An Eerie Silence in the Eye of Bird Flu's Storm
Trip Start
Oct 09, 2007
1
19
45
Trip End
Mar 10, 2008
Kolkata (Calcutta), West Bengal, India
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Bird flu is spreading rapidly in many rural districts of West Bengal. But there is the strangest disconnect here between the fact and realization of what is happening. Everything has slowed to an almost infinite, timeless space and is engulfed in an eerie silence and normality. I see what feels like an inevitable, looming calamity, but people are going on with their daily lives, utterly oblivious.
Birds started dying in rural districts in unusual numbers with telltale symptoms of bird flu back on December 21st. The unusual and escalating numbers of deaths didn't get reported from the district officials to the state, though, until January 4th. The state first reported them to the national government and in the newspapers on January 11th. On January 15th the first test results confirmed an outbreak of bird flu.
With the speed, efficiency and intelligence of a drugged sloth, the state government has perfectly demonstrated its utter incompetence and inability to respond. Villagers were not educated about the dangers of the disease, have continued to eat, handle sick and dead animals, further exposing themselves and their children to the disease. They have smuggled poultry out of their districts, continue throwing dead birds into rivers and canals, and have refused to hand over birds to the few culling teams that are functioning until they are paid. Villagers have severely beaten one culling team (they had to be hospitalized) and threatened others. A number of culling teams refused to go to work in certain areas, demanding police protection, further slowing response. A number of photos of culling operations show the culling team in their hazmat gear slaughtering chickens with unprotected villagers only feet away (exposure can occur through air particulates). Other photos show children less than 2 feet away from dead birds. Four days ago, a small item appeared on page 3, that a bird seller in Kolkata's Kalighat area had six birds die with bird flu symptoms and many other birds of his were sick. "I'm taking all of the precautions," the bird seller stated. But nothing has appeared in the way of follow up to say whether the birds were tested, or what the results were. (Lab tests have to be flown to Delhi, take days to process).
And only today has the first mention appeared anywhere about testing of people exposed to, or having symptoms of, the disease. 5 villagers have all the symptoms who handled dead birds in one district with all the symptoms have been tested. (How's that for rising to a challenge.) Another 600 villagers in one area are sick...but no specifics on whether they are actually being tested for the disease. It is simply not credible that, given the extent of continued human exposure, no human beings have contracted the disease.
Today, the Chief Minister of West Bengal is quoted as saying the disease "has been contained" at the same time that new districts surrounding Kolkata reporting new outbreaks.
In Reuters, India, 1 hour ago, Bengali state health services director, Sanchita Bakshi, was quoted: "There is every chance of the virus spiralling out of hand if it's too late." IF?!!? This hornet's nest was shattered weeks ago! This monkey is out of its cage.
From where I sit, everyone is still damn near comatose with denial. It is difficult to imagine a more perfect storm of circumstances converging for the virus to mutate to a capacity for human-to-human contagion. If it miraculously doesn't (please join me in praying for that), each day new districts are being affected, thousands more are losing their livelihoods and being exposed to bird-to-human contagion. And hundreds of thousands of villagers travel into Kolkata every day by train to work in this city of 15-20 million people.
I just can't see how this won't be an epidemic. It seems to me that, given the levels and frequency of exposure and the lack of governmental capacity to respond, the best we may be able to hope for is a miracle of divine grace in keeping it at bird-to-human contagion.
Comments
Well written. It appeared to be professional.
Thanks for giving us an on sight view of the problems in the area. Peasants in most countries are poorly educated. Lack of compliance could lead to an epidemic in the region, and from that epidemic the H5N1 virus can mutate into a human pandemic virus. Frightening!
Re: Well written. It appeared to be professional.
The problem in West Bengal is that the government is so wholly corrupt and incompetent, there is no way the epidemic will be able to be adequately addressed. A good and effective government would be stretched to its limit in this. As more dimensions of the crisis unfold, it is like watching a category 5 funnel cloud take shape. I am afraid we are well past the possibility of any containment.
Perfect Storm in many countries, gramma.
Thanks so much for posting your experiences in Kolkata.
Although you are in the eye of one bird flu storm (W. Bengal's), I think you are a relative newbie at following avian influenza.
The 'Perfect Storm' you describe has existed, off and on, in several other places: Indonesia (to the greatest extent and persistently), Egypt, Bangladesh (for at least a year), Vietnam (off and on), Cambodia (probably for years), parts of Africa (especially but not only Nigeria).
And in Indonesia, in particular, the crowded city of Jakarta has been infected with bird flu for years (despite inadequate government efforts to rid the city of backyard or rooftop poultry). If bird flu comes to Kolkata, the chances of a pandemic starting there will be no greater than in other places where there are close encounters between infected birds and unprotected people.
When people first focus their attention on bird flu, it nearly always feels to them that it is just about to launch a pandemic. This was as true for the experts who first discovered bird-to-human transmission as it is for non-experts who suddenly start paying attention.
You are right that any particular encounter between an infected bird and a human may be IT -- the encounter that ends up producing a new human influenza strain that launches a global pandemic.
But out of the millions and millions of such encounters which have occurred already, and the millions more that will probably occur, there is no particular reason to think that this will happen in Kolkata rather than in the many other places afflicted with this horrible poultry disease.
Good luck with your travels, and please continue to keep us posted about bird flu in West Bengal.
Re: Perfect Storm in many countries, gramma.
Thank you for your very balanced and thoughtful, seemingly authoritative comment. I would love to know more about your personal knowledge and experience, if you would kindly share it with me.
I have some questions for you. I have so many questions, a few very significant ones, but nowhere to locate real, authoritative answers. Please suggest sources if you have them:
If the disease has been going on in Indonesia, etc., for that long, is the general public informed enough to avoid repetitious and unnecessary exposure? (...To such sources as playing with dead birds, proper cooking of diseased animals, proper hygiene in an area of exposure, improperly disposing of dead birds?)
What other animals have been contracted the disease (goats appear to have in West Bengal, but the media has not followed up on that) in other areas where the disease has been going on for an extended period of time? What has the experience been of the impact of other animals becoming involved in those locales?
One particular local issue that has just occurred to me is the open sewage that is nearly everywhere here in Kolkata (and all over India, actually). If human-to-human transmission develops here in Kolkata, with the rather intense smell of raw sewage nearly everywhere, is the virus able the spread through the air as you walk along a street next to an open sewer (that would be almost any street in Kolkata)?
Can an excellent water filter extract the virus from tap water to make it drinkable?
I would deeply appreciate your insights and any authoritative sources you could direct me to on these issues.
Thank you again for your comment.