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Migratory birds, bird flu and SA
How high is the risk for South Africans to get bird flu from migrating birds? And on how many migratory flyways are we?

Experts seem to agree that bird flu can be spread by migratory birds, but also that exterminating huge flocks of wild birds is not an option. Not only is it impractical, but an attempt to do this could result in birds leaving their normal flyways, thereby posing an even bigger risk to humans. Large-scale vaccination in preparation of possible widespread bird flu is seen as a far more practical option.

There are two major flyways of which South Africa forms a part. The first is the East Atlantic flyway – a circular route from South Africa, across West Africa, Western Europe, North America, Greenland, Asia and across the East coast of Africa back to South Africa. The second is the East Africa/Western Asia flyway. The birds fly in a loop from South Africa, across East Africa, across Western Asia, India, Madagascar and back again to South Africa.

As many as four to five billion birds migrate worldwide every year, mostly from north to south and back again. Birds migrate because of weather conditions, availability of food, space and because they need to breed.

Eighty different types of birds fly every year from Europe and Asia to South Africa. They fly across two land bridges – one across the Middle East and down the East Coast of Africa and one over Gibraltar and down the West Coast of Africa.

Some of the birds that fly to South Africa include the osprey, 16 different types of swallows, warblers, 15 different types of shrikes, 3 types of bee-eaters and swifts.

(Susan Erasmus, Health24, April 2006)
 

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