6/03-04 | Weekend BF: "EQ victims using poultry sheds as shelter are at risk from BF"
- Thread starter PCViking
- Start date
PCViking
Lutefisk Survivor
Java earthquake: survivors at risk from avian flu
02 Jun 2006 12:24:00 GMT
Source: Merlin - UK
Merlin
Website: http://www.merlin.org.uk
Merlin, the British medical aid charity working in the earthquake zone in Java, has warned of disease risks to survivors taking shelter in chicken sheds.
Dr Yolanda Bayugo, Merlin's health director in Indonesia, raised concerns today with the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization in Yogyakarta and has asked for more tents to be supplied.
"We are concerned that people using poultry sheds as shelter are at risk from avian flu and salmonella," said Dr Bayugo.
"In Pundong sub-district of Bantul, where about 35,000 people are homeless, we found more than 100 people taking shelter in six large poultry sheds," she continued. "The sheds, built from bamboo, are each about 200 metres long and are the only surviving structures in the area. One shed was new and had not yet been used to keep chickens. Others, which had been cleared recently, were only partially cleaned and still had chicken droppings lying on bamboo slats."
The avian flu virus is known to be present in poultry farms across Java and can be spread through contact with fresh or dried chicken droppings. Last year, the World Health Organization identified the virus in parts of Java now affected by the earthquake.1There were no reported cases in Pundong, but it was identified in Yogyakarta, Sleman and Klaten districts.
The virus has claimed the lives of 36 people in Indonesia since the beginning of 2005. Last month, an outbreak on the neighbouring island of Sumatra, killed six people.
British nurse Paula Sansom, who is leading Merlin's emergency response team, said: "It's tragic that people who have lost their homes have no option but to take shelter in places where they could catch a deadly virus. In such over-crowded conditions the risk of contamination with avian flu and salmonella will increase."
"We have requested that the supply of tents is prioritised for people in these communities," she continued. "Where poultry sheds are the only means of shelter, Merlin is helping affected families to clean the sites properly and follow appropriate hygiene precautions."
Merlin arrived in the Yogyakarta region on Sunday - a day after the 6.3 magnitude earthquake killed more than 6,000 people and left around 200,000 homeless. The team has been operating mobile clinics in the Bantul area and distributing emergency medical supplies, including intravenous fluids, antibiotics and water purification tablets.
For more information, contact: see website
Notes 1. Communicable Diseases, risks and interventions. Indonesia earthquake-affected areas, 2006, May 31, 2006
Photographs are available on request.
Merlin is the only specialist UK charity which responds worldwide with vital health care and medical relief for vulnerable people caught up in natural disasters, conflict, disease and health system collapse.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/218926/114925117548.htm
Ouch
You shelter where you can I guess but it's a measure of how desperate things are in some regions if they have to use poultry sheds...
I've been trying to look up details on that doctor but every shrit tail relative I have had phoned me tonight - LOL.
See if I can find it now...
You shelter where you can I guess but it's a measure of how desperate things are in some regions if they have to use poultry sheds...
I've been trying to look up details on that doctor but every shrit tail relative I have had phoned me tonight - LOL.
See if I can find it now...
A real quick & dirty...
I'll try to get more sueful details in the morning:
http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2005/11/lessons_from_vi.html
***Lessons from Vietnam
Fiona Blair, a producer with the BBC program Panorama, has an article on BBC News Online about Lessons from Vietnam. Among other surprises:
In Hanoi the team met one doctor who had actually caught H5N1 himself. This was discovered not because he became severely ill with the flu but because they decided to screen all the medical staff in the department which treated flu patients, in order to gauge the transmissibility of the disease.
The doctor had had a cough for a couple of months, but other than that had not suffered from the virus. He believes that he caught the virus from a patient because, although his family does keep poultry, the birds all tested negative for the virus.***
I'll try to get more sueful details in the morning:
http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2005/11/lessons_from_vi.html
***Lessons from Vietnam
Fiona Blair, a producer with the BBC program Panorama, has an article on BBC News Online about Lessons from Vietnam. Among other surprises:
In Hanoi the team met one doctor who had actually caught H5N1 himself. This was discovered not because he became severely ill with the flu but because they decided to screen all the medical staff in the department which treated flu patients, in order to gauge the transmissibility of the disease.
The doctor had had a cough for a couple of months, but other than that had not suffered from the virus. He believes that he caught the virus from a patient because, although his family does keep poultry, the birds all tested negative for the virus.***
Not much more
but at least we have a date:
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200506/17/eng20050617_190863.html
***Vietnamese doctor infected with bird flu
A local doctor at a hospital in Vietnam's Hanoi capital has been tested positive to bird flu virus strain H5, making the total number of bird flu patient in the country to 62 since mid-December 2004.
A male doctor from the Institute of Tropical Diseases, who has ever taken specimens from bird flu patients for testing, is infected with H5N1, but now he is in normal health condition, local daily Young People Friday quoted the hospital's officials as saying.
The institute is treating a total of 23 local people with bird flu symptoms, of whom 11 have been confirmed to have contracted bird flu virus strain H5N1 by the hospital's officials, said the paper. The bird flu patients, all from northern localities, are in stable health condition.
Last week, Vietnam's Preventive Medicine Department confirmed 55 human cases of bird flu infections, including 18 fatality ones detected between mid-December 2004 and early June 2005.
Since then, six more have been found to have contracted the disease.
Source: Xinhua ***
I remember an almost incidental report some time later matter of factly stating he'd recovered completely. Can't find it again & it MAY have been a TV news clip I caught. There has to be some net material with better details. I suspect I'm simply using the wrong search terms.
But all in all 1 doctor, didn't take samples, other than a protracted cough - basically felt fine. One common thread seems to exist - it takes many weeks to get out of bed if you're going to recover & months to get back to 100%. Doesn't bode at all well for a pandemic strain.
but at least we have a date:
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200506/17/eng20050617_190863.html
***Vietnamese doctor infected with bird flu
A local doctor at a hospital in Vietnam's Hanoi capital has been tested positive to bird flu virus strain H5, making the total number of bird flu patient in the country to 62 since mid-December 2004.
A male doctor from the Institute of Tropical Diseases, who has ever taken specimens from bird flu patients for testing, is infected with H5N1, but now he is in normal health condition, local daily Young People Friday quoted the hospital's officials as saying.
The institute is treating a total of 23 local people with bird flu symptoms, of whom 11 have been confirmed to have contracted bird flu virus strain H5N1 by the hospital's officials, said the paper. The bird flu patients, all from northern localities, are in stable health condition.
Last week, Vietnam's Preventive Medicine Department confirmed 55 human cases of bird flu infections, including 18 fatality ones detected between mid-December 2004 and early June 2005.
Since then, six more have been found to have contracted the disease.
Source: Xinhua ***
I remember an almost incidental report some time later matter of factly stating he'd recovered completely. Can't find it again & it MAY have been a TV news clip I caught. There has to be some net material with better details. I suspect I'm simply using the wrong search terms.
But all in all 1 doctor, didn't take samples, other than a protracted cough - basically felt fine. One common thread seems to exist - it takes many weeks to get out of bed if you're going to recover & months to get back to 100%. Doesn't bode at all well for a pandemic strain.
H5N1 Bird Flu Cluster in Tangerang Indonesia Grows
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/06030601/H5N1_Tangerang_Cluster_Grows.html
Recombinomics Commentary
June 3, 2006
According to casualties's father, Suryoto, 46 years, Yo last Saturday and his three relatives, namely To (10 years), S (12 years), and B (3 years) suffered the fever and the high fever.
As far as this is concerned, said he, from two casualties who died one was stated positive bird flu and two other people in the condition were sick and will immediately be brought to the hospital.
The above translation indicates that two siblings of the two Tangerang fatalities also have symptoms and are now hospitalized. Earlier reports indicated that the mother, father, and an older brother had symptoms, but recovered at home. Thus, seven family members have had symptoms, but three had mild symptoms and not hospitalized.
Of the four family members hospitalized, two (10M and 7F) have died and the sister tested positive for H5N1. The confirmed case developed symptoms on May 26, was hospitalized on May 29, and died on June 1. Her brother died 3 days earlier.
The hospitalization of four family members is cause for concern. Testing of the two hospitalized patients as well as antibody testing on the three recovered family members would be useful.
This family is close to the location of the first H5N1 confirmed case in July of 2005. The sequence of the H5 from that patient identified a novel cleavage site which has been found in almost all isolates from West Java, but is not present in any published H5N1 from Indonesia or elsewhere.
Local test shows girl died from bird flu at Jakarta hospital
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20060603.A01&irec=1
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Bandung
Laboratory tests conducted by the Health Ministry confirmed Friday that a seven-year-old girl who died late Thursday night in Jakarta contracted avian influenza.
In Bandung, a nurse who treated confirmed bird flu patients has been quarantined after showing symptoms of the disease. If she is confirmed for H5N1, it would raise the worrisome possibility of human-to-human transmission of the virus.
The girl from Pamulang, Tangerang, had been hospitalized for two days at Fatmawati Hospital in South Jakarta for high fever and breathing difficulties before ministry employees took blood samples for testing. She was later transferred to Sulianti Saroso Hospital for infectious diseases.
"The girl's parents brought her in together with her brother, who also was suffering from the same symptoms," a staff member at Fatmawati Hospital, Sumiati, said.
The nine-year-old boy died in the intensive care unit only an hour after being admitted, but was buried before the ministry could run blood tests.
The death of the two children could indicate the development of a new bird flu cluster, Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said Friday.
"The local test from the victim in Pamulang is bird flu positive. The symptoms of the virus are very similar to previous clusters we've had. The parents are also suffering from flu, and we are giving them a full dose of Tamiflu now," Siti said.
The family lived near a poultry slaughterhouse. after a week of caring for two siblings who were confirmed to have died of bird flu.
The 25-year-old woman from Ujungberung Hospital in Bandung was put in isolation at Bandung's Hasan Sadikin Hospital on Thursday night. The siblings, a girl aged 10 and 18-year-old male, are considered the third bird flu cluster in the province.
"After considering her contact with dead bird flu victims, we declared her a suspected bird flu case. But she is still fully conscious, her breathing problems are not too serious and she's not experiencing chest pain," the chief of the Bird Flu Management team at Hasan Sadikin Hospital, Hadi Yusuf, told The Jakarta Post.
He said she was put in isolation according to instructions from Health Ministry officials, and that her blood samples had been sent to Jakarta for testing.
The head of West Java's Environmental Health Office subdivision, Fatimah Resmiati, said a positive test for the virus would raise the possibility of the first human-to-human transmission. Almost all deaths in Indonesia have been traced to infected poultry.
Health Ministry data puts the number of bird flu deaths at 37 of the 50 confirmed cases since last July. At least 26 of the deaths occurred this year.
Siti said the government would cull poultry in and around the area where the bird flu victims had lived, and reminded the public to minimize contact with poultry.
"And please observe the people around you, particularly those who have contact with poultry so that early treatment can be implemented," she said.
World Health Organization spokeswoman Sari P. Setiogi said her office had not been informed of the suspected infection of the nurse in Bandung.
PCViking
Lutefisk Survivor
June 03, 2006 – 7:40 AM
Associated Press
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia is concerned it will have more family clusters of bird flu cases leading to more deaths.
A senior health ministry official says the country must attack the virus in poultry through mass slaughters and a reduction of free-roaming backyard chickens or it will continue to see more human cases. Currently, mass slaughters are sporadic and limited to areas where bird flu outbreaks have surfaced.
There have been 36 confirmed human bird flu deaths in Indonesia and more are suspected.
On Friday, health officials said local tests found a seven-year-old girl from the outskirts of Jakarta had died from the virus. Her ten-year-old brother died days earlier from similar symptoms.
http://www.startribune.com/722/story/471425.html
Indonesia fears more family clusters of bird flu
Associated Press
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia is concerned it will have more family clusters of bird flu cases leading to more deaths.
A senior health ministry official says the country must attack the virus in poultry through mass slaughters and a reduction of free-roaming backyard chickens or it will continue to see more human cases. Currently, mass slaughters are sporadic and limited to areas where bird flu outbreaks have surfaced.
There have been 36 confirmed human bird flu deaths in Indonesia and more are suspected.
On Friday, health officials said local tests found a seven-year-old girl from the outskirts of Jakarta had died from the virus. Her ten-year-old brother died days earlier from similar symptoms.
http://www.startribune.com/722/story/471425.html
The Flying Dutchman
Deceased
=
<B><font size=+1 color=red><center>Two children die of bird flu in Indonesia </font>
Web posted at: 6/3/2006 7:53:55
Source ::: AFP
<A href="http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Rest+of+the+World&month=June2006&file=World_News2006060375355.xml">www.thepeninsulaqatar.com</a></center>
JAKARTA • A seven-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy who died this week in Indonesia were infected with bird flu, a health ministry official said yesterday, citing results from local tests.
Meanwhile, a 25-year-old nurse who had been in contact with two siblings who died of bird flu in Bandung was admitted to hospital late Thursday with symptoms of the virus, the state Antara news agency said. </b>
Samples have been taken from the nurse and were being sent to a health ministry laboratory for initial tests, Antara said.
The girl, identified as Yohana from the Pamulang area south-west of the capital, died on Thursday after being treated in a Jakarta hospital, said Runizar Rusin, head of the ministry's bird flu coordination center.
The teenage boy, who died Tuesday in the West Java capital of Bandung, also tested positive for bird flu, he said.
Samples from the girl and the boy had been sent to a laboratory recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for confirmation. Results from local tests are typically accurate.
The girl's 10-year-old brother Tony, who died on Tuesday, was buried before samples could be taken from him for testing, the official said.
"We are investigating the source of the infection," Rusin said.
WHO has confirmed 36 human bird flu deaths in Indonesia – the world's second highest number after Vietnam, and the highest number of deaths this year globally.
More than 120 people have died of bird flu around the world since late 2003, the vast majority of them in Asia.
Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari yesterday urged the government to ban backyard poultry farming as a way to limit outbreaks among fowl, the Detikcom news website reported.
She also said the government should emulate Vietnam's successful approach in handling the disease.
Health authorities are still struggling to identify the source of bird flu infection in a case where seven people in the same family died of the virus in Indonesia's Sumatra island.
The Sumatra case, Indonesia's largest cluster to date, has raised fears of human-to-human transmission of the virus, which has raised the spectre of a deadly global flu pandemic.
More than 50 people who came into close contact with the family have been placed under voluntary quarantine.
<B><font size=+1 color=red><center>Two children die of bird flu in Indonesia </font>
Web posted at: 6/3/2006 7:53:55
Source ::: AFP
<A href="http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Rest+of+the+World&month=June2006&file=World_News2006060375355.xml">www.thepeninsulaqatar.com</a></center>
JAKARTA • A seven-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy who died this week in Indonesia were infected with bird flu, a health ministry official said yesterday, citing results from local tests.
Meanwhile, a 25-year-old nurse who had been in contact with two siblings who died of bird flu in Bandung was admitted to hospital late Thursday with symptoms of the virus, the state Antara news agency said. </b>
Samples have been taken from the nurse and were being sent to a health ministry laboratory for initial tests, Antara said.
The girl, identified as Yohana from the Pamulang area south-west of the capital, died on Thursday after being treated in a Jakarta hospital, said Runizar Rusin, head of the ministry's bird flu coordination center.
The teenage boy, who died Tuesday in the West Java capital of Bandung, also tested positive for bird flu, he said.
Samples from the girl and the boy had been sent to a laboratory recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for confirmation. Results from local tests are typically accurate.
The girl's 10-year-old brother Tony, who died on Tuesday, was buried before samples could be taken from him for testing, the official said.
"We are investigating the source of the infection," Rusin said.
WHO has confirmed 36 human bird flu deaths in Indonesia – the world's second highest number after Vietnam, and the highest number of deaths this year globally.
More than 120 people have died of bird flu around the world since late 2003, the vast majority of them in Asia.
Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari yesterday urged the government to ban backyard poultry farming as a way to limit outbreaks among fowl, the Detikcom news website reported.
She also said the government should emulate Vietnam's successful approach in handling the disease.
Health authorities are still struggling to identify the source of bird flu infection in a case where seven people in the same family died of the virus in Indonesia's Sumatra island.
The Sumatra case, Indonesia's largest cluster to date, has raised fears of human-to-human transmission of the virus, which has raised the spectre of a deadly global flu pandemic.
More than 50 people who came into close contact with the family have been placed under voluntary quarantine.
The Flying Dutchman
Deceased
=
<B><center>11:28, June 03, 2006
<font size=+1 color=brown>Indonesian nurse with bird flu-like symptoms hospitalized </font>
<A href="http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200606/03/eng20060603_270765.html">english.peopledaily.com</a></center>
A 25-year old nurse identified by her initials as "Ci" is currently being treated at the Hasan Sadikin Hospital for bird flu-like symptoms in Bandung, capital of West Java province, Indonesia.
Ci was admitted to the hospital which has been treating a number of bird flu patients on Thursday evening, Antara news agency reported on Friday. </b>
"When she arrived at this hospital last night, her body temperature was very high, namely 39.6 Celsius degrees but now it has decreased to 37 Celsius degrees," Hadi Jusuf, head of the bird flu medical treatment unit of the hospital, was quoted as saying Friday.
The hospital was planning to send the patient's blood sample to the laboratory of the Health Development and Research Body in Jakarta.
"We could not confirm whether she is positive of having been infected by avian influenza virus or not, although she had earlier have contacts with siblings, 18-year old Ad and 10-year old Ai, who died of bird flu virus recently," he said.
The ailing nurse has never had contact with poultry, but she had treated the sibling when being treated at Ujungberung Hospital, where Ci works as a nurse.
If she is confirmed of being infected by bird flu virus, it would be the first case of human-to-human transmission of the virus, he said.
Meanwhile, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) recently announced that international health investigators were finding no evidence that efficient transmission of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus has emerged from a family cluster of cases in Indonesia's North Sumatra.
The H5N1 virus has caused 127 deaths in 224 cases worldwide since it was detected in humans in late 2003. In all but a handful of cases, humans have become infected through direct contact with ailing birds, their feces or blood.
Indonesia has detected 49 cases of H5N1, 31 of those appearing since January, and ending in 37 fatalities.
Source: Xinhua
<B><center>11:28, June 03, 2006
<font size=+1 color=brown>Indonesian nurse with bird flu-like symptoms hospitalized </font>
<A href="http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200606/03/eng20060603_270765.html">english.peopledaily.com</a></center>
A 25-year old nurse identified by her initials as "Ci" is currently being treated at the Hasan Sadikin Hospital for bird flu-like symptoms in Bandung, capital of West Java province, Indonesia.
Ci was admitted to the hospital which has been treating a number of bird flu patients on Thursday evening, Antara news agency reported on Friday. </b>
"When she arrived at this hospital last night, her body temperature was very high, namely 39.6 Celsius degrees but now it has decreased to 37 Celsius degrees," Hadi Jusuf, head of the bird flu medical treatment unit of the hospital, was quoted as saying Friday.
The hospital was planning to send the patient's blood sample to the laboratory of the Health Development and Research Body in Jakarta.
"We could not confirm whether she is positive of having been infected by avian influenza virus or not, although she had earlier have contacts with siblings, 18-year old Ad and 10-year old Ai, who died of bird flu virus recently," he said.
The ailing nurse has never had contact with poultry, but she had treated the sibling when being treated at Ujungberung Hospital, where Ci works as a nurse.
If she is confirmed of being infected by bird flu virus, it would be the first case of human-to-human transmission of the virus, he said.
Meanwhile, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) recently announced that international health investigators were finding no evidence that efficient transmission of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus has emerged from a family cluster of cases in Indonesia's North Sumatra.
The H5N1 virus has caused 127 deaths in 224 cases worldwide since it was detected in humans in late 2003. In all but a handful of cases, humans have become infected through direct contact with ailing birds, their feces or blood.
Indonesia has detected 49 cases of H5N1, 31 of those appearing since January, and ending in 37 fatalities.
Source: Xinhua
The Flying Dutchman
Deceased
=
<B><center>Replikins' FluForecast Software Pinpoints Change in Deadly Bird Flu Amino Acid Sequence In Humans
<font size=+0 color=green>Single substitution discovered in current H5N1 was also found to be present in the last two major human pandemics of 1957 (H2N2) and 1968 (H3N2).</font>
<A href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/6/prweb394035.htm">www.prweb.com</a></center>
BOSTON (PRWEB) June 3, 2006 -- WHO and CDC spokespersons have recently announced that no significant worrisome sequence changes have been observed so far in H5N1 isolates from high mortality H5N1 Indonesian human cases (CIDRAP: Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy News, May 24, 2006). Significant sequence changes are thought to be required for person-to-person transmission to occur, a necessary prerequisite for a human pandemic. </b>
Using new search technology, FluForecast® software (see www.replikins.com for background and data), Replikins, Ltd. has discovered that in fact, a change in the amino acid sequence has occurred: a recent single amino acid substitution, to be referred to as “Sub”, in an H5N1 virus protein, which may be significant because of the last time it was seen.
The company detected the amino acid “Sub” and tracked the sequence in which it occurred back 49 years. Sub is absent from all earlier H5N1 back to H5N1’s first appearance in 1959, and is only present in the last two high-mortality influenza pandemics, of 1957 (H2N2) and 1968 (H3N2), which were responsible for millions of deaths, and in a recent, fortunately brief, outbreak of H7N7, with one human death. The company’s FluForecast® software found the Sub amino acid substitution in earlier swine H1N1 infections, but not in recent chicken H5N1 isolates, and only in recent human H5N1 isolates, and only in human cases in areas with high mortality. Sub is present in isolates from Vietnam and Indonesia human H5N1 cases. This substitution correlates with epidemiological evidence that suggests that human person-to-person ‘cluster’ transmission may already have occurred, although infrequently to date.
Dr. Sam Bogoch, the company’s chairman, said that the sequence in which Sub occurs is a small virus peptide which the company has found to be conserved in H1N1, H2N2, H2N3, and H5N1, for 88 years, from 1917 to the present. The company has also found that an increase in concentration of peptides of this type in proteins is associated with rapid replication and epidemics. With use of the company’s FluForecast® software, for the first time, strain-specific quantitative protein correlations with epidemics have been observed. The rise in ‘Replikin Count’ (number of replikins per 100 amino acids), detected by the FluForecast software, has been found to be quantitatively correlated with and predictive in advance of the last three flu pandemics of the past century and the last three H5N1 epidemics from 1997 to the present.
FluForecast® permits advance strain-specific warning of 1 to 3 years that an epidemic or pandemic is on its way, thus allowing greater time and more specificity in tailoring more accurate, potentially safer, synthetic influenza vaccines. Previous lack of information of the substituted structure of H5N1, which might be the agent of the next pandemic, has hindered attempts to produce appropriate vaccines. In addition, current egg- and cell-based methods produce vaccines which contain thousands of unwanted proteins which may produce undesirable side effects, take 6 to 9 months or more to make, and more time to test. Replikins Ltd. is now synthesizing several new synthetic flu vaccines and conducting initial trials.
While a single substitution, alone, may not guarantee a pandemic, and the function of the substitution is not as yet known, the occurrence of the same substitution of amino acid “Sub”, at least as a marker in the last two high-mortality pandemics, in 1957 and 1968, its occurrence now only in humans, accompanied by high Replikin counts and high mortality rates, together may suggest, in contrast to previous more comforting assessments, that H5N1 is indeed on the path to a human pandemic. What finally determines if and when a full-force pandemic materializes is still unknown. “Replikins is working with several government and private institutions to test the company’s new synthetic vaccines” said Dr. Bogoch, Chairman of Replikins Ltd.
<B><center>Replikins' FluForecast Software Pinpoints Change in Deadly Bird Flu Amino Acid Sequence In Humans
<font size=+0 color=green>Single substitution discovered in current H5N1 was also found to be present in the last two major human pandemics of 1957 (H2N2) and 1968 (H3N2).</font>
<A href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/6/prweb394035.htm">www.prweb.com</a></center>
BOSTON (PRWEB) June 3, 2006 -- WHO and CDC spokespersons have recently announced that no significant worrisome sequence changes have been observed so far in H5N1 isolates from high mortality H5N1 Indonesian human cases (CIDRAP: Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy News, May 24, 2006). Significant sequence changes are thought to be required for person-to-person transmission to occur, a necessary prerequisite for a human pandemic. </b>
Using new search technology, FluForecast® software (see www.replikins.com for background and data), Replikins, Ltd. has discovered that in fact, a change in the amino acid sequence has occurred: a recent single amino acid substitution, to be referred to as “Sub”, in an H5N1 virus protein, which may be significant because of the last time it was seen.
The company detected the amino acid “Sub” and tracked the sequence in which it occurred back 49 years. Sub is absent from all earlier H5N1 back to H5N1’s first appearance in 1959, and is only present in the last two high-mortality influenza pandemics, of 1957 (H2N2) and 1968 (H3N2), which were responsible for millions of deaths, and in a recent, fortunately brief, outbreak of H7N7, with one human death. The company’s FluForecast® software found the Sub amino acid substitution in earlier swine H1N1 infections, but not in recent chicken H5N1 isolates, and only in recent human H5N1 isolates, and only in human cases in areas with high mortality. Sub is present in isolates from Vietnam and Indonesia human H5N1 cases. This substitution correlates with epidemiological evidence that suggests that human person-to-person ‘cluster’ transmission may already have occurred, although infrequently to date.
Dr. Sam Bogoch, the company’s chairman, said that the sequence in which Sub occurs is a small virus peptide which the company has found to be conserved in H1N1, H2N2, H2N3, and H5N1, for 88 years, from 1917 to the present. The company has also found that an increase in concentration of peptides of this type in proteins is associated with rapid replication and epidemics. With use of the company’s FluForecast® software, for the first time, strain-specific quantitative protein correlations with epidemics have been observed. The rise in ‘Replikin Count’ (number of replikins per 100 amino acids), detected by the FluForecast software, has been found to be quantitatively correlated with and predictive in advance of the last three flu pandemics of the past century and the last three H5N1 epidemics from 1997 to the present.
FluForecast® permits advance strain-specific warning of 1 to 3 years that an epidemic or pandemic is on its way, thus allowing greater time and more specificity in tailoring more accurate, potentially safer, synthetic influenza vaccines. Previous lack of information of the substituted structure of H5N1, which might be the agent of the next pandemic, has hindered attempts to produce appropriate vaccines. In addition, current egg- and cell-based methods produce vaccines which contain thousands of unwanted proteins which may produce undesirable side effects, take 6 to 9 months or more to make, and more time to test. Replikins Ltd. is now synthesizing several new synthetic flu vaccines and conducting initial trials.
While a single substitution, alone, may not guarantee a pandemic, and the function of the substitution is not as yet known, the occurrence of the same substitution of amino acid “Sub”, at least as a marker in the last two high-mortality pandemics, in 1957 and 1968, its occurrence now only in humans, accompanied by high Replikin counts and high mortality rates, together may suggest, in contrast to previous more comforting assessments, that H5N1 is indeed on the path to a human pandemic. What finally determines if and when a full-force pandemic materializes is still unknown. “Replikins is working with several government and private institutions to test the company’s new synthetic vaccines” said Dr. Bogoch, Chairman of Replikins Ltd.
Freeholder
This too shall pass.
CanadaSue said:
I came down with something last August -- mostly respiratory, but I was basically not good for much, and mostly in bed, for over a month. Doctor checked for pneumonia but I didn't have that. Still am coughing from it, sometimes pretty bad. I doubt that it was bird flu (I do have poultry, but none have been sick) . . . but there are other bad bugs out there with similar symptoms.
Kathleen
Klamath Falls, OR
As per another thread - http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=199605 and Drudge Reports....
June 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/w...&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
In the wake of a cluster of avian flu cases that killed seven members of a rural Indonesian family, it appears likely that there have been many more human-to-human infections than the authorities have previously acknowledged.
The numbers are still relatively small, and they do not mean that the virus has mutated to pass easily between people — a change that could touch off a worldwide epidemic. All the clusters of cases have been among relatives or in nurses who were in long, close contact with patients.
But the clusters — in Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iraq and Vietnam — paint a grimmer picture of the virus's potential to pass from human to human than is normally described by public health officials, who usually say such cases are "rare."
Until recently, World Health Organization representatives have said there were only two or three such cases. On May 24 Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, estimated that there had been "at least three." Then, last Tuesday, Maria Cheng, a W.H.O. spokeswoman, said there were "probably about half a dozen." She added, "I don't think anybody's got a solid number."
And Dr. Angus Nicoll, chief of flu activities at the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, acknowledged that "we are probably underestimating the extent of person-to-person transmission."
The handful of cases usually cited, he said, are "just the open-and-shut ones," like the infections of nurses in the 1997 Hong Kong outbreak and of a Bangkok office worker who died in 2004 after tending her daughter who fell sick on an aunt's farm.
Most clusters are hard to investigate, he said, because they may not even be noticed until a victim is hospitalized, and are often in remote villages where people fear talking. Also, he said, by the time doctors from Geneva arrive to take samples, local authorities "have often killed all the chickens and covered everything with lime."
The W.H.O. is generally conservative in its announcements and, as a United Nations agency, is sometimes limited by member states in what it is permitted to say about them.
Still, several scientists have noted that there are many clusters in which human-to-human infection may be a more logical explanation than the idea that relatives who fell sick days apart got the virus from the same dying bird.
For example, in a letter published last November in Emerging Infectious Diseases analyzing 15 family clusters from 2003 through mid-2005 in Southeast Asia, scientists from the disease control centers, the W.H.O. and several Asian health ministries noted that four clusters had gaps of more than seven days between the time family members got sick. They questioned conventional wisdom that only one, the Bangkok office worker, was "likely" human-to-human.
In one Vietnam cluster, not only did a young man, his teenage sister and 80-year-old grandfather test positive for A(H5N1) avian flu, but two nurses tending them developed severe pneumonia, and one tested positive.
In another questionable case, the Vietnamese government's assertion that a man developed the flu 16 days after eating raw duck-blood pudding was publicly ridiculed by a prominent flu specialist at Hong Kong University, who said it was more likely that he got it from his sick brother.
Dr. Henry L. Niman, a biochemist in Pittsburgh who has become a hero to many Internet flu watchers and a gadfly to public health authorities, has argued for weeks that there have been 20 to 30 human-to-human infections.
Dr. Niman says the authors of the Emerging Infectious Diseases article were too conservative: even though the dates in it were fragmentary, it was possible to infer that in about 10 of the 15 cases, there was a gap in onset dates of at least five days, which would fit with the flu's incubation time of two to five days.
And in a study published just last month about a village in Azerbaijan, scientists from the W.H.O. and the United States Navy said human-to-human transmission was possible. That conclusion essentially agreed with what Dr. Niman had been arguing since early March — that it was unlikely that seven infections among six relatives and a neighbor, with onset dates stretching from Feb. 15 to March 4, had all been picked up from dying wild swans that the family had plucked for feathers in a nearby swamp in early February.
While Dr. Niman is an irritant to public health officials, his digging sometimes pushes them to change conclusions, as it did in the recent Indonesia case. The W.H.O. at first said an undercooked pig might have infected the whole family, but Dr. Niman discovered that the hostess of the barbecue was sick two days before the barbecue and the last relative was infected two weeks after it.
His prodding, picked up by journalists, eventually led the W.H.O. to concede that no pig was to blame and that the virus probably had jumped from human to human to human.
The health organization's periodic updates on the number of avian flu cases and the death toll concentrate on cases confirmed by laboratories. The updates use no names and are often cleared by the affected country's health minister.
Dr. Niman, by contrast, trolls local press and radio reports and uses Google software to translate them — sometimes hilariously — looking for family names, onset dates and death dates.
For example, a May 15 report quotes a village midwife named Spoilt describing the death of a woman in Kubu Sembilang, Indonesia and the hospitalization of one of her sons:
"Praise br Ginting experienced was sick to last April 27 2006, with the sign of the continuous high fever to the temperature of his body reached 390 C was accompanied by coughs... Added Spoilt, second casualties Roy Karo-Karo that also the son of the uterus from Praise br. Gintin after his mother died last May 3, also fell ill, afterwards was reconciled to RSU Kabanjahe."
Dr. Niman contends that the largest human-to-human cluster so far was not in Indonesia, but in Dogubayazit, Turkey, in January. W.H.O. updates recorded 12 infected in three clusters, and quoted the Turkish Health Ministry blaming chickens and ducks. Dr. Niman counted 30 hospitalized with symptoms and said the three clusters were all cousins with the last names of Kocyigit and Ozcan, and that most fell sick after a big family party on Dec. 24 that was attended by a teenager who fell sick on Dec. 18 and died Jan. 1.
A patriarch, Dr. Niman said, told local papers that the two branches had had dinner together six days after the 14-year-old, Mehmet Ali Kocyigit, had shown mild symptoms. He died on Jan. 1, and several other young members of the two families died shortly after, with other relatives showing symptoms until Jan. 16. No scientific study of that outbreak has been released.
Dr. Niman also said clusters were becoming more frequent, especially in Indonesia. Just last week two more emerged there, one including a nurse whose infection has not yet been confirmed. With 36 deaths, Indonesia is expected to eclipse Vietnam soon as the world's worst-hit country.
Dr. David Nabarro, chief pandemic flu coordinator for the United Nations, said that even if some unexplained cases were human-to-human, it does not yet mean that the pandemic alert system, now at Level 3, "No or very limited human-human transmission," should be raised to Level 4, "Increased human-human transmission."
Level 4 means the virus has mutated until it moves between some people who have been only in brief contact, as a cold does. Right now, Dr. Nabarro said, any human transmission is "very inefficient."
Level 6, meaning a pandemic has begun, is defined as "efficient and sustained" human transmission.
Ms. Cheng of the W.H.O. said that even if there were more clusters, the alert would remain at Level 3 as long as the virus dies out by itself.
"A lot of this is subjective, a judgment on how efficiently the virus is infecting people," she said. "If it becomes more common, we'd convene a task force to raise the alert level."
Human Flu Transfers May Exceed Reports
June 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/w...&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
In the wake of a cluster of avian flu cases that killed seven members of a rural Indonesian family, it appears likely that there have been many more human-to-human infections than the authorities have previously acknowledged.
The numbers are still relatively small, and they do not mean that the virus has mutated to pass easily between people — a change that could touch off a worldwide epidemic. All the clusters of cases have been among relatives or in nurses who were in long, close contact with patients.
But the clusters — in Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iraq and Vietnam — paint a grimmer picture of the virus's potential to pass from human to human than is normally described by public health officials, who usually say such cases are "rare."
Until recently, World Health Organization representatives have said there were only two or three such cases. On May 24 Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, estimated that there had been "at least three." Then, last Tuesday, Maria Cheng, a W.H.O. spokeswoman, said there were "probably about half a dozen." She added, "I don't think anybody's got a solid number."
And Dr. Angus Nicoll, chief of flu activities at the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, acknowledged that "we are probably underestimating the extent of person-to-person transmission."
The handful of cases usually cited, he said, are "just the open-and-shut ones," like the infections of nurses in the 1997 Hong Kong outbreak and of a Bangkok office worker who died in 2004 after tending her daughter who fell sick on an aunt's farm.
Most clusters are hard to investigate, he said, because they may not even be noticed until a victim is hospitalized, and are often in remote villages where people fear talking. Also, he said, by the time doctors from Geneva arrive to take samples, local authorities "have often killed all the chickens and covered everything with lime."
The W.H.O. is generally conservative in its announcements and, as a United Nations agency, is sometimes limited by member states in what it is permitted to say about them.
Still, several scientists have noted that there are many clusters in which human-to-human infection may be a more logical explanation than the idea that relatives who fell sick days apart got the virus from the same dying bird.
For example, in a letter published last November in Emerging Infectious Diseases analyzing 15 family clusters from 2003 through mid-2005 in Southeast Asia, scientists from the disease control centers, the W.H.O. and several Asian health ministries noted that four clusters had gaps of more than seven days between the time family members got sick. They questioned conventional wisdom that only one, the Bangkok office worker, was "likely" human-to-human.
In one Vietnam cluster, not only did a young man, his teenage sister and 80-year-old grandfather test positive for A(H5N1) avian flu, but two nurses tending them developed severe pneumonia, and one tested positive.
In another questionable case, the Vietnamese government's assertion that a man developed the flu 16 days after eating raw duck-blood pudding was publicly ridiculed by a prominent flu specialist at Hong Kong University, who said it was more likely that he got it from his sick brother.
Dr. Henry L. Niman, a biochemist in Pittsburgh who has become a hero to many Internet flu watchers and a gadfly to public health authorities, has argued for weeks that there have been 20 to 30 human-to-human infections.
Dr. Niman says the authors of the Emerging Infectious Diseases article were too conservative: even though the dates in it were fragmentary, it was possible to infer that in about 10 of the 15 cases, there was a gap in onset dates of at least five days, which would fit with the flu's incubation time of two to five days.
And in a study published just last month about a village in Azerbaijan, scientists from the W.H.O. and the United States Navy said human-to-human transmission was possible. That conclusion essentially agreed with what Dr. Niman had been arguing since early March — that it was unlikely that seven infections among six relatives and a neighbor, with onset dates stretching from Feb. 15 to March 4, had all been picked up from dying wild swans that the family had plucked for feathers in a nearby swamp in early February.
While Dr. Niman is an irritant to public health officials, his digging sometimes pushes them to change conclusions, as it did in the recent Indonesia case. The W.H.O. at first said an undercooked pig might have infected the whole family, but Dr. Niman discovered that the hostess of the barbecue was sick two days before the barbecue and the last relative was infected two weeks after it.
His prodding, picked up by journalists, eventually led the W.H.O. to concede that no pig was to blame and that the virus probably had jumped from human to human to human.
The health organization's periodic updates on the number of avian flu cases and the death toll concentrate on cases confirmed by laboratories. The updates use no names and are often cleared by the affected country's health minister.
Dr. Niman, by contrast, trolls local press and radio reports and uses Google software to translate them — sometimes hilariously — looking for family names, onset dates and death dates.
For example, a May 15 report quotes a village midwife named Spoilt describing the death of a woman in Kubu Sembilang, Indonesia and the hospitalization of one of her sons:
"Praise br Ginting experienced was sick to last April 27 2006, with the sign of the continuous high fever to the temperature of his body reached 390 C was accompanied by coughs... Added Spoilt, second casualties Roy Karo-Karo that also the son of the uterus from Praise br. Gintin after his mother died last May 3, also fell ill, afterwards was reconciled to RSU Kabanjahe."
Dr. Niman contends that the largest human-to-human cluster so far was not in Indonesia, but in Dogubayazit, Turkey, in January. W.H.O. updates recorded 12 infected in three clusters, and quoted the Turkish Health Ministry blaming chickens and ducks. Dr. Niman counted 30 hospitalized with symptoms and said the three clusters were all cousins with the last names of Kocyigit and Ozcan, and that most fell sick after a big family party on Dec. 24 that was attended by a teenager who fell sick on Dec. 18 and died Jan. 1.
A patriarch, Dr. Niman said, told local papers that the two branches had had dinner together six days after the 14-year-old, Mehmet Ali Kocyigit, had shown mild symptoms. He died on Jan. 1, and several other young members of the two families died shortly after, with other relatives showing symptoms until Jan. 16. No scientific study of that outbreak has been released.
Dr. Niman also said clusters were becoming more frequent, especially in Indonesia. Just last week two more emerged there, one including a nurse whose infection has not yet been confirmed. With 36 deaths, Indonesia is expected to eclipse Vietnam soon as the world's worst-hit country.
Dr. David Nabarro, chief pandemic flu coordinator for the United Nations, said that even if some unexplained cases were human-to-human, it does not yet mean that the pandemic alert system, now at Level 3, "No or very limited human-human transmission," should be raised to Level 4, "Increased human-human transmission."
Level 4 means the virus has mutated until it moves between some people who have been only in brief contact, as a cold does. Right now, Dr. Nabarro said, any human transmission is "very inefficient."
Level 6, meaning a pandemic has begun, is defined as "efficient and sustained" human transmission.
Ms. Cheng of the W.H.O. said that even if there were more clusters, the alert would remain at Level 3 as long as the virus dies out by itself.
"A lot of this is subjective, a judgment on how efficiently the virus is infecting people," she said. "If it becomes more common, we'd convene a task force to raise the alert level."
Local tests negative for Indonesian nurse who treated bird flu patients
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillgen.asp?fileid=20060604115925&irec=5
JAKARTA (AP): Local tests have come back negative for an Indonesian nurse who fell ill after treating two siblings infected with bird flu, amid a surge in deaths from the virus.
"Thank God, the result came back negative," Hariadi Wibisono, a senior Health Ministry official said on Sunday.
He said specimens would be sent to a World HealthOrganization-approved laboratory in Hong Kong for confirmation.
The 25-year-old nurse was isolated and given the antiviral drug Tamiflu when she developed a fever and other flu-like symptoms. She fell ill about 10 days after treating a 10-year-old girl and her 18-year-old brother from West Java province, who died hours apart last month of bird flu.
She is improving and will likely be released this week after finishing the full course of Tamiflu, said Dr. Hadi Jusuf of Hasan Sadikin Hospital in Bandung, where the nurse is being treated.
The nurse's case initially raised concerns that the H5N1 virus may have passed to her from the siblings, but Wibisono said it now appears that she was instead suffering from a seasonal flu.
There have been 36 WHO-confirmed human bird flu deaths in month.
On Friday, health officials said local tests found a 7-year-old girl from the outskirts of Jakarta had died from the virus.
Specimens have been sent to the WHO laboratory forconfirmation.
The girl's 10-year-old brother died three days earlier with similar symptoms, but no samples were taken before he was buried.
Last month, six members of a family also died of bird flu and a seventh fell ill in the largest family cluster reported since the virus began ripping through Asian poultry stocks in late 2003.
An eighth member of the family in the farming village of Kubu Simbelang in North Sumatra province was buried before samples were collected, but WHO considers her part of the cluster of cases.
Experts have not found any link between the relatives and infected birds, which has led them to suspect human-to-human transmission. But no one outside the group of blood relatives has fallen ill and experts say the virus has not mutated.
Bird flu has killed at least 127 people worldwide since late 2003. It is difficult for humans to catch, but experts fear the virus could mutate into a form more easily transmissible between humans, potentially sparking a pandemic. So far, most human caseshave been linked to contact with infected birds.
Indonesia trails only Vietnam, where 42 people have died, in the number of bird flu deaths. (***)
JohnGaltfla
#NeverTrump
Well, there's the big
that I've been waiting on. I think this means "it's too late" and the barn door is open and it's too late to close it.
New Freedom
Veteran Member
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/06030604/H5N1_Phase_4_5_Out.html
Commentary
Phasing Out H5N1 Bird Flu Pandemic Phase 4 and 5?
Recombinomics Commentary
June 3, 2006
Dr. David Nabarro, chief pandemic flu coordinator for the United Nations, said that even if some unexplained cases were human-to-human, it does not yet mean that the pandemic alert system, now at Level 3, "No or very limited human-human transmission," should be raised to Level 4, "Increased human-human transmission."
Level 4 means the virus has mutated until it moves between some people who have been only in brief contact, as a cold does. Right now, Dr. Nabarro said, any human transmission is "very inefficient."
Level 6, meaning a pandemic has begun, is defined as "efficient and sustained" human transmission.
The above comments from Donald McNeil Jr's New York Times report, "Human Flu Transfers May Exceed Reports," suggests that movement from Level 3 to Level 4 is not necessary because Level 4 and Level 5 are being phased out. Once H5N1 achieves efficient transmission as defined by transmittion by causal contract on a pare with transmission by a cold virus, the final Pandemic level will have been reached.
The current system, which uses six phases, is designed to identify two intermediate phases (4 and 5) which represent increasing efficiencies of transmission. These changes mark progress toward increased efficiency, but at an early stage when intervention may limit progression.
The description of level 4 above, is really the current phase 6, which is efficient and sustained human transmis8sion. Transmission of a cold virus is efficient and sustained, which would also apply to H5N1.
Currently H5N1 can efficiently replicate within humans, but transmission between humans is inefficient. However, these efficiencies have been increasing, as seen in large clusters in Turkey, Azerbaijan, and north Sumatra, Indonesia. The turkey cluster was linked to a change, S227N, in the receptor bindin4g domain, which increases efficiencies and generated the largest and most sustained cluster recorded to date.
Azerbaijan also had a large sustained transmission chain, but the sequence of the H5N1 has not been released. Although these transmission chains are among the largest recorded, the transmission was limited to family members or close contacts. This limited spread was also seen in north Sumatra, and again the sequences have been withheld, so genetic remains unclear.
The increased concentration of H5N1 in the nose and throat may signal a PB2 E627K acquisition, which is another small change associated with increased virulence which may translate into increase transmission because of the preference of E627K for cooler temperatures of 33 C.
The changes in the H5N1 associated with these changes have been small incremental changes, such as those that would be measured by a pandemic phase system the distinguished the incremental steps. Since these incremental steps have been taken previously but not acknowledge, the definition above simply eliminates these intermediate phases.
However, the local response to these small changes has been to flood the region with Tamiflu and treat the outbreak as it would be treated if it were at a higher phase.
Thus, phase 4 and 5 appear to be phased o6ut, and the current status of the pandemic is one step away from the old pandemic level, 6, which is now being called level 4.
Commentary
Phasing Out H5N1 Bird Flu Pandemic Phase 4 and 5?
Recombinomics Commentary
June 3, 2006
Dr. David Nabarro, chief pandemic flu coordinator for the United Nations, said that even if some unexplained cases were human-to-human, it does not yet mean that the pandemic alert system, now at Level 3, "No or very limited human-human transmission," should be raised to Level 4, "Increased human-human transmission."
Level 4 means the virus has mutated until it moves between some people who have been only in brief contact, as a cold does. Right now, Dr. Nabarro said, any human transmission is "very inefficient."
Level 6, meaning a pandemic has begun, is defined as "efficient and sustained" human transmission.
The above comments from Donald McNeil Jr's New York Times report, "Human Flu Transfers May Exceed Reports," suggests that movement from Level 3 to Level 4 is not necessary because Level 4 and Level 5 are being phased out. Once H5N1 achieves efficient transmission as defined by transmittion by causal contract on a pare with transmission by a cold virus, the final Pandemic level will have been reached.
The current system, which uses six phases, is designed to identify two intermediate phases (4 and 5) which represent increasing efficiencies of transmission. These changes mark progress toward increased efficiency, but at an early stage when intervention may limit progression.
The description of level 4 above, is really the current phase 6, which is efficient and sustained human transmis8sion. Transmission of a cold virus is efficient and sustained, which would also apply to H5N1.
Currently H5N1 can efficiently replicate within humans, but transmission between humans is inefficient. However, these efficiencies have been increasing, as seen in large clusters in Turkey, Azerbaijan, and north Sumatra, Indonesia. The turkey cluster was linked to a change, S227N, in the receptor bindin4g domain, which increases efficiencies and generated the largest and most sustained cluster recorded to date.
Azerbaijan also had a large sustained transmission chain, but the sequence of the H5N1 has not been released. Although these transmission chains are among the largest recorded, the transmission was limited to family members or close contacts. This limited spread was also seen in north Sumatra, and again the sequences have been withheld, so genetic remains unclear.
The increased concentration of H5N1 in the nose and throat may signal a PB2 E627K acquisition, which is another small change associated with increased virulence which may translate into increase transmission because of the preference of E627K for cooler temperatures of 33 C.
The changes in the H5N1 associated with these changes have been small incremental changes, such as those that would be measured by a pandemic phase system the distinguished the incremental steps. Since these incremental steps have been taken previously but not acknowledge, the definition above simply eliminates these intermediate phases.
However, the local response to these small changes has been to flood the region with Tamiflu and treat the outbreak as it would be treated if it were at a higher phase.
Thus, phase 4 and 5 appear to be phased o6ut, and the current status of the pandemic is one step away from the old pandemic level, 6, which is now being called level 4.
New Freedom
Veteran Member
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060604...3HaHXcA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
Sanitary conditions worsen in Indonesia
By EN-LAI YEOH, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 32 minutes ago
BANTUL, Indonesia - Many of Indonesia's 650,000 homeless earthquake survivors are living with deteriorating sanitary conditions, forced to wash with dirty water that infects wounds and spreads skin disease, doctors said Sunday.
Another peril loomed from a nearby volcano, which spewed lava and hot gases dozens of times on Sunday.
There was also concern about bird flu in the quake zone, as the number of Indonesia's human deaths from the virus mounted. Some of the homeless have taken shelter in chicken coops that aid workers fear could contain the disease.
Despite the hardships of day-to-day survival, farmers in the quake zone were returning to their fields to pick food, under pressure to earn money for rebuilding their shattered homes. Farming communities were among the hardest hit by the magnitude-6.3 quake that struck last weekend.
Most of hundreds of thousands left homeless are living in makeshift shelters — often just plastic tarps — with no toilets or running water.
Doctors said wells and streams in many villages have become polluted because of the poor sanitary conditions.
"There are still many who are sick, some with skin diseases because of poor sanitation," said Hendra, a government doctor traveling around the quake zone in a medical van. "The water for washing is dirty and many patients are not taking proper care of their wounds."
The doctor, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, said health personnel still had not reached many villages in hilly areas.
U.N. spokeswoman Amanda Pitt said sanitation and providing clean water to the homeless "remain a key concern."
More than a thousand aftershocks have hit central Java since the earthquake struck May 27, killing at least 6,234 people and injuring 30,000. Officials estimate that 135,000 homes were destroyed.
Indonesia is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
Mount Merapi, one of the world's most active volcanos, spewed lava and hot clouds of gas and ash dozens of times Sunday, said Sugiono, a government scientist. The volcano is north of Yogyakarta, the main city in the quake zone.
Merapi's lava dome has swelled since the quake to 330 feet, raising fears that it could collapse, officials said. That could send searing-hot clouds of gas and debris pouring down the slopes into inhabited areas, the government volcanology center warned.
Surono, a senior government volcanologist, said a collapse wasn't inevitable, but if it occurred it would be "very dangerous."
"Let's pray that this does not happen," he said.
Bird flu was another possible threat to quake survivors, aid workers warned Sunday. At least 37 Indonesians have died from the virus, with World Health Organizers confirming Sunday that bird flu killed a 15-year-old boy who died last month.
"We are concerned that people using poultry sheds as shelter are at risk from avian flu and possibly salmonella infection," said Dr. Yolanda Bayugo, health director in Indonesia for British-based aid group Merlin.
Meanwhile, farmers in the disaster zone donned straw hats and headed back to their rice fields Sunday. Others picked fruit, harvested maize or chopped down bamboo to sell, hoping for money to reconstruct their homes and lives.
"We have to go back to work. Otherwise we can't eat or rebuild," said Sri Supati, harvesting rice Sunday at a communal paddy field surrounded by crushed homes and piles of debris.
"We have waited for nearly a week, but no help has come," said the farmer from Kerujukan in the hardest-hit district of Bantul. Nearby, several villagers were breaking down the remains of half-fallen walls, while others carted off bamboo to make temporary shelters.
The international relief effort has picked up pace in recent days, although aid has yet to reach some remote areas. The
United Nations has appealed for $103 million for recovery efforts over the next six months.
Sanitary conditions worsen in Indonesia
By EN-LAI YEOH, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 32 minutes ago
BANTUL, Indonesia - Many of Indonesia's 650,000 homeless earthquake survivors are living with deteriorating sanitary conditions, forced to wash with dirty water that infects wounds and spreads skin disease, doctors said Sunday.
Another peril loomed from a nearby volcano, which spewed lava and hot gases dozens of times on Sunday.
There was also concern about bird flu in the quake zone, as the number of Indonesia's human deaths from the virus mounted. Some of the homeless have taken shelter in chicken coops that aid workers fear could contain the disease.
Despite the hardships of day-to-day survival, farmers in the quake zone were returning to their fields to pick food, under pressure to earn money for rebuilding their shattered homes. Farming communities were among the hardest hit by the magnitude-6.3 quake that struck last weekend.
Most of hundreds of thousands left homeless are living in makeshift shelters — often just plastic tarps — with no toilets or running water.
Doctors said wells and streams in many villages have become polluted because of the poor sanitary conditions.
"There are still many who are sick, some with skin diseases because of poor sanitation," said Hendra, a government doctor traveling around the quake zone in a medical van. "The water for washing is dirty and many patients are not taking proper care of their wounds."
The doctor, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, said health personnel still had not reached many villages in hilly areas.
U.N. spokeswoman Amanda Pitt said sanitation and providing clean water to the homeless "remain a key concern."
More than a thousand aftershocks have hit central Java since the earthquake struck May 27, killing at least 6,234 people and injuring 30,000. Officials estimate that 135,000 homes were destroyed.
Indonesia is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
Mount Merapi, one of the world's most active volcanos, spewed lava and hot clouds of gas and ash dozens of times Sunday, said Sugiono, a government scientist. The volcano is north of Yogyakarta, the main city in the quake zone.
Merapi's lava dome has swelled since the quake to 330 feet, raising fears that it could collapse, officials said. That could send searing-hot clouds of gas and debris pouring down the slopes into inhabited areas, the government volcanology center warned.
Surono, a senior government volcanologist, said a collapse wasn't inevitable, but if it occurred it would be "very dangerous."
"Let's pray that this does not happen," he said.
Bird flu was another possible threat to quake survivors, aid workers warned Sunday. At least 37 Indonesians have died from the virus, with World Health Organizers confirming Sunday that bird flu killed a 15-year-old boy who died last month.
"We are concerned that people using poultry sheds as shelter are at risk from avian flu and possibly salmonella infection," said Dr. Yolanda Bayugo, health director in Indonesia for British-based aid group Merlin.
Meanwhile, farmers in the disaster zone donned straw hats and headed back to their rice fields Sunday. Others picked fruit, harvested maize or chopped down bamboo to sell, hoping for money to reconstruct their homes and lives.
"We have to go back to work. Otherwise we can't eat or rebuild," said Sri Supati, harvesting rice Sunday at a communal paddy field surrounded by crushed homes and piles of debris.
"We have waited for nearly a week, but no help has come," said the farmer from Kerujukan in the hardest-hit district of Bantul. Nearby, several villagers were breaking down the remains of half-fallen walls, while others carted off bamboo to make temporary shelters.
The international relief effort has picked up pace in recent days, although aid has yet to reach some remote areas. The
United Nations has appealed for $103 million for recovery efforts over the next six months.
New Freedom
Veteran Member
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5046262.stm
Indonesia bird flu death verified
The World Health Organization has confirmed that a boy who died in West Java, Indonesia, last week was a victim of bird flu.
The 15-year-old boy becomes Indonesia's 37th confirmed death from the virus. A local laboratory had earlier detected the H5N1 strain.
Indonesia has had more bird flu deaths this year than any other nation and overall only Vietnam has had more.
More than 120 people have died of bird flu, mostly in Asia, since late 2003.
'Permanent infection'
The 15-year-old boy, from the town of Tasikmalaya, died on 30 May in the provincial capital, Bandung.
A Hong Kong laboratory is testing samples from a seven-year-old girl who died last week on the outskirts of Jakarta. Again, a local laboratory has tested positive for H5N1.
Her 10-year-old brother died three days later but was not sampled for the virus.
Last month, Indonesia registered avian flu cases at the rate of about three a week.
The World Organisation for Animal Health recently said the disease now appeared to be permanently infecting poultry in Indonesia.
The H5N1 virus cannot yet pass easily from one person to another.
Experts, however, fear the virus could mutate at some point in the future, and in its new form trigger a flu pandemic, potentially putting millions of human lives at risk.
Indonesia bird flu death verified
The World Health Organization has confirmed that a boy who died in West Java, Indonesia, last week was a victim of bird flu.
The 15-year-old boy becomes Indonesia's 37th confirmed death from the virus. A local laboratory had earlier detected the H5N1 strain.
Indonesia has had more bird flu deaths this year than any other nation and overall only Vietnam has had more.
More than 120 people have died of bird flu, mostly in Asia, since late 2003.
'Permanent infection'
The 15-year-old boy, from the town of Tasikmalaya, died on 30 May in the provincial capital, Bandung.
A Hong Kong laboratory is testing samples from a seven-year-old girl who died last week on the outskirts of Jakarta. Again, a local laboratory has tested positive for H5N1.
Her 10-year-old brother died three days later but was not sampled for the virus.
Last month, Indonesia registered avian flu cases at the rate of about three a week.
The World Organisation for Animal Health recently said the disease now appeared to be permanently infecting poultry in Indonesia.
The H5N1 virus cannot yet pass easily from one person to another.
Experts, however, fear the virus could mutate at some point in the future, and in its new form trigger a flu pandemic, potentially putting millions of human lives at risk.
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Avian flu preparations to be discussed Monday
Friday, June 2, 2006, 4:19 PM
by Tom Steever
Two Cabinet members will brief the media about avian flu preparations. U.S. Ag Secretary Mike Johanns and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt address the press Monday.
The President’s Special Assistant for Biodefense, Dr. Rajeev Venkayya, will also be on hand to answer questions and to discuss the President's policy initiatives related to avian influenza.
Avian flu preparations to be discussed Monday
Friday, June 2, 2006, 4:19 PM
by Tom Steever
Two Cabinet members will brief the media about avian flu preparations. U.S. Ag Secretary Mike Johanns and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt address the press Monday.
The President’s Special Assistant for Biodefense, Dr. Rajeev Venkayya, will also be on hand to answer questions and to discuss the President's policy initiatives related to avian influenza.