ref: http://www.thenational.com.pg/031207/national9.htm

Results will be out in two weeks: Cops

By ISAAC NICHOLAS
THIRTY-two blood samples from the Mt Bosavi people of Southern Highlands have been delivered to a private clinic in Madang for further anthrax test.
A police unit from Mendi delivered the samples last week and test results are expected to be known sometime next week.
Senior Sgt David Terry from the police media unit told reporters the blood samples were taken to Madang on March 2.
The blood tests comes after reports of an outbreak of an unknown disease killing animals and humans in the Mt Bosavi area. Last month, reports received stated that pigs and other animals were dying and a team from the State of Emergency operations was flown in by a helicopter arranged by Oil Search.
“As soon as we arrived, we heard that three women had died because of eating contaminated pork, and other wild species have died,” Sgt Terry said.
“We were told that about 1,000 pigs had died as a result of the outbreak, they also told us other animals such as crocodiles, snakes, bandicoots, and cuscus have also died.”
He said the team advised the people to drink only rain water because other sources could be contaminated.
Sgt Terry said the provincial administration allocated K50,000 of which K20,000 was used for aircraft charter.
He said the other K30,000 was used to purchase food supplies such as rice, tinned food, water, and Mendi and Kumins hospital donated large quantities of antibiotics and other medical drugs.
Sgt Terry said four to five trips were made by the aircraft with loads of urgent relief supplies.
He said a doctor from Mendi and a laboratory technician brought in 42 blood samples from Mt Bosavi but could not do the anthrax test in Mendi.
However, Madang has a private clinic that can do the tests.
“The test will take about two weeks before we know the results to identify the cause of the epidemic in Mt Bosavi,” Sgt Terry said.
He commended the provincial administration for the early support and appealed to the reinstated Southern Highlands Governor Hami Yawari for further continued support.

That sounds like someones has been doing a little bit of mining in that area. It is cyanide, mecury or arsenic. Thats for sure, nothing mysterious.

Wantoks,

Here is the real story for your information.

The mystery pig deaths in PNG as previously reported in the local newspaper and widely circulated through internet media and ProMed was investigated by a National Agriculture Quarantine Inspection Authority ( NAQIA) vet and anthrax was diagnosed base on history and clinical symptoms. Anthrax in pigs is endemic in some parts of the highlands provinces and also present in West Irian Province of Indonesia. The anthrax in New Guinea Island ( PNG/Irian
Jaya) is only adaptable to pigs and not other species including ruminants and humans- very fatal in pigs but does not affect other species as mentioned above. This is the similar strain to ones in the southern Africa.
Epidemics of anthrax in village pigs do occurr from time to time in the highlands and the disease was previously diagnosed in southern highlands province in 2005, the province where this report came from. It is likely that the disease had spread widely to areas like Bosavi through movement of live domestic pigs through movement of local people or through nomadic wild pig movement. These are common occurence in these areas and we believe this is the most likely the source of spread of anthrax to Bosavi. It is unlikely to spread from border area through migration as indicated in the media. Anthrax in pigs in PNG has only been reported and diagnosed in village and in this case, wild pigs. It has never been reported nor diagnosed in commercial breed piggeries in PNG. Deaths of humans is not related to anthrax and we believe clostridial enterotoxaemia ( referred to as pig bel in PNG) with is associated in PNG with consuming large quantities of pork especially during feast or in this case, we presume people were consuming sick pigs or dead pigs because they did not want to waste it. Both disease are preventable by penicillin base antibiotics. However, control in wild pigs with vaccination and antibiotic is impractical in predominately wild and semi wild pig population in the Bosavi situation. NAQIA advised people to confine their pigs and hand feed them as the only option to try and control the anthrax situation but we also know this itself, is difficult the way these people traditionaly look after the pigs- mainly free ranging and semi-wild type pigs practice. In most highlands provinces, the usual practice is confining thier pigs at night and let them out in the morining, so prophylatic use of antibiotic works in this situations at times of anthrax outbreaks. Both NAQIA and Health authorities are developing extension materials for public awareness and the human health sides of the situation are been taken care of by the health authorities.

I hope this clarifies the the pig deaths situation in PNG

Dr Ilagi Puana
CVO, PNG

kt,
Thank you for this information, very informative and new for me.

Probably on a related/unrelated matter, a colleague, Dr. Rodney Itaki Studying at Department of International Medical Zoology at Kagawa University and I are working together to come up with a way to predict Geographical and ecological distribution of Anopheles Punctulatus Complex in Papua New Guinea. We are looking at the initial condition such as temperature, rainfall, vegetation cover, landscape, wind direction and ecological data to do future prediction. I am providing the prediction data from Regional and Global Climatic Models along with regional vegetation patterns.

With that background, It would be great to know the climatic, ecological, vegetation, social condition to which the outbreak occurs. This would able us to forcast such outbreak of Anthrax in Pigs and direct our awareness campaigns timely.

Btw, is there a scientific name for Anthrax in Pigs?

cheers
Badira
Tokyo

Ok, so the death in humans and pigs is explained here but what about the other animals(crocodiles, snakes, cuscus, etc) that have also died according to the newspaper report? I hope the reporterrs are not exaggerating here.

There probably is a scientific name for antrax in pigs. Though I do not know. If any PNG vet visiting this site can inform us.

Na ol media tu save putim extra so do not belive all you read in newspapers.