04/07 | Daily Bird Flu Thread: Starving villagers ate bird-flu infected chickens

Link to yesterday's thread: http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=192468

Human Cases

Since January, 2004 WHO has reported human cases of avian influenza A (H5N1) in the following countries:

* East Asia and the Pacific:
o Cambodia
o China
o Indonesia
o Thailand
o Vietnam

* Europe & Eurasia:
o Azerbaijan
(see update)
o Turkey

* Near East:
o Egypt
o Iraq

For additional information about these reports, visit the
World Health Organization Web Site.

Updated April 3, 2006

Animal Cases

Since December 2003, avian influenza A (H5N1) infections in poultry or wild birds have been reported in the following countries:

* Africa:
o Burkina Faso
o Cameroon
o Niger
o Nigeria
* East Asia & the Pacific:
o Cambodia
o China
o Hong Kong (SARPRC)
o Indonesia
o Japan
o Laos
o Malaysia
o Mongolia
o Myanmar (Burma)
o Thailand
o Vietnam
* South Asia:
o Afghanistan
o India
o Kazakhstan
o Pakistan
* Near East:
o Egypt
o Iraq (H5)
o Iran
o Israel
o Jordan

* Europe & Eurasia:
o Albania
o Austria
o Azerbaijan
o Bosnia & Herzegovina
o Bulgaria
o Croatia
o Czech Republic (H5)
o Denmark
o France
o Georgia
o Germany
o Greece
o Hungary
o Italy
o Poland
o Romania
o Russia
o Serbia & Montenegro
o Slovak Republic
o Slovenia
o Sweden
o Switzerland
o Turkey
o Ukraine

For additional information about these reports, visit the
World Organization for Animal Health Web Site.

Updated April 5, 2006

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/outbreaks/current.htm

WHO, Avian Flu Timeline in .pdf: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/timeline.pdf

Africa

Speechless....

New Freedom Post #38 said:

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=192468][/url]]

http://allafrica.com/stories/200604060230.html


Nigeria: Villagers Arrested for Eating Carcasses of Bird Flu Chickens


April 6, 2006
Posted to the web April 6, 2006

Starving villagers in Jos, Plateau state, who exhumed and ate the carcasses of bird-flu infected chickens were arrested by the police, government officials said yesterday.

The Chairman, Sub-committee on Sanitation and Transportation of the Plateau State Bird Flu Committee, Mr Joseph Pate, expressed shock that some villagers of Dong in Jos North local government area, had gone to the dump site to exhume the infected birds to form part of their meals.

Pate said the infected birds were from a farm in Jos and had been buried on Monday after they were conf-irmed to have died of the flu.

The chairman said the action of the people has exposed them and others to the deadly virus, noting that it could lead to death.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Mr Isa Adejoh, was not available to comment on the arrests.

An official of the Ministry of Health, Mr Iliya Azi, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the villagers' action was condemnable.

Azi said the consumers of the carcasses stand the risk of being infected because the cells in the dead chickens had the bird flu virus.

Click to expand...

This is only the beginning of horror stories out of Africa...

it appeared to have been "pecked at or eaten by something. It was torn open".

Bird Flu 'Delay' Attacked​

Updated: 22:17, Thursday April 06, 2006

Critics have attacked the Government for taking more than a week to establish that Britain had been infected with deadly bird flu.

Authorities have confirmed a dead swan found in Scotland did have the feared H5N1 strain.

The swan was found washed up in the harbour of the coastal village of Cellardyke in Fife last Wednesday. However, it was not collected by officials until the following day and confirmation that it was infected with H5N1 did not arrive for another week.

The Government defended itself against criticism over the delay: "As the swan sample was part of our countrywide surveillance programme, preliminary work was carried out on Friday in preparation for testing on Monday," a spokesman said.

"It is vital that test results are accurate and, because of the badly decomposed state of this sample, a number of tests were carried out.

"It is important to note that since February 21 the lab at Weybridge has tested over 1,100 samples as part of our routine surveillance of the country's wild bird population."

Twelve more swans and two other birds, all from Scotland, are now being tested for the virus.

An RSPB spokesman told Sky News: "The critical thing here is to keep it in perspective.

"It's H5N1 - it's still a bird disease. It does not mean a human flu pandemic that's landed in Britain."

The swan was a mute, which is one of three types in the UK which do not normally migrate, so it could have come into contact with other infected birds.

Chief veterinary officer Charles Milne told an Edinburgh press conference a "wild bird risk area" would be set up in a 2,500-square kilometre area to the east of the M90 motorway.

He said: "We are proposing to issue a veterinary directive to owners of poultry to house their birds where possible."

A statement by the Scottish Executive said: "There is no reason for public health concern.

"Avian influenza is a disease of birds and whilst it can pass very rarely and with difficulty to humans this requires extremely close contact with infected birds."

Researcher Dan Brown, who first reported the swan to the authorities, said it appeared to have been "pecked at or eaten by something. It was torn open".

The H5N1 strain has killed more than 100 people worldwide.

Experts fear, if it mutates into a form that can pass between people, millions could die across the globe.

:: Anyone who finds a dead swan, duck or goose, or three or more dead wild or garden birds together, are advised to contact the DEFRA helpline, which is 08459 335 577. But a single, small bird should be left alone and the department need not be contacted.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13517643,00.html

6 Apr 2006 02:08 GMT

DJ MARKET TALK: ADB's Worst Case Bird Flu Picture Gloomy​

Contact us in Singapore. 65 64154 140;
MarketTalk@dowjones.com


0208 GMT [Dow Jones] ADB's worst-case bird flue scenario extremely gloomy, suggests it could potentially cause economic shock that costs Asia-Pacific nations between $100 billion-$300 billion. "At its worst, this would essentially halve economic growth for one year and throw the world into an economic recession, the first global recession since 1982," the Manila-based development bank said. (SFL)

http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=2006040602080011&Take=1

Europe

European Comission... Joint Research Center... interactive map:

http://disasters.jrc.it/AvianFlu/Europe/

Poultry census in Italy

Spoke with two of my siblings in Northern Italy today.
They live in small towns.

About one month ago the local police (Carabinieri)
visited their places. The Carabinieri had a list with
their names and addresses, counted the chickens,
roosters, etc. and wrote the number of animals
on the lists.

One of my brothers has always kept his chickens
in the chicken's house which is in the garden area.
He was told to keep his poultry locked up.

The other brother chicken's house is too dark and he
was keeping his chickens outdoor in connencted fenced
area during the day. He had to build a roof over this area
or they would not have allowed him any animals in his yard.

They must strictly enforce the KEEP THEM UNDER ROOF
REGULATIONS.

Cimbri

Cimbri said:

Spoke with two of my siblings in Northern Italy today.
They live in small towns.

About one month ago the local police (Carabinieri)
visited their places. The Carabinieri had a list with
their names and addresses, counted the chickens,
roosters, etc. and wrote the number of animals
on the lists.

One of my brothers has always kept his chickens
in the chicken's house which is in the garden area.
He was told to keep his poultry locked up.

The other brother chicken's house is too dark and he
was keeping his chickens outdoor in connencted fenced
area during the day. He had to build a roof over this area
or they would not have allowed him any animals in his yard.

They must strictly enforce the KEEP THEM UNDER ROOF
REGULATIONS.

Cimbri

Click to expand...

Thanks Cimbri for the report.......this kind of law enforcement is only the beginning.....

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/t...6633&headline=dead-swan-was-left-lying-in-our
%2dvillage%2dfor%2d16%2dhours%2d-name_page.html


7 April 2006
DEAD SWAN WAS LEFT LYING IN OUR VILLAGE FOR 16 HOURS
BIRD FLU IN SCOTLAND
By James Lyons

ANGRY villagers last night demanded to know why health officials took 16 hours to remove the swan killed by bird flu.

It took the authorities 16 hours to remove the carcass from the slipway at Cellardyke harbour in Fife.

During that time, seagulls feasted on the remains and cats and dogs also prowled around the bird.

And, most worryingly, children played nearby.

The deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu which killed the swan can be transmitted to humans.

Locals Tina Briscoe, 68, and Dan Young, 47, found the mute swan's decaying remains at 8pm onWednesday, March 29.

But it was not until noon the following day that the bird was removed by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Last night, Tina said: "I would have expected a quicker reaction, particularly because it could have been washed away or cats could have picked at it."

Tina initially contacted the police after spotting the "brown and mangled" bird but was told to phone an animal welfare charity.

The university technician said: "They didn't seem very concerned when we told them it was a swan."

So Tina showed the carcass to neighbour Dan Young.

The father-of-two is a St Andrews University researcher, whose work includes virology.

He said: "I contacted DEFRA and, within an hour, a vet got on tome asking where it was and saying they would pick it up."

Mr Young added: "It had obviously been dead for a while, a few days probably.

"It looked like a mangled heap of feathers. "It had obviously been pecked or eaten by something because it had been torn open."

Mr Young called the DEFRA hotline but officials didn't collect the swan's remains until noon the following day.

He said: "DEFRA should have been here immediately but they didn't seem too concerned.

"I hope their delay hasn't put us at risk." German-born Tina added: "The police said DEFRA would sort the problem out but they took forever to come.

"In that time, people and dogs went on the beach and were walking close to the bird."

Last night, Scotland's Chief Veterinary Officer, CharlesMilne, defended the response.

He said: "Procedures were followed fully and the timeline could not have been tighter.

"It was reported after 5pm and was collected the next day at the earliest possible opportunity in line with standing instructions.

"As soon as we got the results then the appropriate measures were put in place."

Mr Milne said that, as soon as the infection was confirmed, bird-keepers and vets across Scotland activated contingency plans in an attempt to stem the spread of the killer disease.

A cordon was set up two miles away from Cellardyke and all vehicles moving into and out of the area were checked for poultry.

A second "surveillance" cordon was set up six miles from the beach and vets checked birds within that zone for signs of bird flu.

Movement of eggs and poultry within the surveillance zone was also being restricted.

Mr Milne said the Scottish Veterinary Service had tested 1000 dead birds, including 400 swans, and all results had been negative.

He admitted: "Clearly this is a major step.

"We have now got an H5N1 virus in a wild bird in this country but the evidence would suggest that it is not widespread."

He said Scottish Veterinary Officers are now checking all poultry premises within the surveillance zone.

Residents and holidaymakers awoke yesterday to find their homes in the full glare of the national media spotlight.

As journalists knocked on doors, a lone policeman tried as best he could to manage the traffic of television satellite trucks and a media helicopter buzzed in the sky above.

Mum-of-three Aileen Bracken shared the concerns of many of the 1800 residents when she told how her kids - Eve, Rosie and Annie - regularly play on the quiet beach.

The 35-year-old psychologist, from Londonderry, Northern Ireland, said: "My little ones are always out there.

"There's a good chance they played near the swan if it was there for a few days.

"We're obviously concerned about the situation and don't know why it took the authorities so long to collect the bird.

"There are always dogs down there and they would have sniffed around the swan."

Local Lib Demcouncillor Elizabeth Riches asked villagers to remain calm.

She added: "It is very rare for this disease to jump from birds to humans.

"But the procedures involved will have to be revisited because the agencies involved should have reacted quicker."

As she was speaking, a mother walked past with some children and asked if the area was

safe. Councillor Riches assured her that it was.

The passer-by, Tina Hewat, 40, of Edinburgh, said: "It's easy to blow everything out of proportion. I'msure it's perfectly safe."

Resident John Brown said he hoped the scare would not hurt the vital tourist industry.

The 58-year-old said: "House prices have rocketed in this place as it's within commuting distance of Edinburgh and it's so beautiful.

"Hopefully, this won't have an impact."

Catherine Brown, from Edinburgh, who is holidaying in the village, refused to panic.

Ms Brown said: "There's absolutely no risk to humans, they keep on telling us, and we certainly won't let this stop us eating poultry."

Her friend, Fiona Dougall, a nursery worker, said: "I live in Edinburgh but bought my holiday home here for my pension.

"Seeing this place on the news shows how beautiful it is and I think more people will come here because of it, so I'mnot worried."

Last night, a DEFRA spokesman asked for anyone who finds a dead swan, duck or goose, or three or more dead wild or garden birds, to ring their helpline on 08459-335577.

Bird flu scare sickens chicken retailers​

Friday April 7 2006 13:56 IST

VISAKHAPATNAM: The bird flu scare triggered a 67 percent fall in the retail sale of chicken per week and six percent in the sale of eggs in terms of dozens per day here since February 2006. Poultry industry in the city is incurring a loss of Rs 6.6 lakh per day.

These are some of the findings of a survey on bird flu scare conducted by PGDBM students of NS Kolla School of Business. They interviewed 60 retailers and 430 consumers with a questionnaire covering almost all areas of the city.

The survey report found that 99 percent of the respondents were non-vegetarians, 59 percent graduates and postgraduates and 41 percent undergraduates.

Ninetyeight percent of the respondents were aware of the bird flu and 80 percent believed that the disease would not spread from one person to another. Sixteen percent of the educated and 11 percent of the uneducated respondents did not change their eating habits even after the bird flu scare.

However, 25 percent of the educated and 17 percent of uneducated consumers stopped consuming chicken and eggs.

According to the survey, 33 percent (of the respondents) started consuming goat meat, 30 percent fish, 25 percent both goat meat and fish and two percent shifted to pork and four percent other non-vegetarian food like wild birds, ducks, duck eggs etc.

Eightyseven percent of the retailers who were surveyed, believe that bird flu does not spread and 82 percent of them are dependent on chicken business.

Most retailers believe that the scare will remain for a few months.

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItem...Title=Southern+News+-+Andhra+Pradesh&Topic=0&

U.N.: Bird flu in 30 new countries in three months​

By Margie Mason, AP Medical Writer

BEIJING - The deadly bird flu virus has spread at lightning speed over the past three months, infecting birds in 30 new countries - double the number previously stricken since 2003, the U.N.'s bird flu point man said Tuesday.

“This is a really serious global situation,” Dr. David Nabarro the U.N.'s chief coordinator for avian influenza, told reporters in Beijing. “During the last three months globally, there has been an enormous and rapid spread of H5N1.”

Thirty new countries and territories in Africa, Europe, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East have reported H5N1 infections in birds this year, he said. That rapid acceleration compares with the previous two and half years, when only 15 countries - mostly in Asia - reported bird flu.

China was Nabarro's first stop on a tour that includes Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia - countries where the H5N1 virus is considered endemic in poultry stocks.

In Beijing, he met with Vice Premier Hui Liangyu, who heads the country's bird flu command center, along with officials from the ministries of health and agriculture. He said China has pledged full cooperation in working with the international community to help control the spread of the disease.

Nabarro added that some of the $1.9 billion pledged by the international community in January for bird flu and pandemic preparedness has started reaching countries hit hard by the virus.

“A lot of that money is now being spent in Indonesia, Vietnam Cambodia, countries in central and eastern Europe, Turkey, Nigeria and Central Asia,” he said.

In addition, the World Bank recently signed off on a record-fast $50 million loan for Nigeria to battle bird flu, he said. Bank official Jacques Baudouy said earlier Tuesday that the funding came from money earmarked for the disease prior to the $1.9 billion pledge.

Meanwhile, a U.S. health expert attending a Beijing health conference called for more infectious disease research in Asian countries, and scientists need to more closely track changes in the H5N1 virus to prepare for a potential pandemic.

“I think of it as the earthquake in San Francisco. You know it's on the fault. You know it's going to occur, but you can't tell if it's going to occur this year or next year or the year after,” said Dr. Roger Glass, the new director of the Fogarty International Center at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

“But it's clearly going to happen and the only way you can prepare is to build your houses with structure,” he said on the sidelines of a four-day conference launching the Disease Control Priorities Project, which includes three books focusing on cost-effective strategies for improving global health.

Also Tuesday, regional officials met at a separate symposium to discuss new infectious diseases as a follow-up to talks during last fall's Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

Bird flu resurfaced in Asia in 2003 and has killed at least 108 people. It remains hard for humans to catch, but health experts fear it will mutate into a form easily spread among people, potentially sparking a pandemic.

http://www.theworldlink.com/articles/2006/04/06/news/news10040606.txt

:vik;

Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH

Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy​

Avian Influenza (Bird Flu): Implications for Human Disease​

Last updated April 4, 2006

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/avianflu/biofacts/avflu_human.html

Agent

Laboratory Testing for Influenza in Humans

Summary of Avian Influenza in Humans

The Current Outbreak of H5N1 in Birds and Other Animals

H5N1 in Humans: Epidemiologic Considerations

Vaccine Development for H5N1 Influenza

Current WHO and CDC Travel Recommendations

Use of Seasonal Flu Vaccine in Humans at Risk for H5N1 Infection

Surveillance Considerations

Influenza Pandemic Considerations

Infection Control Recommendations

Food Safety Issues

References

H5N1 S227N in Both Turkey Siblings?​

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/04060605/H5N1_S227N_Siblings.html

Recombinomics Commentary
April 6, 2006

A leading bird flu expert said on Thursday there was no evidence that the virus was showing any signs of mutating into a form that would be more infectious in humans. But Ian Brown, head of avian influenza at Britain's Veterinary Laboratories Agency, an official lab that tests for the virus, also said that it was extremely difficult to track bird flu as it mutated.

The above comments are curious. Tracking H5N1 bird flu polymorphisms is difficult because most of the sequences from Europe are being withheld by Weybridge's Veterinary Laboratory Agency. The change that has received the most attention has been HA S227N.

Three lines of evidence point toward S227N increased efficiency of H5N1 transmission to humans. The first line comes from receptor binding experiments. H5N1 isolates were screened for increased affinity for human receptors. The 2003 Hong Kong isolates showed increased affinity for human receptors and decreased affinity for avian receptors. Both isolates, A/Hong Kong/212/2003 and A/Hong Kong/213/2003 had been isolated on mammalian MDCK cells and both had S227N.

Recent experiments measuring binding of H5N1 to cells of the upper and lower respiratory tract also showed that the tested Hong Kong isolate could bind to both cell types, also suggesting that such properties would increase transmission to humans. This isolate was also cultured on MDCK cells.

The third line of evidence comes from the size of the familial cluster in Turkey. Although WHO updates withheld disease onset dates and relationships between H5N1 positive patients, media reports indicated that the index case was related to siblings as well as Ozcan cousins. The three sets of cousins accounted for all four fatal H5N1 cases in Turkey as well as three additional confirmed cases.

Media reports indicated that S227N was identified in the index case. A report by the Ministry of Health in China confirmed S227N in A/Turkey/12/2006. However, the isolate from the index case's sister, A/Turkey/15/2006, was also listed in a phylogenetic tree and the sequence was displayed as being identical, indicating that S227N was also in the sister's isolate. Earlier media reports had indicated that the isolate from the sister was negative for S227N, but those same reports suggested that isolation may have involved growth in chicken eggs which selects against receptor binding changes that involve increased affinity for mammalian receptors.

Release of the H5N1 sequences from Turkey would help resolve this issues. Thus far, the only sequence released is from a turkey isolated in October, 2005, A/turkey/Turkey/1/2005. The phylogenetic tree indicates another isolate, A/chicken/Turkey/5/2005, was more closely related to the human isolates. All three sequences are in a private password protected database. These sequences should be released immediately, as H5N1 rapidly spreads and evolves in Europe and worldwide.

H5N1 Spread Into East Atlantic Flyway In Lagos Confirmed​

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/04060604/H5N1_Lagos_Confirmed.html

Recombinomics Commentary
April 6, 2006

The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has been found in backyard poultry and at a commercial farm in Lagos, Africa's largest city which is home to about 13 million people, health officials said on Thursday.

The latest discovery of the virus hundreds of miles from Nigeria's first infection indicates the disease is defeating measures to contain it and raises the prospect of much wider human contact with infected birds.

The above confirmation of H5N1 bird flu in Lagos, Nigeria is not a surprise. Media reports of two months ago suggested H5N1 had already migrated into Lagos. Delays in reporting H5N1 in adjacent Burkina Faso have also been noted. Although surveillance in these African countries is lagging media reports, the lack of confirmation in most African countries is cause for additional concern. The number of reported and confirmed human cases in Egypt continues to rise, suggesting human cases linked to the Qinghai strain in other African countries are likely.

Sequence analysis of H5N1 migrating into western Europe via the East Atlantic flyway will likely confirm additional evolution of H5N1 in Africa, Lagos is well into the East Atlantic flyway, which will soon be producing additional H5N1 infections in western Europe and northeastern Canada.

The poor surveillance in Africa is cause for concern.

=



<B><font size==1 color=red><center>Scientists let cat out of bird flu bag</font>

Globe and Mail Update
April 7 2006
HELEN BRANSWELL
<A href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060406.wcats0406/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home">www.theglobeandmail.com</a></center>
A scientist with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization is setting up a study aimed at trying to determine if cats are playing a role in the spread of the H5N1 avian flu virus, looking at Indonesia where a perplexing pattern of human cases has raised questions about how the disease is transmitting.</b>

Dr. Peter Roeder and Indonesian colleagues will be looking for infected cats in areas with H5N1 outbreaks in poultry. Indonesia is the current hot zone of H5N1 infection, reporting 30 cases — including 23 deaths — since last July.

Experts have been watching the country closely, puzzled by the tenuous and at times seemingly non-existent links between some human cases and infected poultry. Elsewhere investigations have almost always traced human infections back to contact with sick or dead birds.

“The worry is in quite a significant number of human cases in Indonesia that there is no apparent connection between the people and poultry,” Dr. Roeder, an animal health officer with the FAO, said in an interview from Beirut, where he was attending a conference.

“Now is it possible that cats could be an intermediary between the two? I'm not wanting to propose that they are, but what I'm saying is I think this raises the question.”

Dr. Roeder and some scientists from Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam explored just that issue in a commentary published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

They argued that given the growing number of reports of dying cats in areas with H5N1 outbreaks, and the fact that laboratory experiments have shown cats can become infected and spread the virus cat to cat, it would be imprudent to rule out feline involvement in the spread of virus.

“It's really rather preliminary stuff, although it's been a very consistent story, everywhere we've started asking,” Dr. Roeder said.

“As the moment, we have no evidence that they're playing a role in the transmission of infection within poultry flocks, between poultry flocks or between infected chickens and people. But the potential is obviously there.”

An American infectious disease expert agrees.

“I think we have to keep every option open and expect the unexpected,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

“That doesn't mean that there are other mechanisms of transmission other than bird to human, but we would be remiss not looking at all other possibilities.”

The study Dr. Roeder is setting up will have both virologic and epidemiologic components.

He wants to retrieve virus samples from infected cats and compare their genetic blueprints to those isolated from poultry and human cases of H5N1 in Indonesia.

He also wants to get a better picture of the role cats play in affected villages — how many people own them and whether households have multiple cats.

While the question is being studied, Dr. Roeder and his co-authors have urged that people in H5N1 affected areas keep pet cats indoor, where possible. And they have cautioned against destroying or abandoning companion animals.

“What I don't want is thousands of people taking their cats to the vet to be put down,” Dr. Roeder said.

He noted that in many places, cats play a critical role in rodent control. Destruction of cats could lead to a surge in rat and mouse populations and the problems of disease and crop destruction rodents bring with them.

“We could be looking at disturbing an equilibrium which could have a serious result in itself. So we have to be very careful.”

=



<B><center>07 April 2006
<font size=+1 color=brown>Call for calm from Swinney </font>

<A href="http://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/output/2006/04/07/story8206521t0.shtm">www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk</a></center>
As Scotland fights to cope with the devastating news that potentially fatal bird flu has arrived on its shores, a prominent politician has called on locals not to boycott poultry, writes Dave Lord. </b>

There is a public perception that eating chicken could put you at risk of contracting the avian disease but — with Tayside and Fife’s economy hugely dependent on related industries — John Swinney is calling for calm.

The North Tayside MSP says he hopes public confidence will not be dented after the Cellardyke incident.

Part of Mr Swinney’s constituency has been included in the 2500 sq km wild bird “risk area”.

His patch is also economically heavily dependent on the poultry sector, with many hundreds of people employed on local farms.

Meanwhile, chicken factory Grampian Country Foods in Coupar Angus is one of the area’s largest employers, with 500 workers.

Mr Swinney urged members of the public to be vigilant, but warned against panic.

“The Government has taken sensible precautions in terms of applying a protection area and a wild bird risk area to protect the bird population from the spread of avian flu,” he said.

“These measures should be followed, and I urge the public to be vigilant in observing and reporting any incident that may be of concern.”

However, Mr Swinney was at pains to stress that consuming cooked chicken poses no risk whatsoever.

“It is essential that we listen to all of the information from the chief scientific officer and the chief medical officer,” he commented.

“Avian flu affects birds — it does not carry the risk of affecting humans.

“Of equal importance is the fact there are no dangers to the public in eating properly cooked poultry, and I urge members of the public to show confidence in the poultry sector.”

The MSP called for locals to take “sensible precautions” but not to over-react.

=




<B><font size=+1 color=green><center>Avian Flu Modeled On Supercomputer, Explores Vaccine And Isolation Options For Thwarting A Pandemic</font>

This Article
Also Appears In
IT/Internet/E-mail

Main Category: Bird Flu/Avian Flu News
Article Date: 07 Apr 2006 - 16:00pm (UK)
<A href="http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=40951">www.medicalnewstoday.com</a></center>
Using supercomputers to respond to a potential national health emergency, scientists have developed a simulation model that makes stark predictions about the possible future course of an avian influenza pandemic, given today's environment of worldwide connectivity. The research, by a team of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, is presented in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science online the week of April 3-7, and in the print issue of April 11. </b>

The large-scale, stochastic simulation model examines the nationwide spread of a pandemic influenza virus strain, such as an evolved avian H5N1 virus, should it become transmissible human-to-human. The simulation rolls out a city- and census-tract-level picture of the spread of infection through a synthetic population of 281 million people over the course of 180 days, and examines the impact of interventions, from antiviral therapy to school closures and travel restrictions, as the vaccine industry struggles to catch up with the evolving virus.

"Based on the present work... we believe that a large stockpile of avian influenza-based vaccine containing potential pandemic influenza antigens, coupled with the capacity to rapidly make a better-matched vaccine based on human strains, would be the best strategy to mitigate pandemic influenza," say the authors, Timothy Germann, Kai Kadau, Ira Longini and Catherine Macken.

Longini is a biostatistician with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington, while the rest of the team is at Los Alamos. Their collaboration is supported by grants from the Department of Homeland Security and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences MIDAS (Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study) program.

"It's probably not going to be practical to contain a potential pandemic by merely trying to limit contact between people (such as by travel restrictions, quarantine or even closing schools), but we find that these measures are useful in buying time to produce and distribute sufficient quantities of vaccine and antiviral drugs," said Germann of Los Alamos' Applied Physics Division.

"Based on our results, combinations of mitigation strategies such as stockpiling vaccines or antiviral agents, along with social distancing measures could be particularly effective in slowing pandemic flu spread in the U.S.," added Longini.

The results show that advance preparation of a modestly effective vaccine in large quantities appears to be preferable to waiting for the development of a well-matched vaccine that may not become available until a pandemic has already reached the United States.

"Because it is currently impossible to predict which of the diverging strains of avian H5N1 influenza virus is most likely to adapt to human transmission, studies of broadly cross-reactive avian-influenza based vaccines with even modest immunogenicity in humans are important," said Macken, an influenza researcher in the Los Alamos Theoretical Division. Ideally, both vaccine strategies would be done in parallel: Stockpile a modestly effective vaccine to use while the better matched one is being developed, the authors suggest.

HOW IT ALL COMPUTES

The computer simulation models a synthetic population that matches U.S. census demographics and worker mobility data by randomly assigning the simulated individuals to households, workplaces, schools, and the like. Department of Transportation travel data is used to model long-distance trips during the course of the simulation, realistically capturing the spread of the pandemic virus by airplane and other passenger travel across the United States.

"In the highly mobile U.S. population, travel restrictions alone will not be enough to stop the spread; a mixture of many mitigation strategies is more likely to be effective than a few strictly enforced ones," said Kadau, also of Los Alamos' Theoretical Division.

The model of disease transmission involves probabilities that any two people in a community will meet on any given day in any one of a number of settings, such as home or workplace. Thus, simulated disease transmission is more likely for two people in the same household and less likely for two people who have less in common. "So we are only computing the probability of any person becoming infected on any given day, and a roll of the dice is needed to decide whether they are infected or not," said Germann.

Other elements of randomness modify the simulated disease course. A significant fraction of infected people (33 percent in the present model) never develop clinical symptoms, although they are themselves infectious. In addition, the durations of the incubation and infectious periods can vary and are randomly chosen from distribution functions for each individual, involving more throws of the virtual dice.

"Computer models serve as virtual laboratories where researchers can study how infectious diseases might spread and what intervention strategies may lessen the impact of a real outbreak," said Jeremy M. Berg, director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. "This new work exemplifies the power of such models and could aid policymakers and health officials as they plan for a possible future pandemic."

The pandemic simulation model has been implemented in the Laboratory's celebrated Scalable Parallel Short-range Molecular dynamics (SPaSM) large-scale simulation platform developed for the nuclear weapons program. It runs on the Los Alamos supercomputer known as Pink, a 1,024-node (2,048 processor) LinuxBIOS/BProc "Science Appliance" running Clustermatic 3, the largest single-system image Linux cluster in the world. Pink's nodes have dual 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon processors (Pentium 4) with 2 gigabytes of memory per node. The purchase of the Science Appliance was funded by the National Nuclear Security Administration's Advanced Simulation and Computing program. Pink is currently a system software research platform, a science appliance cluster concept invented at Los Alamos in the Computer and Computational Science Division. Los Alamos has four science appliance clusters in use at this time for a variety of projects across the full range of Laboratory mission areas.

###

Images and Quicktime video of the computer simulation are available at http://www.lanl.gov/news/images/avianflu.shtml online. The text of the NIGMS press release can be accessed at http://www.nigms.nih.gov/News/Results/FluModel040306.

At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists and humanitarians work together to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. The Center's researchers, including three Nobel laureates, bring a relentless pursuit and passion for health, knowledge and hope to their work and to the world. For more information, please visit http://www.fhcrc.org

Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by the University of California for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the U.S. Department of Energy and works in partnership with NNSA's Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories to support NNSA in its mission.

Los Alamos develops and applies science and technology to ensure the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent; reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction, proliferation and terrorism; and solve national problems in defense, energy, environment and infrastructure.

For more Los Alamos news releases, visit World Wide Web site http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php?fuseaction=nr.subject

Contact: Nancy Ambrosiano
nwa@lanl.gov
DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory

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<B><font size=+1 color=blue><center>Authorities happy with bird flu outbreak plan</font>

by Rebecca Wightman
04/07/06
<A href="http://www.thisisguernsey.com/code/shownewsarticle.pl?ArticleID=000448">www.thisisguernsey.com</a></center>
THE island is ahead of the game as far as precautions against bird flu are concerned.

‘We need to take every precaution to maintain the situation, but we don’t need to be unduly concerned at this stage,’ said agriculture environment advisor Andrew Casebow.</b>

There are five stages of alert outlined in the contingency plan drawn up by the Commerce and Employment Department.

The island had been on Amber Alert 1 since cases were found in Europe.
Following confirmation yesterday of the deadly H5N1 strain in a swan in Scotland, that has moved up a gear.

Mr Casebow said that the island was in a good position because many of the contingency plan’s recommendations for that level of alert had already been enacted.

He added that although bird flu had reached the UK, it was probably about the same distance away from us as the outbreak in France.

The UK Government put its own contingency plan to the test this week with a real-time simulation of an outbreak in Britain.

Mr Casebow said that Guernsey had done a trial in September following a series of meetings with director of public health Dr David Jeffs.

‘We enacted a full-scale alert taking all the necessary bio-security precautions. We took samples from birds at one of the poultry farms and then sent those off to be tested.

‘At the same time we brought in a registration scheme so that every poultry owner in the island has hopefully registered their birds.’

More than birds have been registered. Mr Casebow urged anyone with even a couple to sign up. ‘It is essential that we know where they all are.’
He said that Guernsey’s registration system was more thorough than the UK’s because the government there had asked only for commercial flocks to be signed up and had only recently lowered that to flocks of more than 50.

States Vet Chris Bishop said that the island’s veterinary authorities were monitoring the situation in Scotland for further developments. He said that the current precautionary measures were adequate.


Published 7/4/2006

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<B><center>Saturday, April 8, 2006. 0:48am (AEST)

<font size=+1 color=purple>British officials appeal for calm over bird flu</font>

<A href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200604/s1611595.htm">www.abc.net.au</a></center>
British officials called for calm on Friday after confirmation the deadly bird flu virus had reached the country's shores in a dead wild swan in Scotland.

"I don't think that one dead swan is a crisis," the government's chief science adviser, David King, told BBC radio. </b>

"I think what it meant was we immediately had to step up our surveillance procedures, we had to see that animal movements were restricted, and we had to make sure all of our reactions were done in the proper and reasonably constrained way."

Officials have said the threat to humans is remote, despite the discovery of the deadly H5N1 strain in the partially eaten carcass of a mute swan, found late on March 29 in Cellardyke harbour in eastern Scotland.

Since the swan was found, 14 other birds, including 12 swans, have been tested, with results yet to be announced.

"The risk of this particular virus passing into humans is extremely low. It's unlikely to occur unless there is any very close contact between a diseased bird and an individual," Scotland's chief medical officer Harry Burns said on Thursday.

"There is a better chance of a person winning the national lottery than catching bird flu in the UK today," said Jim Robertson, a virologist from the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control.

Scientists fear bird flu could become highly dangerous to humans if the virus mutates into a form easily passed on from one person to another, although it has not done so yet.

According to the World Health Organisation, the virus has killed 109 people out of at least 192 known human infections since 2003, almost all of them in Asia and involving people who had close contact with infected birds.

- Reuters

"I don't think that one dead swan is a crisis," the government's chief science adviser, David King, told BBC radio.

OMG, what an idiot. And this is the chief science advisor?

History: New Zealand 1918 Spanish Flu Experience

Influenza Epidemic​

When: October - December, 1918

Where: New Zealand-wide

What happened:

The First World War came to an end on 11 November, 1918, but at the same time an influenza epidemic was sweeping around the world. It was known as the Spanish Flu, or the 'plague of the Spanish Lady', but the infection did not begin in Spain.

It was thought that part of the reason it spread so rapidly was because it was carried by soldiers returning from the trenches of France to other more isolated parts of the world, such as the Pacific Islands.

One of the troop ships returning to New Zealand was the Niagara, which arrived in Auckland on 12 October, 1918, carrying the Prime Minister, William Massey, and the Minister of Finance, Joseph Ward, who had been in Europe.

On board there were a number of cases of influenza. A member of the crew had died, 100 other crew members were ill, and 25 passengers were seriously ill and in need of hospital care.

The ship was not placed in quarantine, and it was later felt that if this had happened, the influenza would not have spread so far or so quickly. However, there were already cases of illness in Auckland and other troop ships were returning from Europe, the source of the infection.

By November there were reports of outbreaks of flu in other parts of New Zealand. But the Department of Health still had not restricted travel around the country, and the infection kept spreading.

People came down with the symptoms of the flu very quickly, sometimes collapsing within a matter of hours, and even dying the same day.

The only way to avoid catching the virus was by keeping out of contact with other people. There were no flu vaccinations available, and no antibiotics for those who fell ill.

One of the worst effects of the influenza was on the lungs, which could lead to pneumonia, and more often than not, death. Infected patients found it hard to breathe, and often there was not enough oxygen in their blood. Because of this some of the victims turned a purple-black in colour after they died.

Inhalation chambers were set up so that people could breathe in fumes which were supposed to help clear their lungs. This method of prevention was not proved to be effective, and by bringing people together, it may have helped spread the infection.

Between one third and a half of the population of New Zealand was infected with the flu. In some places the death rate was as high as 80% of the town's population, while in others there were very few deaths.

Military camps, where the soldiers were crammed together in their living quarters, had higher death rates than places where living conditions were less cramped.

Many doctors and nurses were overseas with the military forces, and back home many fell ill themselves. Medical supplies began to run low.

Hospitals became full very quickly, and emergency hospitals were set up in schools and church halls, and even in tents in some places. Soup kitchens were organised to feed those people unable to help themselves.

At the height of the epidemic in November, for 2-3 weeks, ordinary life was impossible. Shops, offices and factories shut down without enough staff to keep them going, and schools, hotels and theatres were closed by order of the government.

Because shipping from port to port around New Zealand came to a halt, many towns suffered from a shortage of basic supplies, such as flour and coal.

In some places it became impossible to hold proper funeral services for the victims of the influenza. Many undertakers and grave diggers were ill, and the numbers too many to deal with. Coffins were made by volunteers.

By December the worst of the epidemic was over, and many who were ill began to recover.

How many died: Over 8,000 people died from the influenza epidemic in New Zealand.

Other events and outcomes:

During the First World War, 16,688 New Zealand soldiers died in four years of fighting.

The influenza epidemic killed at least 6,413 European New Zealanders, including the soldiers who died of the flu overseas - a death rate of 5.8 per thousand deaths.

One estimate of the number of Maori deaths, which were not always accurately registered, gives 2,160 - a death rate of 42.3 per thousand deaths.

Because officials were worried that public confidence could suffer if the high number of deaths was known, they did not release the official figures. Instead rumours grew and many people believed there had been an official cover-up of the real death statistics.

It is likely that one reason for the rapid spread of the virus was because large numbers of people met together to celebrate the end of the war. In Christchurch, Carnival Week brought hundreds of people into the city.

There was an Epidemic Commission in 1919 to investigate the cause and course of the epidemic. Afterwards there were major reforms in the health system, the most important being the 1920 Health Act.

This was the world's worst recorded pandemic of influenza, in just four months killing more than 25 million people, or over twice the number killed in the fighting of the First World War. The other major disease epidemic in history was the Black Death of the fourteenth century, in which an estimated 55 million people died of bubonic plague in the course of four years.

The influenza epidemic became New Zealand's forgotten disaster, as people tried to forget the horror of the First World War.

Pandemic: a disease epidemic, which spreads across the whole of a country or the whole of the world

http://library.christchurch.org.nz/kids/nzdisasters/influenzaepidemic.asp

More Info: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/culture/influenza-pandemic

Mapping Bird Flu

The mapping of bird flu is getting sophisticated. These URL's for useful maps also point to pages which are displaying additional news information.


Useful interactive map with click-on info.
http://www.sky.com/skynews/fixed_article/0,,91164-1210835,00.html

BBC Interactive Map Charting Bird Flu Spread Since 2004.
http://www.hewsweb.org/epweb/mapsrepository/maps/01076_20060407_GBW_A4_ODAP_AVIAN_INFLUENZA_(H5N1)_INCIDENCE_TRACKING_06_APR_06.pdf

UN World Food Program Bird Flu Incidence Tracking Maps charting chronological spread. A pdf file with a large and very detailed primary map.
http://www.hewsweb.org/epweb/mapsrepository/maps/01076_20060407_GBW_A4_ODAP_AVIAN_INFLUENZA_(H5N1)_INCIDENCE_TRACKING_06_APR_06.pdf

The Washington Post also shows a tracking map.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/interactives/birdflu/

Healthcare Worker Shortages Threaten 57 Countries: WHO​

April 7, 2006

Many countries are vulnerable to disease outbreaks, such as a potential bird flu pandemic, because they lack enough doctors, nurses and midwives, the World Health Organization warns in its annual report released Friday.

The report estimates that 57 nations have "critical shortages" of healthcare workers and require another 2.4 million people to deal with health emergencies, Bloomberg news reported. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia have the worst healthcare worker shortages.

The report noted that health crisis funding is adequate but that "many national health systems are weak, unresponsive, inequitable, even unsafe."

Bird flu, which has killed more than 100 people worldwide since 2003, "is indicative of a more fundamental need for effective international capacity to marshal the requisite human resources" during disease outbreaks.

http://www.abc25.com/Global/story.asp?S=4742986&nav=menu213_2

from www.rfa.org re: university students in Henan

Hospital told RFA’s Cantonese service. “But we don’t know how many students are there now.”

Official media reports were also confirmed by an official on duty at the university.

WHO asks for details
“We have more than a dozen students with high fever symptoms,” the official said, after initially denying the story that was reported by the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua.

“Most of them are out of hospital already. We don’t know the details,” the official said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has requested further information on the outbreak from Chinese authorities.

Meanwhile, Shanghai mayor Chen Liangyu has warned municipal officials of a disastrous impact on the city of any epidemic among humans caused by the H5N1 avian influenza virus.

Any epidemic outbreak due to our failure in taking strong and effective preventive, control, and monitoring measures would probably produce great negative impacts.

Shanghai mayor Chen Liangyu
A 29-year-old woman migrant worker died of a suspected bird flu infection in the city last month, prompting the city to step up inspections of poultry shipments from out of town.

“We should fully understand the grimness and the arduousness of our work of preventing and controlling highly pathogenic avian influenza,” Chen told a municipal Communist Party committee meeting.

Burma clamps down on poultry markets

“Shanghai is a modern international metropolis, and any epidemic outbreak due to our failure in taking strong and effective preventive, control, and monitoring measures would probably produce great negative impacts,” Chen said.

Burma’s secretive junta has announced bans on the sale and movement of poultry in a number of townships in its Sagaing and Mandalay divisions, official media reported.

“Altogether 3,427 fowls and 200 quails were killed in 37 poultry farms and two quail farms from the first week of February to second week of March 2006 and 5,122 were destroyed,” the Rangoon-based New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported in March.

Bird flu has spread rapidly since late 2003 from Asia to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The United States fears it will arrive on its shores before year's end.

Since the virus re-emerged in Asia in 2003, outbreaks have been confirmed in more than 45 countries and territories, according to data from the World Organization for Animal Health.

In total, the virus is known to have infected 190 people since 2003, according to the WHO.

Many of those who have died are children and young adults. Vietnam and Indonesia have reported the highest number of cases, accounting for 64 of the total deaths.

Original reporting in Cantonese by Lei King-man. RFA Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Link to tomorrows (4/8) Bird Flu thread: http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=192710