05/01 | Daily BF: Avian Influenza in New Jersey

Link to yesterday's thread: http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=195482

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
o Sudan

* 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
o United Kingdom


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

Updated April 24, 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

Bird flu strain found at Camden market​

In poultry; no human risk, official says
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 04/30/06
BY JIM WALSH
GANNETT NEW JERSEY

TRENTON — A strain of avian influenza, or bird flu, has been found in Camden County, but it is not believed to threaten humans, officials said.

The flu was found among chickens and ducks at a "live bird market," said the state Department of Agriculture, which did not identify the site.

The influenza strain "appears to be low pathogenic and cannot harm humans," Charles M. Kuperus, the state's Secretary of Agriculture, said in a statement Friday night.

Kuperus noted none of the birds in the market had died from the virus, which he said suggests the strain is not especially virulent.

The owner of the birds voluntarily killed his flock and the facility was cleaned and disinfected under supervision of the state agency. The market will be inspected by the agency before it reopens, Kuperus said.

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060430/NEWS03/604300436&SearchID=73243164662238

http://new.eveningnews24.co.uk/cont...gory=news&itemid=NOED01 May 2006 11:31:46:440


Groom fears she has bird flu

NAOMI CANTON
01 May 2006 11:31

The head groom at a riding stables next to the mid-Norfolk farm at the centre of a bird flu outbreak fears she too has contracted the H7N3 strain of the disease.

A poultry worker at Whitford Lodge Farm, North Tuddenham, near Dereham has already been diagnosed with the H7N3 strain of the disease in the form of the eye infection conjunctivitis.

Today it emerged that a woman, who works at the neighbouring Kimblewick Equestrian Centre, Whitford Road, may also have been struck down by the same strain.

Emma Mooney, 25, pictured, is head groom at the stables and said her eyes started to become irritated on Friday afternoon. “At about 2.30pm my eyes started really itching; I just went to rub them like they were dry and didn't think anything of it,” she said.

“I left it until Friday night and phoned the helpline; it was out of hours so they gave me the number for NHS Direct.”

Ms Mooney said they were not even aware that bird flu had arrived in Norfolk and told her to go up to the hospital to have it checked out.

“I went up the hospital and spoke to a nurse who put a mask on my face so I couldn't breathe on anyone and then I was put in isolation,” said the mother, who was then seen by a doctor. “He didn't know bird flu was as close to the hospital as it was. They put some fluid in my eye and looked through a machine into my eye, but couldn't see that I had damaged it in any way.” She waited for news of her condition at the hospital for about an hour-and-a-half before being told to go home and to come back if they heard anything different.

“It's quite frightening really,” she said. “We're right next door and we weren't told anything. My boss Sarah woke up and there were reporters in her drive.”

Although she had been given anti-viral drugs, Ms Mooney said she was anxious to know if she had contracted the disease. “If I had a blood test or something to guarantee 100 per cent that there was nothing to worry about, but just someone saying don't worry about it, go home is not good enough,” she said.

“I've got a son who's 19-months- old. They are saying it can't be passed from person to person, but they put a mask on me and put me in an isolation room so can it? I'm a bit confused about what's going on.”

Ms Mooney, who lives in Swanton Morley with her partner Adrian Stubbs and son Harvey, said her eyes were sore from rubbing them so much, although not as bad as they were first of all.

The man with the conjunctivitis, who has not been named, has the low pathogenic H7N3 strain of avian flu which does not transmit easily from person to person. He reported his illness on Thursday and the people he lives with have been given advice by health officials.

Between 60 and 70 other people, including members of the State Veterinary Service and poultry workers, have been issued with anti-viral drugs as a precaution. Swabs and blood tests have also been taken from some and their health has been monitored.

http://effectmeasure.blogspot.com/2006/05/benign-bird-flu-in-uk.html


Monday, May 01, 2006
"Benign" bird flu in the UK

Three poultry farms in eastern England (Norfolk county) have been afflicted with avian influenza, subtype H7N3. Since this is not the H5N1 subtype now rampant in birds in some 40 countries and over 200 cases and 100+ deaths in people, it is being described as "less dangerous to humans." Possibly. The fact is that H7 subtypes H7N7, H7N2 and (as here) H7N3 have infected human beings in the past and there is currently one confirmed infection in this outbreak. Three workers suspected of being infected are reported to have tested negative, but the three cases all had conjunctivitis ("pink eye"), a known presentation of H7 infection in humans, strongly suggesting the "negatives" are false negatives.

Since the consequences of infection are mainly benign, self-limiting cases of red eyes, tearing and itching one would think there is nothing much to worry about in any case. But there is more to it. In the largest outbreak to date, the H7N7 episode among poultry cullers in The Netherlands in 2003, the virus showed itself readily transmissible from person to person and fatal in once case, a 57 year old veterinarian who succumbed to the kind of viral pneumonia typically associated with H5N1. While the predominant symptoms in the 89 symptomatic Dutch worker cases was conjunctivitis, there were also seven cases of influenza-like-illness (ILI), defined as sudden onset of fever, muscle aches and pains and cough, runny nose or sore throat (see paper by Fouchier et al. here). Mask and goggle use by cullers seemed to have no effect, but Tamiflu did. Using antibody evidence of infection, moreover, an estimated 1000 people were infected and those infected passed on the infection to 59% of household contacts (Science 306:590, 2004).

The Dutch H7N7 was genetically similar to a low pathogenic H7N3 and H10N7 in Dutch ducks but had an HA cleavage site characteristic of high pathogenic strains. The suspicion was that the virus might have come from wild birds and mutated to a high path form in chickens. The virus from the fatal case was isolated as well and showed 14 separate amino acid changes in various genes when comparing it to the virus isolated from the chickens. This included the E627K mutation in PB2, characteristic of many H5N1 strains, as well as four other PB2 changes (see Table 1 in Foucier paper). By contrast, the virus isolated from the conjunctivitis cases has only one amino acid change (in the NS gene). Thus the H7N7 mutated significantly even during this outbreak but dead-ended in the fatal case.

An interesting paper by Olafsson et al. in 2005 (abstract) speculates that the conjunctivitis in the reported outbreaks of H7N7 and H7N3 might be related to the fact that the tissues covering the eyeball (the conjunctivae) have α2, 3 linked sialic acid receptors on them (the kind that bird viruses latch on to), but the tears and fluids bathing the eye have α2, 6 receptors, thus protecting the eye from human but not bird viruses. The situation in the human upper respiratory tract is just the reverse. The cells have α2, 6 receptors but are covered with a protective mucin layer with α2, 3 linked sialic acids. Olafsson et al. also wonder if the eye might not be an efficient way for bird viruses to make their way to the nose and throat through the nasolacrimal duct (tear duct), possibly allowing either adaptation or reassortment there with co-infecting human influenza viruses. Thus I don't feel especially comforted by the Dutch and UK examples of a supposedly benign bird flu virus. The H7 subtype seems readily transmissible and also has the potential to change to a highly virulent form in humans, although it didn't have both characteristics at once.

The UK cases also carry another warning. Because of the recent H5N1 cases in a Scottish swan UK poultry farms are on high alert and presumably practicing good biosecurity. Despite this, avian influenza struck one poultry farm and spread to two neighboring farms. The mode of spread is currently under investigation, but claims by the US poultry industry that they are unlikely to be affected even if H5N1 arrives here on wild birds because of their biosecurity measures sound rather less reassuring.

Influenza finds its natural host in birds. We are now seeing it spread from birds to humans and other species, where it is changing character. The reasons for this are not known, but suspicion must certainly fall on the huge factory poultry farms that jam birds together under unhygienic conditions made to order for epidemic disease in bird

http://www.baltimoresun.com/busines...,0,1235281.story?coll=bal-investing-headlines


Investing in a bird flu pandemic
By Bruce Japsen
Originally published April 30, 2006
Leave it to Wall Street to find an investment opportunity in the potential onset of pandemic bird flu.

Although it's unclear whether bird flu's spread around the world will result in a major U.S. public health threat, some in the investment community are beginning to place bets on potential hot stocks -- and potential losers -- should an outbreak arise.

A report on avian flu by Citigroup, for example, cast as investment losers air-travel stocks and those related to public places such as malls, pubs and casinos. On the "buy" side, the specter of people holing up in their homes for days on end makes home entertainment, media and Internet companies potentially good investments, Citigroup said.

"The markets are anticipating it, and there are already investors making bets on the potential that there will be a pandemic," said Paul Heldman, senior health policy analyst for Citigroup in Washington.

Among potential losers listed in the Citigroup report released in March were air carriers, such as American Airlines parent AMR Corp., Continental Airlines Inc. and United Airlines parent UAL Corp. Other problematic investments would be hotel companies such as Hilton Hotels Corp. and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., the report indicated.

"The hardest part of this is to create some probability of if and when," Heldman said. "However, nobody can deny that it is an issue and nobody can deny that it's already having an effect in the stock markets."

To be sure, health care companies are benefiting from worried governments looking to stockpile antiviral drugs and even vaccines that have not yet been commercially approved for wide use in humans.

One commercially available antiviral drug that is seen as effective in treating avian flu after it infects humans has been a sales boon to its maker. Sales of Roche AG's Tamiflu drug quadrupled last year to $1.6 billion, largely thanks to nearly $800 million in what the company calls "pandemic sales."

Companies such as Baxter International Inc., GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Aventis Pasteur and others developing vaccines also are considered potential good investments by some experts. The companies are starting to land contracts to produce stockpiles of experimental avian flu vaccines that may never be used.

After Baxter landed a contract in February from the United Kingdom to produce 2 million dosages of a cell-based vaccine, analysts who follow the company were optimistic about Baxter's prospects to land even more contracts.

"The UK contract [was] the first secured by Baxter, and the opportunity to expand to other markets could be significant," said Morgan Stanley & Co. medical products analyst Glenn Reicin in a report. "In the U.S. alone, we peg the dose potential at 750 million. If the company can expand this [UK] agreement to other markets, the opportunity could be big!"

Still, Baxter said some countries are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward its vaccine, which is not slated to begin human clinical trials until June. It's unclear how much Baxter and other vaccine makers would benefit from what is considered a low-margin business, but countries like the U.S. are increasing reimbursement to spur more innovation and production of vaccines.

Noel Barrett, Baxter's vice president of research and development for the company's vaccine business, said that some poorer countries do not have budgets to stockpile untested vaccines. "Many countries are not in a position to stockpile because of finances," he said.

Some analysts have speculated that other drug companies that make antivirals, such as GlaxoSmithKline, maker of seasonal flu treatment Relenza, could see a benefit.

In February the Department of Health and Human Services ordered 1.75 million "treatment courses" of Relenza (a treatment course is two inhalations, twice a day for five days, the company said). GlaxoSmithKline said it began human testing of its vaccine against the H5N1 strain of bird flu in Europe. The firm hopes to have a vaccine in production this year.

"We continue to be in discussions with the U.S. government regarding Relenza and a pandemic influenza vaccine," said GlaxoSmithKline spokesman Michael Fleming. "We are in discussions with governments and health agencies around the world."

Some firms have not been as fortunate, with their drug and vaccine contracts thus far having minimal importance to their bottom lines. Baxter's United Kingdom contract, for example, will bring in about $20 million in revenue, a paltry sum. The company generates $10 billion in annual sales.

Experts warn that there is a history of feared crises never really reaching international proportions that would be of great benefit to health care companies, notably the smallpox and anthrax scares after 9/11.

Health care stocks also failed to capitalize on the short-lived scare three years ago of SARS, a lethal strain of pneumonia.

After 9/11 Baxter, for example, landed a major U.S. contract to stockpile a British biotech company's smallpox vaccine, but additional contracts did not materialize despite discussions the company said it had a few years back with several countries.

"These things tend to get blown out of proportion," said Ben Andrew, health care analyst at William Blair & Co. in Chicago. "The odds are too low that there will actually be a pandemic."

Smuggled pets worry bird flu watchdogs​

Published May 01, 2006

By JOHN HEILPRIN

The associated press

WASHINGTON — Bird flu entering the U.S. through smuggled wildlife is a growing worry for government officials already on the lookout for migrating wild birds.

The concern over the trade in wild animals, pets and animal parts has some precedent here and abroad.

Gambian rats imported from Africa brought the monkeypox virus to the United States in 2003. They infected prairie dogs purchased as pets.

Seventy-two people in the Midwest became ill, but none died.

In 2004, two Crested Hawk-Eagles carrying the virulent strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus were seized from the hand luggage of a Thai passenger at Brussels International Airport in Belgium. The passenger had planned to sell the birds to a Belgian falconer.

Not one of the 25 people exposed to the virus became ill. Officials killed 200 parrots and 600 smaller birds that had contact with the Crested Hawk-Eagles.

“We’re very concerned about it coming into the U.S. by whatever means,” Assistant Secretary of State Claudia McMurray said.

The deadly H5N1 virus that has spread through Asia, Europe and Africa but has not arrived in the U.S. Scientists fear the virus could evolve into a form that would pass easily from person to person, sparking a global epidemic.

A surveillance plan for monitoring migratory birds says a migrating wild bird is the most likely carrier of the H5N1 virus.

The plan, developed by the Interior and Agriculture departments and the state of Alaska for use in all 50 states, also says the virus could arrive through smuggled poultry, an infected traveler, black-market trade in exotic birds or even an act of bioterrorism.

Authorities in other countries are similarly wary. An estimated 4,500 chickens from China are smuggled into Vietnam every day — and the H5N1 virus has shown up in samples taken from some of the confiscated birds.

The United States and China are the biggest markets for an estimated $10 billion global trade in illegal wildlife. The black market in wildlife and wildlife parts is second only to trafficking in arms and drugs.

“It’s not just a matter of the U.S. telling China, ‘Clean up your act.’ The two of us are both going to get a handle on it together,” said McMurray, head of the State Department’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.

About 330,000 live birds were imported into the United States in 2004. Just 374 were denied entry, suggesting smugglers may focus on different routes.

The ones denied entry came mainly from Mexico, Guyana and Ghana. The biggest sources of live birds were Canada, with 117,000; Taiwan, 50,000; Tanzania, nearly 40,000; and Belgium, 24,000.

The U.S. banned imports of all live birds, bird parts and bird products from Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam in February 2004. Since then, the ban has been expanded to any country or region where bird flu is thought to exist.

“The borders are where the increased emphasis needs to be,” said Simon Habel, director of TRAFFIC North America, which works closely with the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, based in Geneva, Switzerland.

“There’s an endless string of clever ways people try to bring birds and animals into the country,” said Habel, whose trade-monitoring network is a joint program of the World Wildlife Fund and IUCN-The World Conservation Union.

More than 200 Fish and Wildlife Service special agents also do old-fashioned police work to try to stop the trade. “The problem is illegal trade that’s underground, where smugglers are bypassing that whole structure of quarantine and permits,” said Nicholas Throckmorton, an agency spokesman.

An additional 120 agency field officers inspect wildlife shipments at 35 ports, airports and other locations, alongside Customs and Border Patrol officials. The State Department hopes to also enlist private businesses in that effort.

“The labeling on these items that come in — people don’t tell the truth about what’s in them,” McMurray said. “That’s part of the reason why I want to talk to the airlines, the shippers, the FedExes and the UPSes of the world and say, ‘Help us with this.”’

http://www.theolympian.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060501/NEWS/60501017/1001

Link to tomorrows (5/2) Bird Flu thread: http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=195814