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The NJ Department of Health and Senior Services announced Monday, May
14, 2001 that 5 of the 36 crows and 1 hawk tested for WNV at their
Public Health and Environmental Laboratory this season were positive.
The 5 crows were found in Upper Saddle River, Bergen County on April
30 (1); Edison on May 3 & 4 (2); Iselin on May 8 (1); Piscataway
(Middlesex) on May 10 (1) (source: Eddy Bresnitz, New Jersey State
Epidemiologist, Pro-MED-mail Friday May 18, 2001).
New York State has not yet reported any West Nile Virus-positive
findings in 2001. Last year the first WNV-positive reports from
Albany DOH were in early June 2000, when 2 WNV-positive crows were
confirmed from Rockland County. On Sunday May 20, 2001, ProMED-mail
noted that there were no additional confirmations of WNV in the
northeastern states, other than the NJ report.
The news from Canada is that health officials there have abandoned
use of sentinel chickens as an early warning system for WNV because
the system put into place last year along the Canada-U.S. border was
not considered effective. Last year, up to 600 sentinel chickens were
placed in strategic areas near the border and tested regularly to see
whether they had contracted the virus. Not only was no virus
detected in this way, but health officials in the U.S. determined
that their sentinel chickens failed to contract the virus even in
areas where wild birds were infected. Instead of relying on sentinel
chickens, Health Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in
Winnipeg plans to increase its testing of dead wild birds from the
2200 they tested last year. This is considered the preferred
surveillance system, because all cases of human WNV infection in the
U.S. have been preceded by detection of WNV in birds in the area.
(source: Halifax Chronicle-Herald, May 14, cited in ProMED-mail, May
18. Full story:
http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSScience0105/14_westnile-par.html).
LCL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lois Levitan, PhD Program Leader
Environmental Risk Analysis Program
Center for the Environment
213 Rice Hall, Cornell University
Ithaca, New York USA 14853
Phone: (607) 255-4765 Fax: (607) 255-0238
Email: LCL3@cornell.edu
Program Email: envrisk@cornell.edu
Web:http://www.cfe.cornell.edu/risk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Received on Mon May 21 15:09:02 2001
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