New Yahoo News/YouGov poll: 66% of Americans disapprove of Kristi Noem shooting and killing her dog

And just 13% think it would be “a good idea” for Trump to pick Noem as his running mate.

Andrew Romano
·National Correspondent

YAHOO NEWS

Wed, May 15, 2024 

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem introduces former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally on March 16, in Vandalia, Ohio. (Jeff Dean/AP Photo)

Former President Donald Trump thinks South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem — the only person on his vice presidential shortlist to boast about shooting and killing her own dog — is a “terrific” leader who’s simply had a “bad week.”

The problem, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll, is that the vast majority of Americans disagree.

The new survey of 1,794 U.S. adults, which was conducted from May 10 to 13, shows that a full two-thirds of them (66%) disapprove of Noem’s decision to shoot her family’s 14-month-old wirehaired pointer in a gravel pit after the dog ruined a pheasant hunt and killed a neighbor’s chickens — a story Noem recounts in her forthcoming memoir, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, as proof that she’s willing to tackle even “difficult, messy and ugly” tasks.

“I hated that dog,” Noem writes, adding that the puppy was “untrainable” and “less than worthless.”

Just 14% of Americans approve of Noem’s decision, including a mere 26% of Republicans. Roughly twice as many Republicans (50%) disapprove.

“[Noem] did a great job as governor,” Trump said in a conservative podcast interview that aired on Tuesday. “That’s a tough story, but she’s a terrific person.”

It’s unclear if Trump — who also recently described Noem as “somebody that I love” and of whom he’s “been a supporter … for a long time” — is still considering the South Dakotan as a potential running mate.

But after reading a description of the dog incident, only 13% of Americans think it would be a good idea for Trump to put Noem on the 2024 GOP ticket; 48% say selecting her would be a bad idea. And even current Trump supporters agree (16% good idea, 44% bad idea).

“She’s DOA,” one Trump ally told The Hill. “Any time you have to respond more than once to a story, it’s not good.”

Even before reading a description of the dog incident, few voters who identify as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents — just 4% — selected Noem as the best of nine potential Trump VP choices. Only New York Rep. Elise Stefanik (3%) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (2%) scored lower.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott (13%) led the list, followed by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson (all at 9%). Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake (5%) and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance (4%) scored in the middle of the pack.

On a related note, more than half of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters say that it “makes no difference” if Trump selects a running mate who commits to accepting the 2024 results in advance of the election (40%) or that they want Trump to pick someone who “will not commit” to accepting the results (12%) — while just a third (34%) say they would prefer a GOP vice-presidential nominee who has committed to accepting the results.

The Washington Post recently reported that this “question has become something of a litmus test, particularly among the long list of possible running mates for Trump, whose relationship with his first vice president, Mike Pence, ruptured because Pence resisted Trump’s pressure to overturn the 2020 election.”

____________

The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,794 U.S. adults interviewed online from May 10 to 13, 2024. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given prior to Nov. 1, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (33% Democratic, 27% Republican). Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.7%.

 Funeral for Thai pro-democracy activist dead in prison

FRANCE 24 English

May 19, 2024  

In Thailand a funeral has been taking place for 28-activisit Neti-porn Bung, who died on Tuesday in prison following a 65 day long hunger strike. She was jailed for insulting Thailand’s monarchy, a crime punishable by 3 to 15 years in prison. Her death has prompted an outpouring of grief and renewed calls for justice reform in Thailand. Story by FRANCE 24’s Constantin Simon and Matt Hunt.

 

THE THREE FINGER SALUTE FOR DEMOCRACY IS FROM THE HUNGER GAMES

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for THAILAND HUNGER GAMES 

 Spain's far right Vox party hosts rally with Argentina's Milei, France's Le Pen

 • FRANCE 24

 May 19, 2024  #Spain  #Vox

Spanish far-right party Vox held a mass rally in Madrid on Sunday ahead of the European election, touting the support of international allies including Argentinian President Javier Milei, France's Marine Le Pen, the prime ministers of Italy and Hungary and other rightwing leaders from France and Portugal. FRANCE 24's correspondent in Madrid reports.

Did Earth’s Multicellular Life Depend on Plate Tectonics?

 BY LAURENCE TOGNETTI

MAY 18, 2024

How did complex life emerge and evolve on the Earth and what does this mean for finding life beyond Earth? This is what a recent study published in Nature hopes to address as a pair of researchers investigated how plate tectonics, oceans, and continents are responsible for the emergence and evolution of complex life across our planet and how this could address the Fermi Paradox while attempting to improve the Drake Equation regarding why we haven’t found life in the universe and the parameters for finding life, respectively. This study holds the potential to help researchers better understand the criterion for finding life beyond Earth, specifically pertaining to the geological processes exhibited on Earth.

Here, Universe Today discusses this study with Dr. Taras Gerya, who is a Professor of Earth Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Zurich) and co-author of the study, regarding the motivation behind the study, significant results, follow-up studies, what this means for the Drake Equation, and the study’s implications for finding life beyond Earth. So, what was the motivation behind this study?

Dr. Gerya tells Universe Today, “It was motivated by the Fermi Paradox (“Where is everybody?”) pointing out that the Drake Equation typically predicts that there are from 1000 to 100,000,000 actively communicating civilizations in our galaxy, which is too optimistic of an estimate. We tried to figure out what may need to be corrected in this equation to make the prediction with the Drake Equation more realistic.”

For the study, the research duo compared two types of planetary tectonic processes: single lid (also called stagnant lid) and plate tectonics. Single lid refers to a planetary body that does not exhibit plate tectonics and cannot be broken into separate plates that exhibit movement by sliding towards each other (convergent), sliding past each other (transform), or slide away from each other (divergent). This lack of plate tectonic activity is often attributed to a planetary body’s lid being too strong and dense to be broken apart. In the end, the researchers estimated that 75 percent of planetary bodies that exhibit active convection within their interiors do not exhibit plate tectonics and possess single lid tectonics, with Earth being the only planet that exhibits plate tectonics. Therefore, they concluded that single lid tectonics “is likely to dominate the tectonic styles of active silicate bodies in our galaxy”, according to the study.

Additionally, the researchers investigated how planetary continents and oceans contribute to the evolution of intelligent life and technological civilizations. They noted the significance of life first evolving in oceans due to them being shielded from harmful space weather with single-celled life thriving in the oceans for the first few billion years of Earth’s history. However, the researchers also emphasize how dry land provides a myriad of benefits for the evolution of intelligent life, including adaptations to various terrains, such as eyes and new senses, which contributed to animals evolving for speed to hunt among other biological assets that enabled life to adapt to the various terrestrial environments across the planet.

In the end, the researchers concluded dry land helped contribute to the evolution of intelligent life across the planet, including abstract thinking, technology, and science. Therefore, what were the most significant results from this study, and what follow-up studies are currently in the works or being planned?

Dr. Gerya tells Universe Today, “That very special condition (>500 million years coexistence of continents, oceans, and plate tectonics) is needed on a planet with a primitive life in order to develop an intelligent technological communicative life. This condition is very rarely realized: only <0.003-0.2 % of planets with any life may satisfy this condition.”

Dr. Gerya continues, “We plan to study water evolution in the planetary interior in order to understand how stability of surface ocean volume (implying stability of coexistence of oceans and continents) can be maintained for billions of years (like on Earth). We also plan to investigate the survival time of technological civilizations based on societal collapse models. We also started a project on the oxygenation state evolution of planetary interior and atmosphere in order to understand how oxygen-rich atmospheres (essential in particular for developing technological civilizations) can be formed on planets with oceans, continents and plate tectonics. Progress in these three directions is essential but will greatly depend on the availability of research funding.”

As noted, this study was motivated and attempts to improve the Drake Equation, which proposes a multivariable equation that attempts to estimate the number of active, communicative civilizations (ACCs) that exist in the Milky Way Galaxy. It was proposed by in 1961 Dr. Frank Drake to postulate several notions that he encouraged the scientific community to consider when discussing both how and why we haven’t heard from ACCs and reads as follows:

N = R* x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L

N = the number of technological civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy who can potentially communicate with other worlds

R* = the average star formation rate in the Milky Way Galaxy

fp = the fraction of those stars with planets

ne = the average number of planets potentially capable of supporting life per star with planets

fl = the fraction of planets capable of supporting and developing life at some point in its history

fi = the fraction of planets that develop life and evolves into intelligent life

fc = the fraction of civilizations who develop technology capable of sending detectable signals into space

L = the length of time that technological civilizations send signals into space

According to the study, the Drake Equation estimates the number of ACCs range widely, between 200 to 50,000,000. As part of the study, the researchers proposed adding two additional variables to the Drake Equation based on their findings that plate tectonics, oceans, and continents have played a vital role in the development and evolution of complex life on Earth, which are as follows:

foc = the fraction of habitable exoplanets that possess notable continents and oceans

fpt = the fraction of habitable exoplanets that possess notable continents and oceans that also exhibit plate tectonics that have been functioning for at least 500 million years

Using these two new variables, the study provided new estimates for fi (chances of planets that develop life and evolve into intelligent life). So, what is the importance of adding two new variables to the Drake Equation?

Dr. Gerya tells Universe Today, “This allowed us to re-define and estimate more correctly the key term of the Drake equation fi – probability of a planet with primitive life to develop an intelligent technological communicative life. Originally, fi was (incorrectly) estimated to be very high (100%). Our estimate is many orders of magnitude lower (<0.003-0.2 %), which likely explains why we are not contacted by other civilizations.”

Additionally, when inputting these two new variables into the entire Drake Equation, the study estimates a far smaller number of ACCs at < 0.006 to 100,000, which is in stark contrast to the original estimates of the Drake Equation of 200 to 50,000,000. Therefore, what implications could this study have on the search for life beyond Earth?

Dr. Gerya tells Universe Today, “It has three key consequences: (1) we should not hope much that we will be contacted (probability of this is very low, in part because the life time of technological civilizations can be shorter than previously expected), (2) we should use remote sensing to look for planets with oceans, continents and plate tectonics (COPT planets) in our galaxy based on their likely distinct (CO2-poor) atmospheres and surface reflectivity signatures (due to the presence of oceans and continents), (3) we should take care about our own planet and civilization, both are extremely rare and must be preserved.”

This study comes as the search for life beyond Earth continues to gain traction, with NASA having confirmed the existence of 5,630 exoplanets as of this writing, with almost 1,700 being classified as Super-Earths and 200 being classified as rocky exoplanets. Despite these incredible numbers, especially since exoplanets first started being discovered in the 1990s, humanity has yet to detect any type of signal from an extraterrestrial technological civilization, which this study referred to as ACCs.

Arguably the closest we have come to receiving a signal from outer space was the Wow! signal, which was a 72-second radio blast received by Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope on August 15, 1977. However, this signal has yet to be received since, along with a complete lack of signals at all. With this study, perhaps scientists can use these two new variables added to the Drake Equation to help narrow the scope of finding intelligent life beyond Earth.

Dr. Gerya concludes by telling Universe Today, “This research is part of an emerging new science – Biogeodynamics, which we try to support and develop. Biogeodynamics aims to understand and quantify relations between the long-term evolution of planetary interiors, surface, atmosphere, and life.”

How will these two new variables added to the Drake Equation help scientists find life beyond Earth in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

                      

TOP PICTURE

Graphic depicting the last 1.6 billion years of Earth’s tectonic history. (Credit: Figure 2 from Stern & Gerya (2024))

AUTHOR: LAURENCE TOGNETTI
Laurence Tognetti is a six-year USAF Veteran who earned both a BSc and MSc from the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. Laurence is extremely passionate about outer space and science communication, and is the author of “Outer Solar System Moons: Your Personal 3D Journey”.

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An incomplete revolution

Rod Such

The Electronic Intifada

25 April 2024

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks as fellow Congressional representatives Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib look on during a press conference on Capitol Hill 

 Mike TheilerUPI

The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution by Ryan Grim, Macmillan Publishers (2023)

On 16 October last year, just over a week after Israel launched an openly declared genocidal assault on Gaza following the 7 October Hamas attack, Cori Bush, a Black congresswoman from St. Louis, introduced a resolution in the US House of Representatives calling for an immediate ceasefire.

A veteran of the Ferguson uprising against the police murder of Michael Brown and a longtime Palestine solidarity activist, Bush’s resolution was notable for a number of reasons. For one, it quickly gathered 17 co-sponsors in a congressional chamber previously known for slavishly genuflecting to the Israel lobby. For another, all the sponsors or co-sponsors were people of color. Not a single white representative in Congress signed on.

Among the 18 were the four original members of what has come to be known as the Squad, consisting of representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, Rashida Tlaib. A squad in army parlance can consist of four to 10 soldiers, and a platoon consists of four squads. What became apparent on 16 October was that the Squad – at least on this issue – had become a platoon, consisting of people who had the lived experience of facing systemic racism and white supremacy.

Journalist Ryan Grim’s The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution lays the groundwork, since his account ends in 2022, for understanding how this significant political development came about. Grim, the Washington, DC bureau chief for The Intercept who previously reported for the HuffPost, brings a sympathetic perspective to the subject while managing to illuminate much about the myriad factions and divisions within the Democratic Party, especially when it comes to Palestine.
Cracks in the wall

For decades, Palestinian American and solidarity activists have confronted the virtually unanimous, bipartisan support Israeli apartheid and militarism have enjoyed in Congress. Many Israeli officials, most notably current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have long regarded the US Congress as a failsafe check on any pressure the executive branch might exert on Israel.

It has happened in rare cases that US foreign policy objectives in the Middle East have collided with Israeli interests, such as when President Barack Obama pushed for a nuclear accord with Iran while Netanyahu vehemently opposed it. In the period since 2016, however, when cracks in the wall first began to appear in this bipartisan support, those fissures have only widened.

An early example of the faltering influence of the Israel lobby appears in a widely reported revelation in Grim’s book: his disclosure that fresh off Ocasio-Cortez’s first election to Congress in 2018, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) offered her $100,000 just for a meeting, “with much more than that to come.” He relates that Ocasio-Cortez and her staff ignored the overture from AIPAC and both the congresswoman and her staff were amused by it, in part because she had won a solid victory without the Israel lobby giant, a perennial supporter of the incumbent she had just defeated.

But as Ocasio-Cortez’s term in office began, she quickly experienced firsthand the pervasiveness and power of the lobby’s influence within Congress, particularly the roles of its point persons.

The congresswoman had raised the ire of Josh Gottheimer, a representative from New Jersey who reportedly regarded the new progressives in Congress as anti-Semites and sought to block their committee appointments and legislative agendas. As it turns out, Grim notes, Gottheimer’s agenda closely dovetailed with corporate interests and opposition to the pro-union and other working-class issues that the Squad championed.

One of the more interesting insights provided in The Squad is Grim’s account of the emergence of the Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI). That group was founded by a former AIPAC staffer and by all accounts was virtually indistinguishable from it, except that DMFI is devoted to standing up for Israel within the Democratic Party.

Grim highlights DMFI’s role in the notable primary defeat of Andy Levin, a representative from Michigan, in the 2022 Democratic primary elections. Levin considered himself a Zionist and opposed the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement advocating for Palestinian rights. But he offended DMFI by defending Omar and Tlaib from charges of anti-Semitism and by introducing legislation prohibiting the use of US aid to Israel for “efforts to annex or exercise permanent control over any part of the West Bank or Gaza.”

Grim notes, however, that Levin had also alienated many of the corporate backers funding DMFI with his prominent pro-labor activism. Marie Newman – the representative from neighboring Illinois who was also defeated in the 2022 primaries and was more closely aligned with the Squad – calls out this corporate role in the book: “DMFI, just to be clear, did not enjoy my pro-worker stance, my health equity stance. They did not like any of that, because it’s a very corporate group.”

Grim amplifies this point with a detailed account of the role played by cryptocurrency billionaires and private equity groups such as the firm Atlas Holdings and the finance capitalist Paul Singer in promoting and funding broader Israel lobby efforts.

DMFI and AIPAC also appear to be terrified of the concept of intersectionality and any hint of Black-Palestinian solidarity. The Squad dissects the campaigns of two Black women vying for congressional seats: Summer Lee, the Democratic Socialist activist from Pittsburgh, and Nina Turner, the former campaign co-chair for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, a senator from Vermont.

Neither candidate was known as a vocal defender of Palestinian rights. Yet a single tweet by Lee linking the movement for Black lives with the struggle against injustice towards Palestinians was sufficient for DMFI to back her primary opponent. AIPAC raised the specter of her campaign to swell the coffers of its new political action committee, known as the United Democracy Project, by millions of dollars.

Lee had written on Twitter: “But as we fight against injustice here in the movement for Black lives, we must stand against injustice everywhere. Inhumanities against the Palestinian people cannot be tolerated or justified.”

Grim observes: “That was the extent of her public commentary on the question.”

In the end, what had looked like an easy victory for Lee, who at one time enjoyed a 25-point lead in the polls, turned into a narrow, under 1,000-vote victory. And what had appeared to be a runaway win for Nina Turner turned into a defeat in the special election primary of 2021, largely due to dark money spending by Israel lobby groups.

Even though much of the Israel lobby’s messaging against both Lee and Turner, through TV ads and other outlets, didn’t even mention their stands on Palestine, it was clear what motivated the Israel lobby.

What “worried me was her [Lee] equating the suffering of the Gazans and Palestinians to the suffering of African Americans,” Grim quotes a board member of the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, arguably an information wing of the Israel lobby, as saying. “That’s one of these intersectional things. If that’s her take on the Middle East, that’s very dangerous.”
Under pressure

Equally dangerous, however, is the frequent equivocation, ignorance of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians and apologetic reversals in position demonstrated by some members of the Squad as documented by Grim. The author shows how the Squad came under pressure from the Democratic Party leadership while also facing death threats from pro-Israel forces.

A prime example of backing down under pressure followed Omar’s response to a question about the Israel lobby when she declared “it’s all about the Benjamins,” slang for the $100 bill and a reference to a rap song by Puff Daddy. Accused of uttering an anti-Semitic trope about Jewish political influence being due to money, Omar quickly backed down and apologized without noting that numerous Jewish critics of Israel had expressed essentially the same critique without facing repercussions.

It’s a double standard numerous Black American political figures have faced over the years, most notably the 1979 forced resignation of United Nations ambassador and civil rights icon Andrew Young for arranging a secret meeting with a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Even though Young had been told to meet with the PLO official, President Jimmy Carter asked him to resign after news of the meeting was leaked. Months earlier, a Jewish US diplomat had also made overtures to the PLO with no repercussions.

Numerous other examples of progressive candidates or officeholders backing down under pressure from the lobby and/or the Democratic Party establishment abound in The Squad.

Grim provides thorough accounts of opportunistic reversals in the campaigns of representatives Maxwell Frost of Florida and Greg Casar of Texas, and the unexpected stances regarding funding for Israel’s Iron Dome by Representative Ocasio-Cortez – who voted “present” after initially signaling opposition – and support for the funding by Representative Jamaal Bowman.

Interestingly, however, all four later co-sponsored the 2023 ceasefire resolution. And in response AIPAC reportedly expected to spend $100 million in the 2024 elections to defeat the ceasefire call initiators and others regarded as insufficiently supportive of Israel. By April 2024 CeasefireAction.com counted more than 170 members of Congress who support some form of ceasefire. Notably, at the same time, The New York Times reported that pro-Israel groups were spending less than expected to this point in the election cycle.

A sequel to The Squad is in order.

Rod Such is a former editor for World Book and Encarta encyclopedias. He lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is active in Palestine solidarity campaigns.

Vigilance Needed To Avert Spread Of Bird Flu To Humans

 May 20, 2024  

By Neena Bhandari

Health experts are calling for tighter biosecurity measures in global poultry production, from farms to markets, to monitor bird flu (avian influenza) following its spread among dairy cows in the United States.

Since 2003, 888 cases of human infection with the avian influenza virus, also known as H5N1, have been reported from 23 countries, of which 463 were fatal, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia are among the worst affected.

“Although the number may appear not as big as many other outbreaks, we need to bear in mind that each infection in humans is an attempt of the virus to try to establish itself in [the] human population,” says Wenqing Zhang, head of the WHO’s global influenza programme, in a video released this week (Monday).

“Although the chances are slim so far, as long as it succeeds just once, it is a start of an influenza pandemic…”

Symptoms in humans range from mild upper respiratory problems to severe illness such as pneumonia and multi-organ failure.

The recent outbreak among dairy cows in the US indicates that H5N1 is expanding its range beyond birds, sparking concerns worldwide especially in many Asian countries where avian influenza has become endemic.

While the virus has not shown signs of adapting to allow human-to human transmission, the WHO is calling on countries to enhance surveillance measures and improve food hygiene practices.

Anyone exposed to infected live or dead poultry or infected animals, or contaminated environments such as live bird markets, is at risk, says Zhang.

‘Compromised biosecurity’ 

Bangladesh is considered a “hotspot” for the emergence of zoonotic infectious diseases due to its dense population, diverse wildlife and increasing urbanisation and deforestation.

Here, surveillance in live bird markets, also known as wet markets, reveals a high prevalence of avian influenza in poultry and the surrounding environment, which heightens the risk of so-called “zoonotic spillover” – the transmission of virus from animals to humans – says Nadia Rimi, associate scientist and coordinator of the Programme for Emerging Infections at ICDDR,B, an international health research institute in Dhaka.

In Bangladesh, the H5N1 virus has become endemic in poultry, Rimi tells SciDev.Net.

“There are numerous small-scale poultry farms and live bird markets across the country with compromised biosecurity conditions and hygiene practices, which create a conducive environment for spreading of infectious pathogens,” she says.

Other countries in the region have similar poultry farming and selling practices and biosecurity conditions. India, Pakistan and Nepal have also reported a few cases of human H5N1 infection.

“What’s also concerning and what would precipitate greater spread is if the [avian influenza] virus were to find itself into the pig population… a perfect vessel through which an even more virulent strain could emerge,” said Nirav Shah, principal deputy director at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a Council on Foreign Relations briefing earlier this month (1 May).

According to Rimi, the greatest risk is the “probability of coinfection and genetic reassortment” with other influenza viruses in humans, which could lead to the emergence of a novel influenza virus strain “with pandemic potential”.

The H5N1 strain of the virus has widely spread among wild birds, poultry, land and marine mammals and now in dairy cows. So far, only one case of cow-to-human transmission has been confirmed in a US dairy worker.

The WHO recommends that people worldwide consume pasteurised milk as preliminary tests show that pasteurisation kills the virus detected in raw milk.

Early bird flu control

A recent study by scientists from the interdisciplinary research and development programme, One Health Poultry Hub, highlights that bird flu control for pandemic prevention must start before poultry reaches wet markets.

Rimi says that controlling chickens entering the market and vaccinating them requires multipronged interventions at the farm and transportation level as well as the markets themselves.

“We are currently implementing interventions in the live bird markets, including weekly rest days, routine cleaning and disinfection…to explore if these are acceptable, feasible and effective for these resource-poor settings”, she adds.

The findings from the study – based on computer modelling using data from Bangladesh – showed that nine in ten chickens that entered live bird markets without having been previously exposed to the H9N2 subtype of avian influenza virus became infected with it when they remained there for one day.

The time between a bird being infected with H9N2 and it becoming contagious could be less than five and a half hours in a live bird market and one in ten birds arrived at the markets already exposed to H9N2, according to the researchers.

Vietnam on alert

In April, Vietnam reported its first human infection with the H9N2 strain.

Pawin Padungtod, senior technical coordinator at the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases in Vietnam, says the virus is being closely monitored in the Greater Mekong sub-region under a One Health approach, which balances the health of people, animals and ecosystems.

He says, poultry vaccination against viruses has been a crucial strategy in Vietnam’s bird flu control efforts. Regular surveillance is conducted to detect and monitor the incursion of any new avian virus and determine the efficacy of vaccines.

“These surveillance activities have been providing crucial information to support vaccine selection and identification of areas where [avian influenza] outbreaks are more likely to occur,” Padungtod tells SciDev.Net.

“Vietnam has been removing unsold chickens and it uses H9 vaccine to reduce exposed birds entering the market. We can further use the evidence provided in this study to advocate for [bird flu] vaccination in animals and strengthen live bird market biosecurity in the country.”

• This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Asia & Pacific desk.

Neena Bhandari

Neena Bhandari is a freelance foreign correspondent, journalist and writer.