Are Aerial riggers exsposed to bird flu!!

[djjazzc]

Hi guys

Im an aerial rigger, and have been installing aerials now for 40 years since the whole thing started.

Dont know if this is the correct area for my question, so my appologies if it is.

I was watching the news last night and its evident that the bird flu will at some stage hit the uk.

Has it crossed any of your minds that an aerial riggers occupation is more at high risk than any other due to this bird flu. We all touch the old aerials when doing a fresh install, and as always the aerials are caked with bird crap.

I was in 2 minds if i should write this as perhaps it was a silly thing to think, but after thinking about this seriously, it would be so easy for an aerial rigger to have the human flu, and then contract the bird flu, which would then have the possibilty to create a new strand of the flu virus!!!

perhaps im just a over cautious, but when you stand back and think about the whole picture....really it could be so true!!!

so there you go an old aerial riggers worry.....have a nice sunday

[Chris Muriel]

I appreciate your sideways thinking.
IMO it's extremely unlikely that aerial riggers would be more at risk from this than the general public.
All the cases I recall from the news have been ducks , chickens and swans and I haven't seen any of the aforementioned creatures on antennas ; closest I have seen has been a heron on my (fairly substantial) ham radio tower which has yagis for 144 MHz, 432 MHz, 1296 MHz and 2.3 GHz on it plus dishes and squarials for 10 GHz.
So I consider your ideas a bit of a dead duck

Chris Muriel, Manchester

[JayCee]

Originally Posted by Chris Muriel

I consider your ideas a bit of a dead duck

Aye, and if he falls off that roof he'll be a lame duck.

[jaymac]

And as long as he avoids Kiwi shoe polish or Birds custard just in case

[Chris Muriel]

And don't associate with Emus (remember what happened to Rod Hull).

Chris Muriel, Manchester

[sean5302]

For the flu to be able to infect humans pandemically there has to be several mutations.

The virus has currently mutated itself to infect other bird species, different from the bird species initially carrying it. That has happened now. Call it mutation 1.

Then birds in close proximity to humans have to carry mutated virus capable of infecting those humans. That is mutation 2 and it has happened on isolated farms.

Mutation 3 is when 1 infected human would carry further mutated virus which can then go on to infect more humans. That has not yet happened.

It is not the coming into contact with bird faeces that has infected people on the farms, but coming into close proximity with the infected birds themselves. Theoretically then, if a bird syayed on the aerial you were installing, you could be infected. Not going to happen, is it?

[CarlB]

It is not the coming into contact with bird faeces that has infected people on the farms, but coming into close proximity with the infected birds themselves.

Not true. Warnings have been given about contact with bird faeces, especially when dry, which may then become dusty and ingested into the lungs.

If Bird Flu were rife in the avian population then I would suggest you may want to be a bit cautious, perhaps with gloves and a mask, but that hasn't happened yet.

LOL if they're anything like the installation guys that I've had (all 8 of them) they're more likely to catch a cold from standing around sucking air in through their teeth, shaking their head whilst looking at the roof..........they never actually ventured ONTO the roof !!!!! Grrrrrrrrrr...............

[throwit]

many diseases can be overcome by frequent low exposure, so maybe the aerial riggers'll be the only ones left, living in some kind of post apocalyptic cross between 'dawn of the dead' and 'the birds'