|
Florida Bird Mortality Reporting: A Tool for West Nile Virus (WNV) Surveillance
As a part of Florida’s West Nile surveillance system, a bird mortality reporting database was established in 2000 through cooperation between the Bureau of Community Environmental Health and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). This reporting system is located on the FWC website athttp://www.myFWC.com/bird/. Anyone who discovers a dead bird will be able to enter the requested information and submit the report via the Internet. An address (or the closest address) of the dead bird is critical to tracking bird mortality and also for potential carcass retrieval.
|
County health departments and other
agencies are encouraged to direct citizens to report
dead birds using the web site. If the reporter does not
have access to the Internet site, local agencies may
submit the information and post the report on their
behalf.
Once a bird has been identified through
the database, a notification will be forwarded to the county
health department through an email alert
application. The following are the available resources
to assist you with this initiative:
- The decision to retrieve a carcass will be made
by each county individually. Currently, our priority
is to test birds that have died within 24 hours of
report.
- The Department of Health Laboratory in Tampa,
FL, will receive submitted specimens for necropsy
and will remove the desired tissue samples.
- The DOH Tampa Laboratory will conduct viral
assay on the tissues and report results back to the
submitter and the Bureau of Community Environmental
Health within 3
weeks of receipt.
|
|
 |
|
