No news may be good news - sometimes. But not when it comes to reporting about bird flu. Under international law, countries are required to promptly report the occurrence of a number of animal diseases to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). Such reporting is uncomfortably deficient.

Good news?

According to the OIE’s report on November 24, 2005, the Thai government claimed “No new outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza were reported during the week under report.” [1] No recurrence of HP H5N1 was reported in the following weeks and months.

So, on April 10, 2006, the OIE issued a final report, which states that, based on information from the Thai government:

One hundred and forty (140) days have elapsed since the last case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Thailand (on 9 November 2005), where stamping-out with compensation was employed. [2]

The press promptly reported the eradication of avian influenza from Thailand and Vietnam and added to the self-praise of the Thai government for having taken effective measures.

The question

What does it mean if a country reports they haven’t found H5N1 in recent months? If it were Russia, or a country in most of central Europe, it probably would be good news because there is reasonable surveillance and reporting. But one can’t take negative reports for granted. See the Thai example:

Outgoing Ubon Ratchathani senator Nirand Pitakwatchara said at the weekend that he believes bird flu has resurfaced in Thailand, but that state authorities have concealed the matter for political reasons . . . The senator’s comments coincided with the disclosure by a livestock official who told a Phoojadkarn Daily reporter that bird flu has returned in Phichit and Phitsanulok provinces, killing poultry there in recent months. [3]

If this allegation is true, does it mean that the HP H5N1 virus has returned after a successful eradication campaign, or was it not eradicated in the first place and just not detected?

Bad news

Apparently what’s killing Thai poultry in recent months is the H5N1 virus.

As of a week ago, Thai government representatives were still claiming there were no human cases.[4] The same day, a 17-year-old man was reported to have died from acute lung infection and flu-like symptoms, confirmed to be a death from H5N1 infection.

As of July 27, 2006, the Thai Office of Disease Prevention and Control 8 reported nine new cases and sixteen further cases under investigation. [5]

As of July 28, 2006, there apparently were forty-four patients under close supervision after they developed bird-flu-like symptoms, and seven Thai provinces were declared bird-flu “red zones.”[6]

More bad news

Unfortunately, the Thai government is far from alone in being a less than trustworthy information source. Great Britain’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has produced some data suggestive of spectacular false negative rates.[7]

Indonesia, the country with the greatest number of H5N1 deaths this year, has until now refused to release any of the human H5N1 genetic sequences or virus specimens.[8] Apparently, the Indonesian Ministry of Health also has been withholding virus specimens taken from poultry.[9]

Meanwhile, an Indonesian government surveillance pilot program in the greater Jakarta area, has discovered previously unknown infected locations at an average rate of twenty-four per week![10] Vaccinations of poultry have done nothing to stop the spread, and this is the slow season. From August through January, temperatures will decrease and the spread of the virus is expected to increase.[11]

Governments don’t like to be in the news because of bird flu. It is bad press, it threatens tourism, and it requires action, so they are reluctant to report finding H5N1, and not so reluctant if they fail to detect it.[12]

What you don’t read might hurt you

Due to no merit of our institutions, be they government, health agencies, or media, the bird flu is still almost exclusively a disease of birds. We don’t know how much lack of surveillance and lack of reporting have contributed to the continuing fast spread, but spread it does, and faster than ever.[13] It also keeps sprouting new strains and mutating by recombination.[14]

If ever the virus should become easily transmissible among humans, no news will decidedly be bad news.