Alaska, feds join in hunt for avian flu

According to the World Health Organization, 148 cases of H5N1 influenza in people have been reported from six Asian and European countries since December 2003, resulting in 79 deaths.

Rick Kearney, the wildlife program coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey, spoke about bird flu alongside state health leaders Thursday at a downtown luncheon for Commonwealth North, a local civic group. While surveillance for flu viruses in birds is not new in Alaska, a partnership of state and federal agencies will step up efforts this year because Alaska is a place where several migratory pathways meet.

"Alaska could be that place where the virus arrives in North America," Kearney said.

Kearney said a new, faster test for the H5N1 strain will be able to look through hundreds of samples and return results within a week.

Last year, the U.S. Department of the Interior studied more than 1,000 live birds throughout the state, Kearney said. The University of Alaska also has studied thousands of birds in recent years.

"We have not detected H5N1 in wild birds in Alaska. Period," said Douglas Causey, vice provost of research and graduate studies for the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Birds can carry more than 100 kinds of flu, Causey said. Some of these flu viruses have been found in Alaska birds, but unlike H5N1, most of them are not dangerous and are less likely to make people sick, said Kearney and Causey.

"We have a lot of influenza in birds here in Alaska," Causey said. "We always have had, and we always will have."

In 2006, a partnership of state and federal agencies, along with the University of Alaska, will conduct surveillance for bird flu. Kearney said the partnership will study up to 6,000 live waterfowl and shorebirds that migrate between Alaska and Asia. That research will begin this spring when birds start arriving. The National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., will test the samples.

Another project will test about 4,000 birds killed by subsistence hunters here this spring, and about 3,000 more birds killed during the fall hunt, Kearney said. The federal government also will collect samples of bird feces to look for the virus.

Daily News reporter Ann Potempa can be reached at 257-4581 or apotempa@adn.com.