is involved because of Slemons' reputation. Thirty years ago he discovered that migratory ducks infected with avian influenza harbored the germ in their intestinal tracks. Slemons pointed scientists toward the natural reservoir of type A influenza genes that, over time, get passed on to humans, pigs and other mammals.

Source: Cincinnati Post

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