Claim: UN sees bird flu changes but calls risk of people spread low.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Influenza A virus subtype H7N9
text: up again when the weather turns cooler in China. Limited person-to-person spread of bird flu is thought to have occurred rarely in the past, most notably with avian influenza A (H5N1). According to the US CDC, based on previous experience, some limited human-to-human spread of this H7N9 virus would not be surprising if the virus reemerges in the fall. Furthermore, according to the WHO, since migratory birds were first implicated in H7N9 transmission, the possibility that the virus may spread into other regions or countries with colder weather cannot be excluded, given the widespread bird migratory patterns. In a study

title: Singaporean measures against avian influenza
text: the spread of the disease. In October 2005, strain of the bird flu virus was detected in Turkey and Romania indicating that the avian flu was spreading from Asia to Europe. Most of the human deaths so far have been linked to contact with sick birds. But the World Health Organization has said that the virus could mutate into a form that is more easily transmitted from human to human and possibly triggering a pandemic reminiscent of the 1918 flu epidemic that killed tens of millions worldwide. In Thailand, a probable case of human-to-human transmission of H5N1 virus was reported

title: Influenza A virus subtype H7N7
text: the population at risk for avian influenza was not limited to those with direct contact to infected poultry, and that person to person transmission may have occurred on a large scale. Final analysis of Dutch avian influenza outbreaks reveals much higher levels of transmission to humans than previously thought. In August 2006, low pathogenic (LP) H7N7 was found during routine testing at a poultry farm in Voorthuizen in the central Netherlands. As a precautionary measure, 25,000 chickens were culled from Voorthuizen and surrounding farms. In June 2008, high pathogenic (HP) H7N7 was confirmed on a 25,000-bird laying unit at Shenington,

title: Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America
text: Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America is an ABC two-hour TV movie which first aired May 9, 2006 in which an American businessman visiting China is infected and carries the deadly mutated bird flu virus back via jetliner to the USA, soon it spreads throughout the country then the rest of the world. Before the movie ends, riots erupt, armed mobs try to hijack vaccines and authorities predict that up to 350 million people will die worldwide." A mutated bird flu virus spreads across the world. As panic spreads, the governor of Virginia quarantines

title: Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America
text: neighborhoods where cases have cropped up, and federal officials confess they have no vaccine and scant supplies of antiviral drugs. Major socioeconomic disruption sets in, with shortages of food and medical supplies, power outages, and riots in the streets of New York. A second civil war even erupts in the United States. Eventually, the pandemic begins to subside. But in the final scene, the discovery that an entire Angolan village was wiped out by a new mutation of the virus and a second wave of cases will begin causes further panic. The editorial staff at CIDRAP (Center for Infectious Disease

title: Influenza A virus subtype H7N9
text: reported that the virus had been found only in chickens, ducks, and pigeons at live poultry markets and that no migratory birds had tested positive for the virus, easing concerns about that route of transmission. However, later investigation demonstrated that H7N9 may infect wild songbirds and caged parakeets, which then shed the virus into their environment. This finding implies that these birds may potentially serve as intermediate hosts with the ability to facilitate transmission and dissemination of H7N9. At an April 26 news conference, the WHO assistant director-general for health stated, "This is an unusually dangerous virus for humans. We

title: Avian influenza
text: such as those that only looked at placed-based interventions, would fail without looking for a multifaceted solutions. Press accounts of avian flu in Indonesia were seen by poultry farmers as conflating suspected cases while the public did see the accounts as informative, though many became de-sensitized to the idea of impending danger or only temporarily changed their poultry-related behavior. Rumors also circulated in Java in 2006. These tended to focus on bird flu being linked to big businesses in order to drive small farmers out of the market by exaggerating the danger of avian influenza, avian flu being introduced by

title: Pandemic H1N1/09 virus
text: Chile discovered that the human H1N1/09 virus had jumped, unmutated, to birds, "opening a new chapter in the global epidemic." Top flu and animal-health experts with the WHO and the CDC were monitoring the situation closely. They said the infected turkeys have suffered only mild effects, easing concern about a potentially dangerous development. Chile's turkey meat remains safe to eat, they said, and so far there have been no signs of a potentially dangerous mutation. Virus experts are concerned that a more dangerous and easily transmitted strain could emerge if H1N1/09 combines again with avian flu, which at present is

title: 2008 California Proposition 2
text: outbreak of bird flu in China was a result of that country's conversion from small, backyard poultry farms towards larger, crowded industrialized farms over the last twenty years. He strongly recommends that we "dramatically" change modern farming practices. According to Dr. Shortridge, domesticated poultry on industrial farms are the source of the bird flu virus, not outdoor migratory birds. In July 2008 the University of California, Davis conducted a study through their University of California Agricultural Issues Center (AIC). The study concluded that "the best evidence from a variety of sources suggests that (non-organic) non-cage systems incur costs of production

title: Influenza
text: to begin implementing the plan. Internationally, on 18 January 2006, donor nations pledged US$2 billion to combat bird flu at the two-day International Pledging Conference on Avian and Human Influenza held in China. In an assessment of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic on selected countries in the Southern Hemisphere, data suggest that all countries experienced some time-limited and/or geographically isolated socio/economic effects and a temporary decrease in tourism most likely due to fear of 2009 H1N1 disease. It is still too early to determine whether the H1N1 pandemic has caused any long-term economic impacts. Research on influenza includes studies on molecular

title: Avian influenza
text: also resulted in the decreased enrollment of girls in school in Turkey. People who do not regularly come into contact with birds are not at high risk for contracting avian influenza. Those at high risk include poultry farm workers, animal control workers, wildlife biologists, and ornithologists who handle live birds. Organizations with high-risk workers should have an avian influenza response plan in place before any cases have been discovered. Biosecurity of poultry flocks is also important for prevention. Flocks should be isolated from outside birds, especially wild birds, and their waste; vehicles used around the flock should be regularly disinfected

title: Influenza pandemic
text: a pandemic outbreak. On 6 March 2006, Mike Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services, said U.S. health agencies are continuing to develop vaccine alternatives that will protect against the evolving avian influenza virus. The U.S. government, bracing for the possibility that migrating birds could carry a deadly strain of bird flu to North America, plans to test nearly eight times as many wild birds starting in April 2006 as have been tested in the past decade. On 8 March 2006, Dr. David Nabarro, senior UN coordinator for avian and human influenza, said that given the flight patterns of wild

title: Influenza A virus subtype H5N1
text: of Wetlands International stating, "We believe it is spread by both bird migration and trade, but that trade, particularly illegal trade, is more important". On September 27, 2007 researchers reported the H5N1 bird flu virus can also pass through a pregnant woman's placenta to infect the fetus. They also found evidence of what doctors had long suspected — the virus not only affects the lungs, but also passes throughout the body into the gastrointestinal tract, the brain, liver, and blood cells. In May 2013, North Korea confirmed a H5N1 bird flu outbreak that forced authorities to kill over 160,000 ducks

title: Influenza
text: following infection with low-pathogenicity avian influenza may be as mild as ruffled feathers, a small reduction in egg production, or weight loss combined with minor respiratory disease. Since these mild symptoms can make diagnosis in the field difficult, tracking the spread of avian influenza requires laboratory testing of samples from infected birds. Some strains such as Asian H9N2 are highly virulent to poultry and may cause more extreme symptoms and significant mortality. In its most highly pathogenic form, influenza in chickens and turkeys produces a sudden appearance of severe symptoms and almost 100% mortality within two days. As the virus

title: Global spread of H5N1 in 2006
text: of bird deaths due to H5N1 were recorded in Cambodia, China, Laos, Nigeria, and Thailand while continuing unabated a rate unparalleled in Indonesia. In September, Egypt and Sudan joined the list of nations seeing a resurgence of bird deaths due to H5N1; followed by Vietnam and South Korea in December. January 5, 2006 January 7, 2006 January 8, 2006 January 10, 2006 January 16, 2006 January 18, 2006 January 21, 2006 January 29, 2006 January 30, 2006 February 4, 2006 February 6, 2006 February 7, 2006 February 8, 2006 February 9, 2006 February 10, 2006 February 11, 2006 February 12,

title: Avian influenza
text: surfaces and droppings. While most wild birds mainly have only a mild form of the H5N1 strain, once domesticated birds such as chickens or turkeys are infected, it can become much more deadly because the birds are often in close contact. There is currently a large threat of this in Asia with infected poultry due to low hygiene conditions and close quarters. Although it is easy for humans to contract the infection from birds, human-to-human transmission is more difficult without prolonged contact. However, public health officials are concerned that strains of avian flu may mutate to become easily transmissible between

title: Ward J. M. Hagemeijer
text: the virus was specialized to spread rapidly in domestic poultry. In Hagemeijer's opinion, a February 2006 outbreak in Nigeria was more likely caused by shipment of domestic poultry than transmission in the wild, because key areas along the flight path such as the Nile delta seemed to have been skipped over. Ward went on to publish five scientific papers in 2007 and 2008 detailing his observations of H5N1 and H5N2 avian influenza in wild bird populations. Ward J. M. Hagemeijer Ward J. M. Hagemeijer is a Dutch ecologist and author who publishes about birds and about wetlands. In 1997 Hagemeijer

title: Global spread of H5N1 in 2006
text: recent highly pathogenic strain of H5N1. In the first two months of 2006 H5N1 spread to Africa and Europe in wild bird populations possibly signaling the beginning of H5N1 being endemic in wild migratory bird populations on multiple continents for decades, permanently changing the way poultry are farmed. In addition, the spread of highly pathogenic H5N1 to wild birds, birds in zoos and even sometimes to mammals (example: pet cats) raises many unanswered questions concerning best practices for threat mitigation, trying to balance reducing risks of human and nonhuman deaths from the current nonpandemic strain with reducing possible pandemic deaths

title: Influenza A virus subtype H7N3
text: birds and one poultry worker (whose only symptom was conjunctivitis) in a Norfolk, England Witford Lodge Farm. Oseltamivir was used for prevention and 35,000 chickens were culled. In 2005, H7N3 was detected in migratory bird droppings in Taiwan. On September 27, 2007, another outbreak of H7N3 was detected in a poultry operation in Saskatchewan, Canada. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has announced the euthanization of the flock, and the disinfection of all building, materials and equipment in contact with the birds or their droppings. In June, 2012, an outbreak was found on about 10 farms in Jalisco, Mexico. Of the

title: Global spread of H5N1
text: ducks, geese, pigeons, eagles, etc.) and in chickens and turkeys on farms has been demonstrated in millions of cases with the virus isolate actually sequenced in hundreds of cases yielding definitive proof of the evolution of this strain of this subtype of the species Influenzavirus A (bird flu virus). According to Robert G. Webster: As of the July 25, 2008 FAO Avian Influenza Disease Emergency Situation Update, H5N1 pathogenicity is continuing to gradually rise in endemic areas but the avian influenza disease situation in farmed birds is being held in check by vaccination. Eleven outbreaks of H5N1 were reported worldwide