04/15-16 | Weekend BF Thread: Man who sequenced Spanish Flu virus seeks more clues

Link to yesterday's thread: http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=193404

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


For additional information about these reports, visit the
World Organization for Animal Health Web Site: http://www.oie.int/eng/en_index.htm

Updated April 7, 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

Saturday, Apr 15, 2006

Man who sequenced Spanish Flu virus seeks more clues about the killer bug ​

(CP) - Influenza experts trying to forecast the future path of the worrisome H5N1 avian flu virus do so in the face of an unsettling number of unknowns.

What little is understood about influenza pandemics - and it is by no means sure H5N1 will cause one - has been puzzled out in recent years based on viral and epidemiologic excavations of the three pandemics of the last century.

Even less is known about how the viruses that caused those pandemics emerged from their natural hosts, aquatic birds, and adapted to become efficient human pathogens.

Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger is hoping to add new pieces to the biggest pandemic puzzle of the three, the 1918 Spanish Flu, by tracing how the virus evolved in the years before 1918 and then through the various waves of disease that pandemic provoked.

"There's a lot of work to do," says Taubenberger, the scientist who led the historic project to tease tiny fragments of the 1918 virus from preserved lung tissue of long-dead victims, using those precious traces to chart the full genetic blueprint of a virus believed to have killed upwards of 40 million people worldwide.

"I'm really, in a sense, very tired of this arche-virology, because it's just so slow and painful," admits Taubenberger, who is chair of molecular pathology at the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Rockville, Md.

"But I feel that it's absolutely essential to answer a lot of the questions that we want to know about 1918. And then extend those answers or apply what we learn to the more generalizable rules about how it is pandemics form and how they evolve."

Years of work by Taubenberger and colleagues in his laboratory culminated last fall in the publication of an analysis of the final three genes of the 1918 virus to be sequenced.

Completion of the work allowed researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York to reconstruct each of the eight genes and reassemble the deadly H1N1 virus in a bid to coax from it the secrets of its virulence. That work is progressing at high security labs at the CDC.

But Taubenberger is continuing the search for additional virus samples that could provide strong clues as to how the 1918 H1N1 became so deadly. New findings could help researchers spot emerging pandemic menaces in the future.

He also hopes the process will answer the mystery of whether H1N1 jumped directly from birds to people, or adapted first in some other mammalian host.

The Spanish flu virus that Taubenberger's team sequenced was drawn from the second, most lethal wave of that pandemic, which occurred in North America in the fall of 1918.

Comparing it to viruses from the years preceding the pandemic, the milder first and third waves as well as others from the years immediately after the pandemic could bring into focus mutations that allowed the hyper-virulence to develop and then wane.

"If it's really true that its loss was due to a change in the virus, if we find say a 1923 case and sequence across, any differences could be really important," Taubenberger says.

Infectious disease expert Dr. Michael Osterholm thinks pre-pandemic study may be more fruitful as the decrease in virulence may have had more to do with expanding immunity in people than with mutations.

"If I had a choice of knowing the front side or the back side changes (in the virus) I'd want to know the front side," he says. "That would be more powerful (proof)."

Taubenberger expects preserved tissue samples from the Royal London Hospital will offer up some of these viruses for study.

In fact, his lab has already managed to snag a fragment of an influenza A virus - all known pandemics have been caused by influenza A viruses - from a sample preserved in 1915.

"We know for sure that we have a pre-1918 case that has at least a tiny, tiny - underline tiny - fragment of influenza RNA," he says.

It remains to be seen whether Taubenberger's team has enough material to do more in-depth genetic analysis of the virus. "It's a difficult problem. But we're trying that right now. We're working on that."

Even if that effort should fail, Taubenberger has identified another 200 cases from the hospital's preserved tissue bank he thinks were likely influenza deaths.

"And I feel confident that when we screen these 200 cases that we will find (influenza) cases."

In tandem with this work his team will investigate ways to sequence more quickly any viral samples found.

"All of this is incredibly painful. It's not like saying: Oh, I have a viral isolate from a patient's nose today and next week we can have the full genomic sequence," Taubenberger says of the work his team undertakes.

"So we're also trying to look at the possibility of some new approaches to sequencing that might be faster . . . so we don't have to wait another nine years before we know that there's a difference."

http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=cp_health_home&articleID=2230809

Source: Email from University of Pittsburgh Biosecurity Briefing


New Legislation Introduced to Foster Biodefense Countermeasure Development

On April 6, Senator Richard Burr (R—NC), Chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP), Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness, introduced S.2564, the ‘Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2006.’ The bill is intended to “prepare and strengthen the biodefenses of the United States against deliberate, accidental, and natural outbreaks of illness, and for other purposes.”

Among the bills provisions are:

The creation of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to “coordinate and oversee the acceleration of countermeasure and product advanced research and development.” Under the language of the bill, advanced research and development includes “activities that predominantly: (i)are conducted after basic research and preclinical development of the product; and (ii) are related to manufacturing the product on a commercial scale. . .”
The establishment of a National Biodefense Science Board “to provide expert advice and guidance to the Secretary [of HHS] on scientific, technical and other matters of special interest to [HHS] regarding current and future chemical, biological, nuclear, and radiological agents, whether naturally occurring, accidental, or deliberate.”
Clarification of the countermeasures that are covered by Project Bioshield.
Expansion of the period of orphan drug market exclusivity for countermeasure products from seven to ten years.

S.2564 has been referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.



WHO Releases Pandemic Guidelines for Humanitarian Agencies

On April 7, the World Health Organization released pandemic influenza preparedness guidelines for humanitarian agencies warning that a pandemic’s “impact. . .on refugee and displaced populations is expected to be severe.” The guidelines are the result of two WHO-sponsored technical meetings during the week of March 13, 2006 with representatives from non-governmental organizations, international organizations, donor agencies, and other United Nations agencies.

The guidelines recommend that humanitarian agencies develop plans that are “linked to existing national pandemic preparedness plans.” These plans should be locally-focused to correspond to “the current capacity and anticipated needs on the ground.” WHO acknowledges that national pandemic preparedness plans “may not sufficiently take refugee and displaced populations into account” and stresses that displaced populations are more likely to face increased risks for reasons including:

Overcrowding
Poor access to basic healthcare
Limited or no access to hospitals
High prevalence of malnutrition and other communicable diseases
Inaccessibility of remote locations or active conflict areas
Inadequate surveillance systems and shortage of trained/equipped staff to examine and monitor cases

The guidelines urge humanitarian agencies to adopt plans to:

Reduce human exposure to H5N1
Strengthen the early warning system by facilitating early detection
Facilitate rapid containment operations
Build capacity to cope with a pandemic
Coordinate and accelerate vaccine development and production capacity

H5N1 Bird Flu Case in Denmark

Recombinomics Commentary
April 15, 2006

A 25-year-old Dane has been transferred to Copenhagen's Royal hospital after testing positive for bird flu in a local clinic, the Danish news agency Ritzau reported today.

On the basis of blood tests in the local hospital of Nykoebing, southern Denmark, the man was diagnosed with bird flu, and late yesterday transferred urgently to the Royal hospital, one of two hospitals in Denmark authorised to treat bird flu. Ritzau said it was unknown where the man may have contracted the virus.

The above comments indicate H5N1 continues to increase the number of versions that can infect humans. The full sequence of H5N1 from a buzzard in Denmark was released. It has many similarities with isolates from Astrakhan, which have North American and human sequences. Those isolates form two distinct clades, and the Denmark isolate was most like the smaller clade. However, those isolates have not previously been shown to cause human infections.

The first confirmed human case of H5N1 cause by the Qinghai strain was in Turkey. However, cases were soon reported in Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Egypt. Sequences from human cases in Iraq and Egypt did not contain HA S227N, which is a change in the receptor binding domain that increases affinity for human cells. However, the isolate from Iraq did have a change, N186S, near the receptor binding domain. H5N1 flying into Europe could combine with H1N1 in swine and produce G228S, another change associated with increased affinity.

More H5N1 is expected to migrate into western Europe and northeastern North America from Africa via the East Atlantic flyway. New sequences recombining with sequences that can cause H5N1 infections in humans, will likely create new problems.

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/04150601/H5N1_Denmark.html

Danish man tested negative for suspected bird flu

China View, 2006-04-15 19:02:16

STOCKHOLM, April 15 (Xinhua) -- A Danish man hospitalized with suspected bird flu has tested negative for the deadly disease, a doctor said on Saturday.

Tests had shown that the man did not have bird flu, and he would be sent home after further tests, according to Dr. Peter Skinhoj, an epidemiologist at the Copenhagen University.

The Danish news agency Ritzau reported earlier on Saturday that the 25-year-old man who was diagnosed with suspected bird flu had been transferred from a hospital in Nykoebing on the island of Falster to the Danish capital of Copenhagen.

Cases of the deadly H5N1 bird flu, which has killed more than 100 people, mostly in Asia, and tens of millions of birds across the world, had been reported in birds in Denmark since mid-March. Enditem


http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-04/15/content_4428107.htm

Locked and Loaded: Honolulu Airport Is Prepared for Bird​

March 29, 2006 — About 2 million international passengers arrive at Honolulu International Airport every year — most of them from Asia, where bird flu has struck.

The airport is on the front lines of the United States' defense against a possible pandemic.

"It's important for us as the western door of America to be as prepared as we can, to help protect not only our people here in Hawaii but the nation," Dr. Chiyome Fukino, Hawaii's director of public health, said.

Though bird flu remains mostly a problem for birds, its danger lies in its potential for human-to-human transmission. With that in mind, the airport has its own isolation room, armed with negative airflow to yank dust, microbes, droplets and even smoke out of the air.

Airline personnel, from pilots to flight attendants, have been trained to recognize bird-flu symptoms and are required to report any passenger who looks sick to the control tower before landing.

"We have to be prepared if that virus decides to mutate and it can be transferred human to human," said Robert Tappy, the airport's emissary from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Swift Reaction

If airline personnel believed a passenger were infected with avian flu, the plane would dock at a special gate. Then a doctor would board — possibly wearing a contamination suit — to escort the sick person through an area with a ventilation system.

At the hospital emergency room, the passenger would receive a test specifically designed to identify bird flu; the rest of the passengers on the plane would wait in a special holding area for six hours, when the results come in.

If a passenger was infected, the other passengers on the plane would be quarantined for at least six days to see if they developed symptoms.

In the closed environment of a plane, infection can travel fast. During the SARS outbreak several years ago, 22 passengers on board an Air China flight were infected.

According to Dr. Mark Gingro, who studies disease transmission aboard planes, people seated as far as seven rows in front of the sick person and five rows behind became infected.

Ventilation Is Key

Gringo's new work has shown that by doubling the ventilation rate in the cabin, the infection rate could be reduced by half.

"If you have a properly functioning ventilation system on that aircraft, if you're seated more than four or five seats from the person coughing, you really don't have a lot to fear," Gingro said.

But the flu is infectious before symptoms arise, so there's only so much the airports and airplane personnel can do.

And the latest computer models show that if bird flu does mutate to a human form, it could spread across the United States in as little as three months.

"The country is so interconnected that instead of a single wave slowly spreading across, it jumps from metropolitan area to metropolitan area very quickly," said Tim German, of the National Laboratory in New Mexico.

The CDC has hired German to create computer models of the spread of the disease. In one model, the virus enters the United States at 14 mainland international airports. In just over two months, the disease would spread to every major population center in the country. By three months, the epidemic has spread around the country.

"It's a threat we need to be prepared for," German said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/AvianFlu/story?id=1782448&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Supply Chain

MIT simulation suggests avian flu outbreak can shred supply chain
Center for Transportation and Logistics studies H5N1's impact on business​

By Paul F. Roberts

April 14, 2006

At first, the reports from your supplier in China seem innocent enough: an assembly line worker has become very ill and is hospitalized with flu-like symptoms. Before you know it, workers are dying, the government has quarantined your factory and its contents, your supply chain is in ruins, and reporters are camped out at your company headquarters with a fleet of satellite news trucks.

What happened? H5N1, that's what. The deadly new strain of influenza isn't just fodder for epidemiologists -- it's a serious threat to enterprises and to the entire global economy, according to a recent avian flu "business disruption simulation" conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) Center for Transportation and Logistics.

The day-long exercise just off the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, used real business continuity experts from Arnold Communications, EMC, and Intel to test out the response of an imaginary cell phone maker, Vaxxon, to an H5N1 outbreak at a key supplier's factory in the imaginary mainland China city of "Geeling."

The simulation was led by Mary Pimm, of Intel's Corporate Emergency Operations Center, and revealed some of the challenges of dealing with a crisis like bird flu. During three simulated days, executives from Vaxxon struggled to get manufactured SlimPhone mobile phones out of quarantine and shipped to the U.S. market, quell fears of cell-phone borne viruses among dock workers in the U.S., keep their supply chain intact and address the health needs of employees quarantined inside the Chinese plant.

Companies should begin preparing now for disruptions like H5N1, killer hurricanes like Katrina and other disasters, according to Yossi Sheffi, director at the Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL).

That means investing in communications and technology infrastructure that will allow as many employees as possible to work remotely, experts agree.

IT tools such as supply chain management play an important role in incident escalation and response, especially in global enterprises like Intel, said Steve Lund, Intel's CERT director and a participant in the simulation.

Companies need to plan out what they will do before a crisis erupts, even if they don't know exactly what the crisis will be, Lund said.

"You have to take a proactive approach. Be paranoid and assume the worst can happen," Lund added. Even companies that lack Intel's global reach should consider what the impact of disruptions such as computer outages, avian flu, or unexpected plant closures could be, he said.

Disaster preparedness and business continuity planning can be a tough sell at companies, especially when no overt threat is staring them in the face, Sheffi said.

"One of the main problems with disaster preparedness is that people don't feel it in their gut. After all, if there's no disaster then there's no return. There's the "I" (investment) but the "R" (return) is not there," Sheffi said.

H5N1 is a major concern for global container transportation company APL Ltd., said Hector Fulgencio, an attendee at the CTL event who is director of disaster recovery and business continuity at APL.

The company regularly conducts table-top exercises akin to the one by CTL and is considering issues such as how to cope with mass absenteeism and a spike in remote computing sessions that a bird flu outbreak would produce, Fulgencio said.

The MIT simulation made for good theater at times, with convincing and breathless TV news bulletins from fictional CNN look-alike "CTL," including one report titled "Factory Under Siege!" about the quarantined Geeling plant. Reporters and company executives wrestle with conflicting information on the outbreak: Did the workers contract the flu from another human or from poultry? Could H5N1 survive on cell phones shipped from the plant? Was the outbreak limited to workers at the Chinese supplier or is the scope wider?

In one of the more amusing anecdotes, CERT members from Vaxxon try in vain to reel in a rogue executive who may have been exposed at the supplier's factory but ignores requests to stay put, touching off a minor civil emergency back in the U.S. after he returns to work at the company's headquarters -- possibly infected with H5N1.

With representatives from marquis corporations including Campbell's, Cisco Systems, General Motors, Michelin, and Procter & Gamble in the audience, the MIT simulation ultimately delivered a somber message: with the extent of the outbreak still unknown, Vaxxon's CEO steps in to cancel production of the much-heralded SlimPhone rather than risk tarnishing the company's image further.

Overreaction of that type is common, as executives look beyond an immediate problem to the legal fallout that will inevitably follow, Sheffi said.

"CEOs might overreact so that nobody could second guess them after the event -- question whether they were downplaying the threat because of greed," Sheffi said.

Disaster preparedness also means forging relationships in local communities where your company operates so that you know who to reach in an emergency, according to Sheffi.

"Get to know your congressman so that they'll take your call and it won't be just a piece of paper on their desk," Sheffi said. "Develop relationships with the local fire chief or hospital administrator. Go to lunch with local hotel managers so that if you have to put your people up in an emergency, you'll have a relationship with them."

But even the best laid contingency plans will go out the window should a true global pandemic -- of H5N1 or some other disease -- really erupt, Sheffi said.

"If we get to a global pandemic, there's little that individual companies can do. At that point, business problems fade away and it's FEMA and the CDC (Center for Disease Control) that will call the shots, with the main issues being health and safety," Sheffi said.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06...article/06/04/14/77335_16NNmitavianflu_1.html

U.S. Plan For Flu Pandemic Revealed

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/15/AR2006041500901.html

U.S. Plan For Flu Pandemic Revealed
Multi-Agency Proposal Awaits Bush's Approval

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 16, 2006; A01

President Bush is expected to approve soon a national pandemic influenza response plan that identifies more than 300 specific tasks for federal agencies, including determining which frontline workers should be the first vaccinated and expanding Internet capacity to handle what would probably be a flood of people working from their home computers.

The Treasury Department is poised to sign agreements with other nations to produce currency if U.S. mints cannot operate. The Pentagon, anticipating difficulties acquiring supplies from the Far East, is considering stockpiling millions of latex gloves. And the Department of Veterans Affairs has developed a drive-through medical exam to quickly assess patients who suspect they have been infected.

The document is the first attempt to spell out in some detail how the government would detect and respond to an outbreak, and continue functioning through what could be an 18-month crisis, which in a worst-case scenario could kill 1.9 million Americans. Bush was briefed on a draft of the implementation plan on March 17. He is expected to approve the plan within the week, but it continues to evolve, said several administration officials who have been working on it.

Still reeling from the ineffectual response to Hurricane Katrina, the White House is eager to show it could manage the medical, security and economic fallout of a major outbreak. In response to questions posed to several federal agencies, White House officials offered a briefing on the near-final version of its 240-page plan. When it is issued, officials intend to announce several vaccine manufacturing contracts to jump-start an industry that has declined in the past few decades.

The background briefing and on-the-record interviews with experts in and out of government reveal that some agencies are far along in preparing for a deadly outbreak. Others have yet to resolve basic questions, such as who is designated an essential employee and how the agency would cope if that person were out of commission.

"Most of the federal government right now is as ill-prepared as any part of society," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Osterholm said the administration has made progress but is nowhere near prepared for what he compared to a worldwide "12- to 18-month blizzard."

Many critical decisions remain to be made. Administration scientists are debating how much vaccine would be needed to immunize against a new strain of avian influenza, and they are weighing data that may alter their strategy on who should have priority for antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza.

The new analysis, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that instead of giving medicine to first responders and health-care workers, as currently planned, it might be wiser to give the drugs to every person with symptoms and others in the same household, one senior administration official said.

The approach offers "some real hope for communities to put a dent in the amount of illness and death, if we go with that strategy," a White House official said.

Each year, about 36,000 Americans die from seasonal influenza. A worldwide outbreak, or pandemic, occurs when a potent new, highly contagious strain of the virus emerges. It is a far greater threat than annual flu because everyone is susceptible, and it would take as much as six months to develop a vaccine. The 1918 pandemic flu, the worst of the 20th century, is estimated to have killed more than 50 million people worldwide.

Alarm has risen because of the emergence of the most dangerous strain to appear in decades -- the H5N1 avian flu. It has primarily struck birds, but about 200 people worldwide have contracted the disease, and half have died. Experts project that the next pandemic -- depending on severity and countermeasures -- could kill 210,000 to 1.9 million Americans.

To keep the 1.8 million federal workers healthy and productive through a pandemic, the Bush administration would tap into its secure stash of medications, cancel large gatherings, encourage schools to close and shift air traffic controllers to the busier hubs -- probably where flu had not yet struck. Retired federal employees would be summoned back to work, and National Guard troops could be dispatched to cities facing possible "insurrection," said Jeffrey W. Runge, chief medical officer at the Department of Homeland Security.

The administration hopes to help contain the first cases overseas by rushing in medical teams and supplies. "If there is a small outbreak in a country, it may behoove us to introduce travel restrictions," Runge said, "to help stamp out that spark."

However, even an effective containment effort would merely postpone the inevitable, said Ellen P. Embrey, deputy assistant secretary for force health preparedness and readiness at the Pentagon. "Unfortunately, we believe the forest fire will burn before we are able to contain it overseas, and it will arrive on our shores in multiple locations," she said.

As Katrina illustrated, a central issue would be "who is ultimately in charge and how the agencies will be coordinated," said former assistant surgeon general Susan Blumenthal. The Department of Health and Human Services would take the lead on medical aspects, but Homeland Security would have overall authority, she noted. "How are those authorities going to come together?"

Essentially, the president would be in charge, the White House official replied. Bush is expected to adopt post-Katrina recommendations that a new interagency task force coordinate the federal response and a high-level Disaster Response Group resolve disputes among agencies or states. Neither entity has been created.

Analysts at the Government Accountability Office found that earlier efforts by the administration to plan for disasters were overly broad or simply sat on a shelf.

"Our biggest concern is whether an agency has a clear idea of what it absolutely has to do, no matter what," said Linda Koontz, director of information management issues at the GAO. "Some had three and some had 400 essential functions. We raised questions about whether 400 were really essential."

In several cases, agencies never trained for or rehearsed emergency plans, she said, causing concern that when disaster strikes, "people will be sitting there with a 500-page book in front of them."

The federal government -- as well as private businesses -- should expect as much as 40 percent of its workforce to be out during a pandemic, said Bruce Gellin, director of the National Vaccine Program Office at HHS. Some will be sick or dead; others could be depressed, or caring for a loved one or staying at home to prevent spread of the virus. "The problem is, you never know which 40 percent will be out," he said.

The Agriculture Department, with 4 million square feet of office space in metropolitan Washington alone, would likely stagger shifts, close cafeterias and cancel face-to-face meetings, said Peter Thomas, the acting assistant secretary for administration.

The department has bought masks, gloves and hand sanitizers, and has hired extra nurses and compiled a list of retired employees who could be temporarily rehired, he said. A 24-hour employee hotline would provide medical advice and work updates. And as it did during Katrina, Agriculture has contingency plans for meeting the payrolls of several federal departments totaling 600,000 people.

Similarly, the Commerce Department has identified its eight priority functions, including the ability to assign emergency communication frequencies, and how those could be run with 60 percent of its normal staff.

Operating the largest health-care organization in the nation, the VA has directed its 153 hospitals to stock up on other medications, equipment, food and water, said chief public health officer Lawrence Deyton. "But it's a few days' worth, not enough to last months," he added.

Anticipating that some nurses may be home caring for family members -- and to reduce the number of patients descending on its hospitals -- the VA intends to put nurses on its toll-free hotline to help veterans decide whether they need professional medical care. At many VA hospitals, nurses and doctors would stand in the parking lots armed with thermometers and laptop computers to do drive-through exams. Modeled after its successful drive-through vaccination program last fall, the parking-lot triage is intended to keep the flow of patients moving rapidly, Deyton said.

Much of the federal government's plan relies on quick distribution of medications and vaccine. The Strategic National Stockpile has 5.1 million courses of Tamiflu on hand. The goal is to secure 21 million doses of Tamiflu and 4 million doses of Relenza by the end of this year, and a total of 51 million by late 2008.

In addition, the administration will pay one-quarter of the cost of antivirals bought by states. The Pentagon, VA, USDA and Transportation Department have their own stockpiles -- and most intend to buy more as it becomes available.

Blumenthal, the former assistant surgeon general, questioned why two years after Congress approved a $5.6 billion BioShield program to develop new drugs and vaccines, so little progress has been made.

Homeland Security's Runge has a different concern: "One of the scariest thoughts is, if this country has successfully developed a vaccine within six months of an outbreak or our supply of antivirals is greater, there may be a rush into the United States for those things."

And even if those fears do not materialize, officials have warned that the federal preparations go only so far. Much is left to the states, communities and even individuals.

"Any community that fails to prepare -- with the expectation that the federal government can come to the rescue -- will be tragically wrong," HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said in a speech April 10. The administration is posting information on the Internet at http://www.pandemicflu.gov .
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
Ads by Google

Automated Notification
Demo Streem Alert Notification Phone, Cell, PDA, Pager, Email
www.streemalert.com

Criminal Justice Training
Train for career in law enforcement EMT. Degree in just 21 months.
www.yti.edu

Flu Armour
Leader in Bird Flu Preparation Individuals, Families & Businesses
www.FluArmour.com

I don't know how many times in the last couple of months they have said we will be on our own. But how many people are listening? The people I see every day still do not even have this on their radar. Except my husband, of course, who's been hearing about it for a year and a half from me.

Interactive Bird Flu Map: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/interactives/birdflu/

Pakistanis find H5N1 bird flu on another farm​

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL32691.htm

SLAMABAD, April 16 (Reuters) - The highly deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has been confirmed at another Pakistani poultry farm, an Agriculture Ministry official said on Sunday.

Authorities confirmed outbreaks of the H5N1 virus at two poultry farms in the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) in February.

The new outbreak was discovered on a farm near the capital, Islamabad.

"It was an small farm and we have already destroyed a total 3,500 chickens there," Mohammad Afzal, the ministry's livestock commissioner, told Reuters.

Tests Show First Case Of Bird Flu In Russia's Far East​

MOSCOW (Dow Jones)--Preliminary tests on the blood of five wild birds culled in the village of Starodevitsa near the Russian city of Vladivostok showed symptoms of bird flu, the regional administration announced Friday.

This is the first such case reported in Russia's Far East.

Samples of the birds' blood have been sent to a veterinary laboratory for further tests.

The regional government said spring migration of birds through the region would last another two to three weeks and the danger of the virus spreading throughout the region remained high.

-By Grigori Gerenstein; Dow Jones Newswires

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 14, 2006 04:14 ET (08:14 GMT)

http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=2006041408140003&Take=1

=




<B><center>Ready for the worst
<font size=+1 color=red>Fire department begins disaster training for civilians</font>

BY JAY M. GROSSMAN
STAFF WRITER
<A href="http://www.hometownlife.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060416/NEWS02/604160459/1019/rss02">www.hometownlife.com</a></center>
An outbreak of the dreaded bird flu strikes in your neighborhood.

Authorities warn of a possible terrorist threat only blocks away from where you live.

What are you supposed to do? </b>

Starting next month, the Birmingham Fire Department will start offering free classes to help people prepare for the unexpected.

Topics covered in the disaster preparedness classes include: family emergency plans, evacuation schemes, assembling supply kits and creating shelters.

The first topic in May will be Avian influenza.

"It's similar to the old civil defense program, only we adapted it to modern times," Fire Capt. John Felmlee said.

The purpose is twofold: Classes like these represent a growing awareness that a prepared citizenry is the first step toward successfully dealing with large-scale disasters, such as a factory explosion or tornado.

And the other part? Police and fire can always use the extra help.

In the short term, Felmlee said the classes are designed to make sure residents understand when they should evacuate an area vs. the need to establish a shelter in place.

Long term, the department would like to train and establish an actual CERT team, an acronym for civilian emergency response training.

"These CERTS, as they're called, can respond to a variety of emergencies -- from severe weather to an actual terrorist threat," Felmlee said. "Officials will be so tied up with emergency calls when something does initially pop up ... it makes CERTS our first line of defense."

The philosophy of training civilians for disasters was first implemented by the Los Angeles Fire Department in 1985 -- an agency that runs the gamut when it comes to forest fires, mud slides, earthquakes and other emergencies.

FEMA -- the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- studied the Los Angeles program and felt it would be beneficial to all communities nationwide.

In 1994, FEMA developed the Emergency Management Institutes to develop the CERT study materials now used by fire departments across the country.

At a more local level, Birmingham adopted its emergency services ordinance in 1976, which led to the development of action guides, an emergency operation center (the primary location is the city hall basement) and the appointment of an emergency coordinator -- currently Fire Chief Tim Wangler.

The August 2003 blackout was the last time the city triggered its emergency operation plan. Similar programs exist in Farmington Hills and Bloomfield Township.

Homeland Security grants are funding the programs. The grants also helped Birmingham prepare an emergency preparedness guide that's posted on the city's Web site at www.ci.birmingham.mi.us.

=



<B><font size=+1 color=brown><center>It is our job to care for ourselves after a natural disaster</font>

April 15, 2006
<A href="http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060415/OPINION/604150305/1050">www.statesmanjournal.com</a></center>
I read with humor that the state will be around to calm our fears and attend to our needs when the bird flu outbreak hits. How exactly will they will be there for us? Am I the only one who remembers Hurricane Katrina and the government's inability to take care of its citizens' needs?

You are crazy to believe the state will be organized enough to take care of you in your little corner of the world.

We have a responsibility to our families and ourselves to be self-sustaining for (at the least) the first 72 hours after a disaster. If you don't have your 72-hour packs together, find time to do it today! You are going to be the only one to blame when it comes to your survival.

-- Deborah Human, Jefferson

=





<B><center>U.S. girds for flu pandemic
<font size=+1 color=green>After Katrina fiasco, the government strives to be prepared for worst</font>

Sunday, April 16, 2006
By Ceci Connolly,
The Washington Post
<A href="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06106/682611-84.stm">www.post-gazette.com</a></center>
WASHINGTON -- President Bush is expected to approve soon a national pandemic influenza response plan that identifies more than 300 specific tasks for federal agencies, from determining which front-line workers should be the first vaccinated to expanding Internet capacity to handle what would likely be a flood of people working from their home computers.</b>

The Treasury Department is poised to sign agreements with other nations to produce currency if U.S. mints cannot operate. The Pentagon, anticipating difficulties acquiring supplies from the Far East, is considering stockpiling millions of latex gloves. And the Department of Veterans Affairs has developed a drive-through medical exam to quickly assess patients who suspect they have been infected.

The document is the first attempt to spell out in some detail how the government would detect and respond to an outbreak and continue functioning through what could be an 18-month crisis, which in a worst-case scenario could kill 1.9 million Americans. Mr. Bush was briefed on a draft of the implementation plan on March 17, and he is expected to approve it within the week, but it continues to evolve, said several administration officials who have been working on it.

After the ineffectual response to Hurricane Katrina, the White House is eager to show it can manage the medical, security and economic fallout of a major outbreak. In response to questions posed to several federal agencies, White House officials offered a briefing on the near-final version of its 240-page plan. When it is issued, officials intend to announce several vaccine manufacturing contracts to jump-start an industry that has declined in the past few decades.

The background briefing and on-the-record interviews with experts in and out of government reveal that some agencies are far along in preparing for a deadly outbreak. Others have yet to resolve basic questions.

"Most of the federal government right now is as ill-prepared as any part of society," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Mr. Osterholm said the administration has made progress but is nowhere near prepared for what he compared to a worldwide "12- to 18-month blizzard."

Many critical decisions remain to be made. Administration scientists are debating how much vaccine would be needed to immunize against a new strain of avian influenza, and they are weighing data that might alter their strategy on who should have priority for antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza.

The new analysis, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that instead of giving medicine to first responders and health care workers, as currently planned, it might be wiser to give the drugs to every person with symptoms and others in the same household, said one senior administration official.

Each year, about 36,000 Americans die from seasonal influenza. A worldwide outbreak, or pandemic, occurs when a potent new, highly contagious strain of the virus emerges.

It is a far greater threat than annual flu because everyone is susceptible, and it would take up to six months to develop a vaccine. The 1918 pandemic flu, the worst of the 20th century, is estimated to have killed more than 50 million people worldwide.

Alarm has risen because of the emergence of the most dangerous strain to appear in decades -- the H5N1 avian flu. It has primarily struck birds, but about 200 people worldwide have contracted the disease, and half have died.

To keep the 1.8 million federal workers healthy and productive through a pandemic, the Bush administration would tap into its secure stash of medicines, cancel large gatherings, encourage schools to close and shift air traffic controllers to the busier hubs -- probably where flu had not yet struck. Retired federal employees would be summoned back to work and National Guard troops could be dispatched to cities facing possible "insurrection," said Dr. Jeffrey Runge, chief medical officer at the Department of Homeland Security.

The administration hopes to help contain the first cases overseas by rushing in medical teams and supplies. "If there is a small outbreak in a country, it may behoove us to introduce travel restrictions," Dr. Runge said, "to help stamp out that spark."

However, even an effective containment effort will merely postpone the inevitable, said Ellen Embrey, deputy assistant secretary for force health preparedness at the Pentagon.

=


<B><center>IRELAND

<font size=+1 color=blue>Preparing for a grave situation</font>

Joe Oliver
16 April 2006
<A href="http://www.sundaylife.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=687166">www.sundaylife.co.uk</a></center>
COUNCIL chiefs in Belfast have launched a desperate search for new graves in preparation for a deadly bird flu epidemic.

Part of a £12m capital programme within approved estimates has already been allocated towards a 'worst case scenario'.</b>

Members of a key council committee also met last week to discuss how many burials they could cope with at Roselawn in reacting to a pandemic.

The Government's own 'doomsday' plan predicts that one-in-four could be infected if the virus mutates from birds to humans.

The UK Influenza Pandemic Contingency Plan says it is "inevitable" that the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu - which has already claimed 94 lives globally - will spread to Britain.

In Northern Ireland there are, on average, more than 14,000 deaths each year - with a quarter of that figure falling within the greater Belfast area.

Last year, cremations at Roselawn accounted for 16.86pc of the total and burials 8.46pc.

At present, section 'W' at Roselawn has 3,035 graves, of which 415 have been used.

But as well as seeking to develop new graves at Roselawn, the council is also looking at possible sites in Newtownabbey and Lisburn.

A contingency team has made it clear that the council's bereavement services unit is the most critical in the event of an epidemic.

Councillor Jim Rodgers - chairman of the parks and cemeteries sub-committee - said yesterday: "We (the council) have a statutory duty to bury or cremate the dead.

"Naturally, we hope that a pandemic will not strike here, but it is something we have to prepare for.

"If necessary, money will have to be found from other budgets to cope."

And he added: "We are looking at new burial land because all the predictions from experts that we've seen so far make grim reading."

=




<B><font size=+1 color=purple><center>Pandemic Preparedness</font>

By Roger McShane
Updated Sunday, April 16, 2006, at 7:35 AM ET
<A href="http://www.slate.com/id/2140046/fr/rss/">www.slate.com</a></center>
Lots of analysis but little actual news on this Easter Sunday. Case in point: The New York Times leads with the implications of a law that was signed by President Bush in February and will not take effect until July. The paper examines how a provision of the Deficit Reduction Act, which will require Medicaid recipients to produce documentation proving their citizenship, may end up hurting blacks, American Indians, and others as much as illegal aliens, its intended target.</b>

The Washington Post leads with its scoop that President Bush is expected to approve a 240-page national flu response plan in the coming week. The Los Angeles Times leads with state governments introducing a "landslide" of legislation increasing property rights since the Supreme Court expanded the definition of eminent domain in a ruling last June.

The NYT tries to justify the arbitrary timing of its Medicaid lead by pegging it to the immigration debate. The story, however, focuses on poor people who are in the country legally but may be denied benefits because they lack documentation. Those who may lose their medical coverage include African Americans and Native Americans who never received birth certificates and don't have passports, as well as elderly patients who may not understand the new requirement. After letting your outrage brew for 22 paragraphs, the Times mentions that the government is working on a policy to accommodate the needs of these groups.

The multi-agency flu plan outlined in the WP seems to be a thorough piece of work: The Treasury Department has plans to produce currency elsewhere should U.S. mints need to close; the Pentagon, anticipating supply shortages, is stockpiling latex gloves; and the government would increase Internet capacity in order to handle the increased number of people working from home. The Post says that following its bungled reaction to Hurricane Katrina, the administration "is eager to show it could manage the medical, security and economic fallout of a major outbreak." And in order to avoid past mistakes, the president is expected to create an interagency task force to coordinate the federal response and a high-level Disaster Response Group to resolve any disputes among agencies or states.

In its lead, the LAT notes that the Supreme Court essentially invited states to make their own rules on eminent domain if they disagreed with the court's decision allowing governments to seize land for development. Well, it turns out nearly all of them did disagree in some capacity. According to the Times, "lawmakers in 47 states have introduced more than 325 measures to protect private property."

In a front-page story, the WP surmises that the videotaped rants and writings of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy leader of al-Qaida, are an effort to maintain his grip over a radical Islamic movement that is increasingly out of his control. Many analysts believe that ideological and tactical disputes between al-Qaida's feuding factions have resurfaced since 9/11, allowing new leaders, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to emerge as potential rivals to Zawahiri.

The NYT fronts a piece in which American soldiers compare their mission in Iraq to their prior peacekeeping missions in Bosnia. The article provides an interesting look at how the military has increasingly had to balance fighting the insurgency with civil affairs work aimed at holding the country together. But the comparison to Bosnia seems a little misplaced, as the violence faced by American troops there never approached the levels seen in Iraq.

Speaking of which, dozens of Iraqi police officers are still missing after an ambush by insurgents on Thursday. Early this morning (too early for the papers) a car bomb outside of a mosque in Baghdad killed four people. And in Afghanistan, dozens of rebels were reported killed in one of the biggest attacks on Taliban targets in months. According to the NYT, the operation was largely an Afghan one.

Back in America, the LAT does some nice investigative work and finds that an "independent" television ad campaign in support of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was actually paid for by a group with significant ties to his political operation. But the bigger story may be how an ad that looks like this can actually pass as an "issue" ad under state election law.

The WP, meanwhile, lets the blogosphere do the investigative work (but leaves it uncredited) and reports on the little scam Rep. John Doolittle is running with his wife Julie. Through her company, whose clients include Doolittle's campaign committee and his leadership PAC, Mrs. Doolittle gets a cut of every donation made to Mr. Doolittle's campaign. There's nothing unethical about this, says the congressman's office.

=




<B><font size=+1 color=red><center>U.S. Considers Massive Bird Flu Response</font>

by UPI Wire
Apr 16, 2006
<A href="http://www.postchronicle.com/news/breakingnews/article_21214718.shtml">www.postchronicle.com</a></center>
WASHINGTON, April 16, 2006 (UPI) -- A multi-agency plan to combat a potential bird flu outbreak in the United States is being finalized and may be signed by President George Bush this week.

The strategy is the first broad sweep at addressing the bird flu threat, a Sunday report says.
</b>
Bird flu has killed more than 100 people and millions of animals throughout Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Scientists fear the deadly H5N1 strain will mutate into a virus easily passed from human to human, sparking a worldwide pandemic.

The Washington Post reports the worst-case U.S. scenario would be an 18-month outbreak killing 1.9 million people.

The strategic plan is aimed at dramatically reducing that count, but includes technical issues, such as how the government would stay operable during a mass outbreak.

For example, the Department of Veterans Affairs wants to create a heightened exam schedule, the Pentagon may stockpile latex gloves and the Treasury Department may have U.S. currency printed abroad, the Post said.

Critical details still need to be ironed out, such as how much vaccine needs to be produced and purchased.

Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said the government is getting more prepared but "most of the federal government right now is as ill-prepared as any part of society."

Wowser said:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/15/AR2006041500901.html

U.S. Plan For Flu Pandemic Revealed
Multi-Agency Proposal Awaits Bush's Approval

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 16, 2006; A01

Click to expand...

You got the scoop of the weekend Wowser!

I've looked over your post a couple of times, trying to pick out specific things to highlight... and see the whole article being highlighted. Now looking for fresh articles, to post, this is the dominant BF event/pending event in the news today. The whole thing givems me a very ill feeling... it's like a globalists dream come true, even to the point of having foreign countries print US money.

Couple this with the 'don't worry be happy' them of BF news this week... I cannot help but feel like they are setting us up for something big! Stock your pantry, we all saw how the feds took care of the people from NOLA... this will be way bigger than Katrina.

Link to tomorrows (4/17) Bird Flu thread: http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=193755