01/25 | Asian states slow to report bird flu, says WHO official

GENEVA: Asian countries have taken too long to report some human cases of bird flu and this could harm efforts to contain any future pandemic, a top World Health Organisation (WHO) official said yesterday.

Shigeru Omi, the WHO's Western Pacific regional director, said the failing showed the need for countries to improve their ability to detect and report cases of the H5N1 virus rapidly.

"The window of opportunity for containment is very narrow, meaning rapid containment measures must be carried out at least two to three weeks after detection of a potential pandemic event," Omi said in a speech to the WHO's Executive Board.

"However up to now, only half of the reports for human H5N1 cases meet this target. Some reports have been received as late as one or two months after disease onset," he added.

Omi did not identify which Asian countries were to blame.
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Di...=January2006&file=World_News2006012532128.xml

(CBC) - China says a 10th person has been diagnosed with the potentially lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu.

The Chinese Health Ministry says a 29-year-old woman from southwest China is in a critical condition in hospital.

Six of China's 10 known human cases of bird flu have died.

Worldwide, the disease has killed at least 82 people since it re-emerged in late 2003.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has denied exaggerating the risk of a human influenza pandemic. In an speech to the WHO executive board in Geneva, director-general Lee Jong-Wook, said the United Nations agency is not overplaying the threat of a pandemic, saying it is a genuine one.

"Concern has been expressed that we are overplaying this threat. We are not," he said. "We can only reduce the devastating human and economic impact of a pandemic if we all take the threat seriously now and prepare thoroughly. This is a global problem."

Experts warn that bird flu could mutate from its current form, which is mainly transmitted from poultry to humans, into one that is easily transmissible among humans.

If that happens it could result in a human flu pandemic that the agency warns could kill millions.

http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=cbc/world_home&articleID=2151274

ATLANTA (AP) - Expecting rising demand for flu shots, pharmaceutical companies are gearing up to produce as many as 120 million doses of vaccine for next flu season.That far surpasses the record of 95 million doses produced in 2002.

Vaccine makers say their expectation seems warranted for a number of reasons, including public fears of avian flu, better government reimbursement for shots and indications that federal health officials may one day recommend flu shots for nearly everyone.

"We and other manufacturers are making the investments to insure that there will be sustainable supplies going forward," said Andrew MacKnight, executive director of vaccine supply for GlaxoSmithKline, speaking at a flu vaccine summit meeting in Atlanta on Tuesday.

http://beta.abc3340.com/news/stories/0106/296788.html

http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=WORLD&ID=564669920588466166

U.N.: Countries must be prepared for 'inevitable' pandemic

BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press Writer

January 24, 2006 11:43 AM

GENEVA (AP) - Countries must speed up preparations to deal with an ''inevitable'' human influenza pandemic, which could strike soon, a senior U.N. official warned Tuesday.

David Nabarro, the U.N. coordinator on avian and human influenza, said countries must work fast because the H5N1 strain of bird flu could mutate into a form that spreads easily between people much faster than some officials seem to believe.

Experts fear that a mutation in the bird flu virus, which has ravaged poultry stocks across Asia since late 2003 and killed at least 82 people worldwide, could spark a pandemic killing millions of people.

''I say to them please act as though it's going to start tomorrow. Don't keep putting off the difficult issues,'' Nabarro said on the sidelines of the World Health Organization's annual weeklong executive board meeting.

''It may not be months, it could mean we are going to get human-to-human transmission tomorrow,'' he said.

So far, the bird flu virus remains hard for people to catch, with most human cases traced to contact with infected birds. The U.N. health agency has confirmed 151 human cases in the last three years.

But when asked if he believed a human flu pandemic was inevitable, Nabarro answered: ''Yes.''

''We are standing on the edge of a really deep precipice, not knowing how far we are going to fall,'' he said. ''That's why we are so focused on getting ready.''

Two meetings earlier this month, in Beijing and Tokyo, tackled the challenge of pandemic preparedness, raising millions of dollars to help predominantly poor countries in southeast Asia prepare for the worst.

Much of the money went toward helping countries improve their surveillance, rapid response and containment mechanisms should a pandemic flu strain emerge within their borders.

Much of the talk behind preparedness has centered on ensuring poor countries' access to treatments believed to be most effective in the case of a pandemic.

Nabarro was asked specifically about Swiss pharmaceutical Roche Holding AG's drug Tamiflu, which experts believe would be the best defense in the initial phases of any global influenza pandemic.

Roche owns the right to produce and supply Tamiflu, but it has come under increasing international pressure to ease its monopoly grip on the drug as governments have sought to increase their stockpiles.

Nabarro said it was not necessary to talk of countries breaking Roche's patent, citing the 5 million treatment courses the Basel-based firm already has donated to the global body and Roche's willingness to sublicense production of the drug to other companies.

''I am not certain that the patent issue is the fundamental constraint to (Tamiflu) production at this time,'' he said. ''Talk of breaking patents is not at this stage necessary.''

Under World Trade Organization rules, countries can issue so-called ''compulsory licenses'' to disregard patent rights, but only after negotiating with the patent owners and paying them adequate compensation. If they declare a public health emergency, governments can skip the negotiating.

Some countries say they would like to use compulsory licensing to build their stockpiles or to export Tamiflu and other potential pandemic treatments to nations that cannot afford them.

But while the WTO rules are clear on what is allowed, they are dissuaded from doing so because breaking patents is still a sensitive political issue, especially in countries home to large pharmaceutical industries, according to the international aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders.

''The U.N. should really point at these provisions and be much clearer about what rights countries have,'' Ellen 't Hoen, director of policy advocacy at MSF's campaign for essential medicines, told The Associated Press. ''They should stop being ambiguous and encourage countries to use these provisions if necessary.''

She added that Nabarro's comments sounded ''like a backtracking from what Kofi Annan has already said.''

In October, the U.N. secretary-general said the United Nations would not let intellectual property rights stand in the way of access to flu treatments and vaccines in case of a pandemic, calling on rich nations and pharmaceutical companies to help impoverished countries prepare themselves.

JOHANNESBURG - Do the wild birds that fly through cold winter skies to warmer lands silently carry deadly bird flu around the world? Or are they simply potential victims?

With the virulent H5N1 form of bird flu now killing people in Turkey, there is a growing debate about how it is spread.

Many scientists believe migrating wild fowl are responsible for carrying the virus from Asia and Siberia to Romania and Turkey. And although some argue there is not enough evidence yet for firm conclusions, the theory is gaining ground.

"Scientists are increasingly convinced that at least some migratory waterfowl are now carrying the H5N1 virus in its highly pathogenic form, sometimes over long distances, and introducing the virus to poultry flocks in areas that lie along their migratory routes," the World Health Organisation said in its latest bird flu fact sheet last week.

It said scientists found that viruses from the most recently affected countries, all of which lie along migratory routes, were almost identical to viruses recovered from dead migratory birds at Qinghai Lake in China.

The viruses from Turkey's first human cases were also virtually identical to the Qinghai Lake strain, it added.

In Romania, the outbreak was first detected in and around the remote Danube Delta, Europe's largest wetlands which also happen to lie on a major migratory route for wild birds.

"We do know that avian influenza viruses are carried by migratory birds all over the world. But not all of them are highly pathogenic or H5N1," Juan Lubroth, the senior officer for infectious diseases with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told Reuters.

"I think that wild birds may introduce the virus but it is through man and man's marketing systems (the poultry trade) that the disease spreads. It is also possible that poultry can transmit the virus to wildlife when they share the same ecosystem," Lubroth said.


MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

The H5N1 virus has killed at least 80 people since late 2003, mostly in Asia. Victims contract the virus through close contact with sick birds, but there are fears it could mutate into a form that can pass easily from person to person -- making the question of how it is spread across regions so important.

"Should this new role of migratory birds be scientifically confirmed, it will mark a change in a long-standing stable relationship between the H5N1 virus and its natural wild-bird reservoir," WHO said.

The FAO said this month that the virus could spread to Africa and Europe during the northern spring migration.

"The avian influenza virus could become entrenched in the Black Sea, Caucasus and Near East regions through trade ... and it could be further spread by migratory birds particularly coming from Africa in the spring," it said.

The H5N1 strain has not yet been detected in Africa -- not an easy task given already high rates of mortality among the continent's chickens. Tests on dead wild birds from Malawi and Ethiopia have been negative and hundreds of tests of migratory bird droppings in South Africa have found no trace either.


DIRECT EVIDENCE?

The growing popularity of the migratory bird theory has worried an increasingly vocal group of conservationists who fear unfounded claims could lead to indiscriminate slaughters.

"The pattern of outbreaks between Asia and eastern Europe do not follow any known pathway for migrant birds, which tend to fly on northerly-southerly routes. They don't go east-west," Dr Richard Thomas of BirdLife International told Reuters.

Andre Farrar, an ornithologist with Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), said if migratory birds were spreading H5N1, it would have been spotted elsewhere.

"Go back a stage and start off in southeast Asia. If migration was the primary route you would have expected it in Australasia but it hasn't shown up there," he said.

However, Farrar said it was prudent to keep looking.

"There is clearly a theoretical risk that migrant birds can carry bird flu. There is published work showing that ducks in captivity can survive H5N1 infection and can shed the virus and we'd be foolish to ignore this," he said.

He said the focus on migratory birds detracted from other, more useful policies to fight the virus like public education, biosecurity measures and curbs on the movement of poultry.

Conservationists say tens of thousands of healthy wild migrant birds in infected countries have been tested over the last decade, but not one has had the virus.

Wild birds that have been found to have the H5 virus, such as swans found in Croatia in October, were already dead -- suggesting they were victims rather than vectors.

BirdLife says the poultry trade is a more likely vector.

"South Korea and Japan are two countries to have suffered outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry and wild birds following importation of infected duck meat," it said in a statement.

"Both countries stamped the virus out by culling infected poultry around disease areas, and imposed strict controls on poultry and poultry meat imports. Neither country has suffered a recurrence of the virus despite the influx each autumn of hundreds of thousands of wild migrant birds," it said.

Conservationists are also concerned about reports of wild birds being killed because of fears of avian flu in several countries from Madagascar to Vietnam.


Story by Ed Stoddard


REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/34657/story.htm

Report: Algerians checking whether chicken farmer died of bird flu(Updated 05:42 p.m.)​

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/i_latestdetail.asp?id=34851

2006/1/25
ALGIERS, Algeria (AP)

Authorities were trying to determine whether a man who raised poultry and died after contracting flu-like symptoms may have had bird flu, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

Initial tests came out negative, the daily El Watan quoted hospital officials as saying. A preliminary check by veterinarians on the deceased man's poultry also turned up negative, the paper said.

Hospital and Health Ministry officials could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.

The man died in the Oran hospital, in western Algeria, and three family members have fallen ill, El Watan reported. The family members, aged 13, 33 and 46, were all suffering from pneumonia, the report said. They were being kept in isolation and under anti-viral treatment, the paper quoted a hospital official as saying.

The family lives in Sidi El-Bachir, 6 kilometers (less than 4 miles) east of Oran, a major city on the Mediterranean coast.

The bird flu virus has killed at least 82 people worldwide since 2003, the large majority in Asia. It recently spread to Turkey where 21 confirmed human cases have been detected. Four children there have died over the past month.

Experts fear the bird flu virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, possibly sparking a pandemic killing millions of people.

There have been numerous false alarms since the virus began spreading.

Indonesian chicken vendor has bird flu: ministry​

Wed Jan 25, 2006 5:43 AM ET

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesian chicken seller in Jakarta is in hospital after being infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus according to local test results, a senior Health Ministry official said on Wednesday.

Hariadi Wibisono, director of control of animal-borne diseases at the ministry, said the 22-year-old man was being treated in a Jakarta hospital designated for bird flu patients.

"Local tests show he was positive for bird flu. He is a chicken vendor in a traditional market," Wibisono said, adding blood samples had been sent to a Hong Kong laboratory recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) for confirmation.

Indonesia has had 14 confirmed deaths from bird flu and five cases where patients have survived.

Bird flu has killed at least 82 people in six countries since late 2003.

The H5N1 virus is not known to pass easily between humans at the moment, but experts fear it could develop that ability and set off a global pandemic that might kill millions of people.

Drawing attention to the threat posed by traditional markets in Indonesia, the WHO on Wednesday urged that hygiene and sanitation standards be improved.

"Massive interaction between humans and live poultry takes place every day in wet, traditional markets here and it might be a potential transmission of avian influenza," Alexander von Hildebrand, the WHO's Southeast Asia regional adviser for environmental health, said in a statement.

The WHO said preventive measures included limiting contact between humans and poultry in markets, as well as having better access to water and improved waste management.

Sanitation in many traditional markets in Indonesia is poor, with dirty or drainage water used to wash produce and stalls.

Indonesia's confirmed bird flu cases include two children from the same family in West Java province who died this month.

They were Indonesia's fifth cluster of cases, where people living in close proximity have fallen ill. [more text at the website....]

Chinese woman dies from bird flu: WHO​

Wed Jan 25, 2006 7:03 AM ET
Reuters


BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese woman infected with bird flu, the country's 10th human bird flu victim, has died, the World Health Organization confirmed on Wednesday.

The 29-year-old woman surnamed Cao, who ran a shop in a farm goods market in Jinhua town in the southwestern province of Sichuan, died on Monday, Roy Wadia, a WHO spokesman in Beijing, said.

Cao fell ill with a fever on January 12 and had been receiving treatment in a hospital in the provincial capital, Chengdu. She was Sichuan's second human case of bird flu this month, after the Chinese health ministry announced last week that a 35-year-old woman from the province died of the disease on January 11.

To date, seven of the 10 Chinese people officially confirmed to have contracted bird flu have died.

China's Ministry of Health was not immediately available for comment.

In Cao's case, and most of China's other reported human bird flu infections, there was no officially confirmed outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu among poultry in the area beforehand.

China, along with Vietnam, has suffered numerous outbreaks in poultry since October and Beijing has launched sweeping measures to stop the virus from spreading and infecting more people.

Experts believe the H5N1 virus is contracted through close contact with sick birds, and fear that as the virus spreads it will mutate to enable it to spread easily from human to human, sparking a pandemic that could claim many millions of lives.

Dutch farmers may reject bird flu vaccination
24 Jan 2006 10:38:21 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Anna Mudeva

AMSTERDAM, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Dutch poultry farmers may reject vaccinating the country's huge poultry population against bird flu for fear consumers would reject their products, industry officials said on Tuesday.
They said the farmers might spurn the government proposal unless they can obtain guarantees the poultry could still be exported.

The Netherlands is one of the world's top poultry exporters but faces trade restrictions, including from European Union members, if it launches a preventive vaccination campaign.

"Trade is very important to us. If it's not possible to export, vaccination is not an option for us and we will not agree with it," Jan Wolleswinkel, chairman of the Dutch poultry farmers organisation, told Reuters.

"If other EU countries start vaccinating as well ... or at least guarantee that they will keep buying our meat, we will agree," Wolleswinkel said.

Earlier this month, the Dutch farm ministry said the government was considering launching mass vaccination in the face of growing fears of a major European bird flu outbreak.

The deadly H5N1 avian flu virus that emerged in Asia has rapidly spread in Turkey, fuelling fears of a bigger European outbreak.

Bird flu experts recommend preventive vaccination to be considered seriously in the tiny and densely populated Netherlands, where risk is seen higher than in the rest of the EU because of its huge numbers of poultry.

The Netherlands, where land is scarce and canals, rivers and ditches are abundant, is home to 16 million people and 90 million poultry.

EXPORTS GUARANTEES

The Dutch Product Board for Livestock, Meat and Eggs said vaccination was not an option unless exports were guaranteed.

"Vaccination could be a solution but if it's an international and not national one," a spokesman said. "We have to make sure that other countries won't stop buying our meat".

The farm ministry has said it aims to submit a vaccination plan with the European Commission in spring, adding biggest fears were about possible trade barriers, which could inflict hundreds of millions of euros in losses on the poultry industry.

A ministry official said the Netherlands, Europe's second biggest poultry producer after France, would most likely have to negotiate its export trading status with every EU member state separately, the outcome of which was uncertain.

The official, who declined to be named, said the vaccination plan would hardly go ahead if the Netherlands fails to secure trade guarantees.

The country exports over 80 percent of its annual poultry meat production of about 600,000 tonnes, mainly to Germany, the UK, Belgium, France, Ukraine, Japan, Poland and Russia. Total poultry industry exports, including meat, eggs and live birds, were worth 1.6 billion euros in 2004.

The EU usually sees vaccination as a last resort and bans livestock and meat imports from countries that use vaccination.

Last month, EU farm ministers agreed to update the bloc's existing bird flu law to increase controls and give governments greater flexibility to vaccinate poultry. There are no signs so far of other EU countries considering preventive vaccination.

The Netherlands suffered a devastating bird flu outbreak of a different strain in 2003, which led to the culling of over a third of the flock. It has not seen new cases since then.

The overall costs, including losses from export bans, reached some 500 million euros in 2003 and the country lost its position as Europe's biggest poultry producer to France.

Egypt farmer dumps 10,000 chicks in bird flu flap
25 Jan 2006 13:28:14 GMT

Source: Reuters

CAIRO, Jan 25 (Reuters) - An Egyptian farmer abandoned 10,000 newly hatched chicks to their fate on a desert road east of Cairo fearing they might be infected with the deadly bird flu virus, a police official said on Wednesday.

Shocked motorists travelling on the road about 130 km (80 miles) east of Cairo contacted police after seeing the chicks running loose on the tarmac on Tuesday, the official added.

Health officials gathered the chicks and confirmed after testing that they were not carrying the virus which has killed at least 80 people worldwide since late 2003.

"The man who dumped the chicks was a farmer who owns land in an area near the road and he thought the chicks had bird flu so he tried to get rid of them," the police official said.

The farmer had taken back the birds and would not be facing legal proceedings, the official added.

Egyptian media has reported many people are avoiding eating chicken since the H5N1 virus killed four people in Turkey, the only recorded human deaths so far outside East Asia.

Egyptian officials have repeatedly said regular and widespread testing by the health ministry has showed the country is so far free of the virus.

Algeria denies report of human bird flu death​

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L25720018.htm

25 Jan 2006 12:55:15 GMT

Source: Reuters

ALGIERS, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Algeria denied any outbreak of bird flu on Wednesday after newspaper reports that a poultry breeder in the western city of Oran may have died of the virus.

Newspaper El Watan said the farmer had shown flu-like symptoms before he died and that three of his relatives had been treated in hospital.

But a health ministry official told Reuters the results of initial blood tests on the family were negative for bird flu, the deadly virus that has killed more than 80 people since it reemerged at the end of 2003.

"I deny the existence of any suspected (bird flu) cases. The hospitalised people have been suffering from normal (seasonal) flu. This has nothing to do with the bird flu virus, according to preliminary tests," the official said.

The results of final tests on the family would be released by Sunday, he added.

Ministry spokesman Slim Belkassam told state radio the 45-year-old breeder had died of tuberculosis.

Algeria plans to spend 8 billion dinars ($111 million) to counter any outbreak of bird flu. It plans to import more than 7 million doses of anti-viral drugs and buy 7 million masks for health staff in case of any outbreak.

Health Minister Amar Tou said on Sunday that no case of the disease had been reported in people or poultry in Algeria.

The authorities have said they plan to step up health checks at airports and ports to ensure passengers and goods from countries hit by the virus do not bring it into the North African country of 33 million.

The H5N1 bird flu virus is not known to pass easily between humans at the moment, but experts fear it could develop that ability and set off a global pandemic that might kill millions of people.

Turkey has reported the deaths of four children from the virus this month, the first human cases outside of East Asia.

Bird-Flu Struck Human Victim in Pyongyang (North Korea) ​

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200601/200601250023.html

A bird flu outbreak in the North Korean capital Pyongyang resulted in the hospitalization of at least one woman with the disease, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun belatedly reported Wednesday.

The paper quoted a source as saying an outbreak in a farming village in September alarmed Kim Jong-il, who worried about a fresh pandemic among birds and instructed the party and all government organizations to prepare thorough defenses against avian influenza. At the end of last year, infected chickens were found in three locations in the capital including Gwangbok Street, resulting in the dispatch of troops to cull poultry and disinfect the area.

It appears the infected woman caught the disease from birds, and there have been no reports of a mutation of the avian flu virus capable of human-to-human transmission.

The paper reported speculation that Kim asked for Chinese help during his secretive nine-day visit to that country starting Jan. 10. The paper quoted reports that the North Korean leader underwent a checkup at the People’s Liberation Army 301 Hospital in downtown Beijing, speculating that Kim may have wanted to make sure that he himself had not contracted bird flu .

The Japanese public safety authorities are investigating the Korean Association of Science and Technology in Japan (KAST) under the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) for taking 10 bags of the anti-influenza drug Tamiflu to North Korea last September.

The information was confirmed by Rescue the North Korean People Urgent Action Network (RENK), a non-governmental organization. “Since there is a risk that the epidemic will spread to other areas, the North Korean government should promptly publish all relevant related information and take steps to combat it,” the group said.

(englishnews@chosun.com )

More poultry to be avian flu tested (Maryland USA)​

http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060125/NEWS01/601250302/1002

By Monique Lewis
Daily Times Staff Writer

SALISBURY -- The Maryland Department of Agriculture and poultry industry have reached an agreement to immediately conduct testing on the Delmarva Peninsula of all commercial poultry flocks for avian influenza, state officials said Monday.

Dr. Daniel Bautista, lab director and poultry diagnostician for the Salisbury Animal Health Diagnostic Laboratory, said the increased testing for the disease -- which is highly contagious among chickens and can wipe out entire flocks -- will be a big undertaking for his small staff.

Bautista said the lab, on Nanticoke Road in Salisbury, is not only the main diagnostic poultry lab on Delmarva but also occasionally tests horses, cattle and companion and exotic animals. These will now have to be sent to the Centreville, Md., lab, he said.

"We have to prioritize most of our lab resources into doing a lot more avian influenza testing than anything else," he said.

Prior to the new volume testing, Bautista said his staff tested 40 percent of the flocks from more than 2,000 Delmarva farms through the National Poultry Improvement Plan, a federal-state-poultry industry program that monitors avian influenza for commercial flocks.

The work is divided between another lab at the University of Delaware, he said.

Poultry industries and diagnostic labs voluntarily agreed to test 100 percent of the flock, which the National Chicken Council Task Force recommended, said Perdue Farms spokeswoman Julie DeYoung. All of Perdue's flocks have shown to be healthy in the testing, which the companies pay for.

Dottie Butler of Salisbury said the 60 percent increase in testing is better late than never.

"But I hope it doesn't affect jobs or put people out of work because of the extra work that has to be done," she said.

The flocks are tested on the farm before they're processed, DeYoung said. The company announced that any flock that tests positive for H5 or H7 types will be destroyed on the farm and disposed of immediately.

"I think it's important for the safety of the people," said Brenda Fitchett of Salisbury.

In 2004, a few cases of the illness were found in Worcester County and in Delaware, forcing those farmers to quarantine their land to keep from transmitting the disease. Since then, no incidents have been reported or detected, Bautista said.

Tests are conducted every time the farms grow chickens, he said, and the average farm grows five chicken batches a year. Bautista said his lab will test a sample of 11 birds per farm.

"We positively bias our samples to give us a better chance of detecting the avian influenza virus, because the sick ones and fresh dead ones have a higher chance of having the sickness," he said. "Cumulatively, that is a lot of testing."

The Salisbury lab also tests noncommercial poultry and any sick birds that are submitted, Bautista said. The lab will use the antigen detection test to look for a unique part of the virus that makes it detectable, he said.

The results are available in less than 24 hours and are administered by four lab technicians. Bautista said he will probably need a couple more people to help.

"We are trying to keep our heads above water," he said. "Presently, we are keeping up but we won't be able to run at the 100 percent level forever -- people get sick, take vacations, machines break down and we run out of supplies."

He said more manpower and an updated building that is conducive to modern laboratory practices are needed to supply the new demand. Bautista recalled a time when he had 16 employees and two veterinarians in the mid-1970s and '80s.

But if there is no disease outbreak, then jobs are cut, he said. Bautista said State Veterinarian Dr. Guy Hohenhaus has been lobbying the state legislature for more positions for years. Until then, "(Avian influenza testing) is the call of our mission," he said.

Agriculture Secretary Lewis R. Riley said that it is important to remember that the H5N1 highly pathogenic form of avian influenza that is causing concern in Asia has never occurred in the United States.

"With 100 percent testing, we are able to ensure that if we were ever to experience any avian influenza virus on Delmarva, we could quickly contain and eradicate the disease," he said.

The bird flu news isn't encouraging, the head of the CDC said today.

The comments by CDC Director Julie M. Gerberding, MD, MPH, came at the opening of the 2006 National Influenza Vaccine Summit meeting of public health officials and vaccine manufacturers.

Preparation for a flu pandemic is only a small part of the meeting. But in her opening remarks, Gerberding stressed how seriously the CDC is taking the threat of a bird flu pandemic.

"This is not media hype. This is a real situation," Gerberding said. "And at CDC we are very focused on the possibility of pandemic with this virus or some unexpected virus."

An Evolving Virus

Bird flu — the virus known technically as H5N1 avian influenza — is evolving. Whether it will necessarily evolve into a pandemic flu virus depends on whether it gains the power to spread easily from person to person.

But only one thing is certain: Flu viruses are notoriously unpredictable.

"The strategic national stockpile does not contain a crystal ball," Gerberding said. "What we are hearing is not encouraging. We know the virus is on the move. It has moved on from the Vietnam clade [virus group] we made vaccine against."

Front Lines of the Flu Battle

The CDC director promised that if bird flu does start spreading among humans — anywhere on earth — the U.S. will not sit on its heels.

"If pandemic influenza is a threat anywhere in the world, it is a threat here," Gerberding said. "If anywhere in the world there appears to be person-to-person transmission, we will do everything we can do to quench the initial outbreaks. We will engage on the front lines."

Could the CDC and its international partners really succeed? Gerberding is cautiously optimistic.

"We believe if the virus is found in a small rural area, we would have a chance to quench it," she said. "But of course if it happened in a city, the chance of quenching it is pretty small."

If a Pandemic Strikes

If a bird flu pandemic breaks out, all is not lost. Gerberding says the initial plan would be to screen travelers and to quarantine those found to be infected.

"We are practicing this in airports around the country," she said.

There would, of course, be a race to produce a vaccine. But with current technology, that would take the better part of a year at least.

"Many of you would be working to slow illness and death while we work to get a vaccine," Gerberding told the audience of public health officials. "So we would be using our antiviral supply to treat those who can be isolated. Pubic health measures will be essential, especially distancing. There would be no meetings like this. And be prepared for early closing of schools. We will all be working from home."

Accurate information, Gerberding said, will be a key issue. Family doctors will be key players.

"We have learned from previous public health emergencies that the most important information providers are doctors," Gerberding said. "People want information from their own doctors. So we must get information from the source to these providers."

The Power of Seasonal Flu

Since 2003, bird flu has killed 82 people. Every year, seasonal flu kills 250,000 to 500,000 people worldwide.

About 36,000 Americans die of flu every year, noted J. Edward Hill, MD, president of the American Medical Association, who shared the podium with Gerberding.

"That is twelve 9/11s or 65 jumbo jets crashing each and every year," Hill said. "Those are incredibly high numbers that we can and must lower."

It's pretty unusual for the AMA, which represents fiercely independent U.S. doctors, to join forces with a government agency. But Hill said that it's time for private doctors to accept responsibility for public health.

"Physicians do public health one patient at a time," Hill said. "Every doctor's second specialty should be public health."

Increasing Public Knowledge

Hill called the flu vaccine one of the basic tools doctors use in their day-to-day work. He pledged the AMA's support in fixing the U.S. flu vaccine production and distribution system — and in increasing the number of people vaccinated each year.

"We have to do a better job of educating doctors and the public," Hill said. "In my private practice, I still see people every year suffering under the myth they will get flu if they get the flu vaccine. It is ridiculous, but not a small problem. Convincing them otherwise is hard."

Hard though it may be, Hill was more willing than Gerberding to predict that flu vaccination will go more smoothly next year than it did this year. But Gerberding said the CDC is committed to resolving all of the troublesome issues surrounding flu vaccination.

"The problems that we didn't solve this year, we want to take steps to solve in the future," she said. "It is frustrating to have year after year go by and still feel we are not meeting the public's expectations."

Gerberding said that the federal funds being spent on preparing for a possible bird flu pandemic won't be wasted if bird flu doesn't appear.

"Everything we are doing for pandemic flu will pay off for seasonal flu," she said.

By Daniel J. DeNoon, reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,182682,00.html

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<B><center>Wednesday, Jan 25, 2006
<A href="http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=cp_health_home&articleID=2151717">www.mytelus.com</a>

<B><font size=+1 color=red>Scientists are using website to track money and predict diseases </font></center>
LOS ANGELES (AP) - By following the money, scientists are hoping they might better predict how diseases like a flu pandemic could spread.
Using the popular Where's George? website that tracks U.S. dollars, researchers developed a mathematical tool that could help chart the path of an infectious disease. </b></b>

"We are optimistic that this will drastically improve predictions about the geographical spread of epidemics," said Theo Geisel of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, which developed the tool along with the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Details appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Fears of a flu pandemic have arisen from the spread of bird flu, a virus that has killed more than 70 people in Asia and Europe since 2003, but which is so far spreading easily only among poultry. International health officials fear the virus could mutate into a form easily transmitted between humans.

So far, the bird flu virus is not easy to catch. But experts have warned that if it ultimately begins spreading among people, travellers are the most likely way it will become a worldwide threat.

Tracking travellers is difficult, so researchers came up with the idea of studying them indirectly by tracing how money circulates through the economy.

In the study, scientists traced the whereabouts of nearly half a million dollar bills on www.wheresgeorge.com bill-tracking site.


Users register their money and then spend it. They can monitor the money's movement online as it changes hands.

Researchers found that most of the money (57 per cent) travelled between 50 kilometres and 800 kilometres over about nine months in the United States. About a quarter of the bills moved more than 800 kilometres.

By analyzing the movement of money - and human travel - over different distances, the scientists found that the money followed a predictable pattern. The method could be used to create more realistic disease models that track the spread of germs and perhaps prevent outbreaks, they say.

The study is the most detailed to date showing the variability of travellers, said Neil Ferguson, a professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College in London.

"From the perspective of disease modelling, one thing we would like to understand better is the variability between people in their travelling," said Ferguson, who had no role in the research.

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<B><center>24 Jan 2006 20:04 GMT

<font size=+1 color=brown>UN Expert Urges Action Against 'Inevitable' Flu Pandemic</font>

Copyright © 2006, Dow Jones Newswires
<A href="http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=2006012420040007&Take=1">framehosting.dowjonesnews.com</a></center>
GENEVA (AP)--Countries must speed up their preparations to deal with an "inevitable" human influenza pandemic, which could strike soon, a senior U.N. official warned on Tuesday. </b>

David Nabarro, the U.N. coordinator on avian and human influenza, said countries must work fast because the H5N1 strain of bird flu could mutate into a form that spreads easily between people much faster than some officials seem to believe.

Experts fear that a mutation in the bird flu virus, which has ravaged poultry stocks across Asia since late 2003 and killed at least 82 people worldwide, could spark a pandemic killing millions of people.

"I say to them please act as though it's going to start tomorrow. Don't keep putting off the difficult issues," Nabarro told reporters on the sidelines of the World Health Organization's annual week-long executive board meeting.

"It may not be months - it could mean we are going to get human-to-human transmission tomorrow," he said.

So far, the bird flu virus remains hard for people to catch, with most human cases traced to contact with infected birds. The U.N. health agency has confirmed 151 human cases in the last three years.

But when asked if he believed a human flu pandemic was inevitable, Nabarro answered: "Yes."

"We are standing on the edge of a really deep precipice, not knowing how far we are going to fall," he said. "That's why we are so focused on getting ready."

Two other meetings this month, in Beijing and Tokyo, tackled the challenge of pandemic preparedness, raising millions of dollars to help predominantly poor countries in southeast Asia prepare for the worst.

Much of the money went toward helping countries improve their surveillance, rapid response and containment mechanisms should a pandemic flu strain emerge within their borders.

Much of the talk behind preparedness has centered on ensuring poor countries' access to treatments believed to be most effective in the case of a pandemic.

Nabarro was asked specifically about Swiss pharmaceutical Roche Holding AG's (RHHBY) drug Tamiflu, which experts believe would be the best defense in the initial phases of a global pandemic.

Roche owns the right to produce and supply Tamiflu, but it has come under increasing international pressure to ease its monopoly grip on the drug as governments have sought to increase their stockpiles.

Nabarro said it was not necessary to talk of countries breaking Roche's patent, citing the 5 million treatment courses the Basel-based firm already has donated to the global body, and Roche's willingness to sublicense production of the drug to other companies.

"I am not certain that the patent issue is the fundamental constraint to (Tamiflu) production at this time," he said. "Talk of breaking patents is not at this stage necessary."

Under World Trade Organization rules, countries can issue so-called "compulsory licenses" to disregard patent rights, but only after negotiating with the patent owners and paying them adequate compensation. If they declare a public health emergency, governments can skip the negotiating.

Some countries say they would like to use compulsory licensing to build their stockpiles or to export Tamiflu and other potential pandemic treatments to nations which cannot afford them.

But while the WTO rules are clear on what is allowed, they are dissuaded from doing so because breaking patents is still a sensitive political issue, especially in countries home to large pharmaceutical industries, according to the international aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders.

"The U.N. should really point at these provisions and be much clearer about what rights countries have," Ellen 't Hoen, director of policy advocacy at MSF's campaign for essential medicines, told The Associated Press. "They should stop being ambiguous and encourage countries to use these provisions if necessary."

She added that Nabarro's comments sounded "like a backtracking from what Kofi Annan has already said."

Last October, the U.N. secretary-general said the United Nations would not let intellectual property rights stand in the way of access to flu treatments and vaccines in case of a pandemic, calling on rich nations and pharmaceutical companies to help impoverished countries prepare themselves.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

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<B><center>[January 25, 2006]
<A href="http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-russia-offers-help-turkey-deal-with-bird-flu-/2006/01/25/1314400.htm">www.tmcnet.com</a>

<font size=+1 color=blue>RUSSIA OFFERS TO HELP TURKEY DEAL WITH BIRD FLU</font></center>
(Interfax News Agency Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Russia has offered Turkey medical assistance in dealing with bird flu, namely in "diagnosing, deciphering information and analysis," but "there has not yet been any reaction from Turkey," Russian chief sanitary official Gennady Onishchenko said during a radio program on January 9.</b>

"English-speaking specialists are ready to leave [for Turkey] at any moment," he told the Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvy.

Onishchenko said Russia had offered the same form of
help to
Georgia though there have been no confirmed cases there of
humanscontracting the virus.

"Three teams of Russian specialists have worked in Crimea and Kyiv, where they were helping their Ukrainian colleagues organize the work of preventing the spread of the disease," he said.

Onishchenko said the Russian government had recommended
that
Russians avoid visiting Turkey and that, "if the situation
getsaggravated, we will impose a ban [on Russians traveling to Turkey] in accordance with actions by the WHO [the World Health Organization]."

Anti-bird flu measures are currently being taken on the Russian borders with Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Russian specialists are currently working at two areas in Dagestan on the border with Azerbaijan through which pilgrims traveled on their way to Hajj in Saudi Arabia. The pilgrims will be passing through the Turkish province where bird flu has been registered.

In addition, Russian doctors are working at two points on the Georgian border - at Verkhny Lars and Nizhny Zaramag.

From January 7, there hasn't been much crossing of the border. But the situation will change on the tenth. Our doctors there have orders to find sick people with signs of severe respiratory infections, isolate them and observe them, Onishchenko said.

However, fortunately, we have not had any instances of people being infected with the H5N1 virus on Russian territory, he said.

The increased anti-bird flu measures have been taken due to
the
fact that the number of people infected with bird flu in Turkey
hasrisen to 15 over the past several days. Two people have died.

Bird deaths have been recorded in ten of Turkey's 81 provinces.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that the authorities are in full control over the situation with bird flu in the country.

Unfortunately, panic has arisen and as a result, the
impression
has taken shape that the country is not prepared for such a
turn ofevents, he said at a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Ankara. Erdogan said several people had come to the hospital with fears that they had contracted the disease, however the disease was not confirmed in most cases.

Erdogan also said that medical facilities are not experiencing a shortage of vaccines or medical supplies.

The Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Control Service (Rosselkhoznadzor) has issued a guarantee that Russia will not import any poultry meat or other poultry products from Turkey, where a recent bird flu outbreak occurred.

The ban on poultry imports from Turkey as well as Georgia,
Armenia
and Azerbaijan has been in effect for a long time due to the fact
thatthe epizootic situation in these countries is difficult to control, Rosselkhoznadzor chief Sergei Dankvert told Interfax.

Russian inspectors last traveled to Turkey in September and declined Turkish officials' proposal to lift the ban, he said.

Dankvert also said that Turkish specialists had not
responded to
Russia's proposal that they take part in a seminar held by the
WorldOrganization for Animal Health (OIE) and the veterinary services of OIE member countries in Europe in the Vladimir region town of Suzdal in September 2004. The participants of this seminar discussed a wide range of issues related to the prevention of bird flu.

In the current conditions, one must pay attention to the fact that these countries' veterinary services worked skillfully and correctly, Dankvert said. It is these countries that are able to stave off the epidemic since the rapid diagnosis of the disease, the introduction of a quarantine and the culling of sick birds are what fully eliminate the possibility of people getting infected, he said. In addition, owners of birds that are killed must be compensated in full so that they don't hide the disease, he said.

The situation in Turkey is complicated by the fact that the
Turkish
veterinary service is not providing enough information for
anapproximate analysis of the characteristics of the disease or the way in which it is developing. Nevertheless, the information officials possess allows for the conclusion that the situation in Turkey will likely exacerbate. This is mainly due to the development of rice crops in the country as rice fields are considered the ideal environment for bird flu to be spread from wild birds to domesticated ones.

Only international assistance can rectify the current situation in Turkey, Rosselkhoznadzor said. The worst-case scenario of the disease spreading among humans there cannot be ruled out, experts say.

Dankvert also said Rosselkhoznadzor would not be surprised if the disease finds its way to Georgia. Unofficial reports say birds have been dying off in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge over the last few months, he said. Russia still has a ban on the import of livestock products from Georgia due to the unfavorable epizootic situation there, Dankvert said.

Bird deaths have been recorded in ten of Turkey's 81
provinces. The
number of people affected by the disease in Turkey has grown to
15 inrecent days. Two deaths have been reported.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed Prime
Minister
Mikhail Fradkov to prepare a plan of action aimed at
setting uppreventive measures to ensure bird flu does not return to Russia.

The Central State Veterinary Laboratory has confirmed the presence of bird flu at poultry farms in Primorsky, near Feodosia, Crimean Agrarian Policy Minister Oleh Rusetsky said on January 9.

The death of poultry at the farms was reported to the ministry at the end of December and the beginning of January, however it had yet to be confirmed. Rusetsky said an analysis had proven it was bird flu.

"Today work is coming to an end to destroy the poultry. It's about 171,500 fowl," he told Interfax.

Disinfectant measures are currently being carried out at Primorsky and a long-term quarantine will be enacted to keep the disease from spreading further, he said.

Additional inspections were carried out at all Crimean poultry farms between January 4 and 9, he said.

The outbreak was caused by farms not observing veterinary regulations and requirements, the Agrarian Policy Ministry's press service said.

Armenian President Robert Kocharian, at a meeting on Monday with senior government members, gave "strict instructions to carry through all possible preventive measures" to stop bird flu crossing the border into Armenia, said the head of the state veterinary inspectorate, Grigory Bagiyan.

Among other things, Kocharian gave instructions "to get ready for the forthcoming spring bird migration, including from neighboring Turkey, where a bird flu virus has already been recorded," Bagiyan told a news conference.

"Today a stable situation has taken shape in [Armenia] as
regards
bird flu. No bird flu virus has been recorded on the territory of
therepublic to date," he said.

There exists an ad hoc government anti-bird flu committee, Bagiyan said. Imports of poultry and eggs from Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Turkey, Iran, and some Central Asian states into Armenia have been suspended since summer 2005.

"We also cooperate with Russian border guards who guard the Armenian-Turkish border. In particular, an agreement has been reached under which the border guards will report any bird carcass or sick bird they find," Bagiyan said.

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<b><center>Scientists discover how flu viruses replicate
<font size=+1 color=purple>Influenza viruses enter cells and reproduce their own genetic material</font>

<A href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11022516/">www.msnbc.msn.com</a></center>
1:21 p.m. ET Jan. 25, 2006</center>
LONDON - Scientists have solved the genetic puzzle of how influenza A viruses — including the H5N1 bird flu — replicate inside cells, which could help to speed up the development of new drugs to avert a pandemic.

As governments bolster efforts to halt the spread of avian flu which has killed 83 people since 2003, an international team of researchers has discovered that the flu virus infects cells by organizing its genetic material in a set of eight segments.</b>

“We’ve found that the influenza virus has a specific mechanism that permits it to package its genetic materials,” said Professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka, of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, who headed the research team.

“All influenza viruses have the same mechanism, including bird flu,” he added in an interview on Wednesday.

Influenza A is the family of viruses responsible for seasonal flu as well pandemic strains such as the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed as many as 50 million people worldwide.

Scientists fear H5N1 could cause the next pandemic if it mutates on its own or mixes with a human virus to form a strain that can spread easily from person to person.

So far it has not shown it is highly infectious in humans but knowing how the virus replicates and the mechanism that controls it could provide new targets for antiviral drugs.

“If we can disrupt this interaction ... we may be able to stop the virus replication,” said Kawaoka, who is also a professor at the University of Tokyo in Japan.

Unwrapping the package
Influenza A viruses enter cells and reproduce their own genetic material, or RNA, into infectious particles that are released and then infect other cells. How it manages to do it has been a mystery, until now.

With the help of an electron microscope, Kawaoka and a team of scientists from Japan, Sweden, and the United States used a technique that generates three-dimensional images to see how the virus packages the segments of RNA into the infectious particles.

They found the material is organized in a circle of seven RNA segments surrounding another segment to make a set of eight. Kawaoka said no one had identified that before.

“We need to have more antivirals for influenza,” said Kawaoka, who reported his research in the journal Nature.

“And as these segments get incorporated into the particle as a set, it suggests these elements could be a target of disruption. There must be a genetic element in each of the eight segments that allows them to interact,” he added.

The scientists are trying to identify what is important for the interaction among the eight segments and are looking for molecules that will inhibit it, to prevent the virus from replicating.

dupe

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17943698-23109,00.html