12/26/07-12/31/07|Weekly Bird Flu Thread: 94th Indonesian bird flu victim dies

Link to Last Weeks Thread:

HEALTH - 12/19/07-12/25/07|Weekly Bird Flu Thread:Human bird flu cases rise to 8 in Pakistan

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=269883

Johns Hopkins on influenza:

http://www.iom.edu/Object.File/Master/33/450/Rashid Chotani.pdf

National Avian Influenza Surveillance Information:

http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov/ai/

CDC

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/index.htm

WHO

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/en/index.html

CIDRAP

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/

Official U.S. Government Web site

http://www.pandemicflu.gov/

FAO

http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/subjects/en/health/diseases-cards/special_avian.html

Public Health Agency of Canada

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/influenza/avian_qa_e.html

European Union

http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/health_consumer/dyna/influenza/country_en.htm

The World Bank

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXT...68427~piPK:64168435~theSitePK:1793593,00.html

94th Indonesian bird flu victim dies​

http://en.rian.ru/world/20071226/94209879.html

JAKARTA, December 26 (RIA Novosti) - An Indonesian woman died on Tuesday from bird flu, bringing the death toll in the Southeast Asian country from the H5N1 virus to 94, China's Xinhua news agency said.

The 24-year-old woman from Cengkarang, in the west outskirts of Jakarta, had bought a live chicken in the market and slaughtered it there before taking home.

On December 14, she fell sick and was admitted to a hospital five days later. She tested positive for bird flu and died six days later on December 25.

Indonesia has the world's largest amount of human deaths from bird flu, with 94 deaths registered since the first report, in 2005, of a human becoming infected with the disease in the country, the World Health Organization said.

A total of 207 deaths have been registered worldwide by the organization since 2003.

Although no cases of human-to-human transmission of avian influenza have been reported, scientists fear the virus could mutate into a strain that could pass easily from person to person, causing a global pandemic.

Bird flu experts comb Pakistan for signs of human-to-human infection​

http://www.thecanadianpress.com/eng...ame=x121902A&newsitemid=21590015&languageid=1

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - World Health Organization bird flu experts were continuing investigations Wednesday to determine whether human-to-human transmission may have occurred in Pakistan's first cases involving people.

Four brothers and two cousins fell ill last month in Abbotabad, north of Islamabad, while other people, who slaughtered poultry in the same area and a nearby town, tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus this month.

Two of the brothers died but specimens were collected from only one. The cases were positive for H5N1 in initial government testing but WHO will conduct further analysis to confirm the results.

The WHO team visited a hospital in the northwestern city Peshawar Tuesday that treated some of the eight patients suspected of being infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus. They were working with doctors and nurses on how to handle suspected cases and improve infection-control measures.

"They want to go through the records in the hospital for the last month or two to see if there's been any upsurge in respiratory cases that weren't identified as H5N1 but which could actually be," said Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman in Geneva.

The WHO team will look to see which patients could have been exposed to the virus by infected birds and also whether human-to-human transmission could have occurred.

One of the brothers who survived, Mohammed Ishtiaq, said he was in hospital with flu symptoms after slaughtering chickens suspected of carrying bird flu without wearing protective clothing last month.

His brothers who died visited him in a hospital, he said.

Hartl said no new cases have been discovered but increased awareness has led to more people with flu-like symptoms being checked.

"What this is showing is that they're taking everything very, very seriously," Hartl said.

"Surveillance has been enhanced, more people are reporting cases and more people have been sensitized on the health care worker side of the need to notice."

Pakistan has requested additional supplies of the antiviral Tamiflu as a precaution.

At least 208 people have died worldwide from the virus, which began plaguing Asian poultry stocks in late 2003, WHO said. It remains hard for people to catch but scientists worry it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic.

Bird flu reappears in Germany: official​

http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest+News/World/STIStory_190253.html

BERLIN - A THIRD outbreak of the H5N1 strain of avian flu, which is potentially lethal to humans, was confirmed this month in Germany's Brandenburg region outside Berlin, a veterinarian official said on Wednesday.

Fifteen chickens kept in a coop in Heiligengrabe-Blumenthal tested positive and were slaughtered, Matthias Rott said.

A security zone of three kilometres was put in place in keeping with European Union standards.

There have been two earlier confirmed outbreaks of avian flu in Brandenburg.

Several cases of H5N1 have been found in birds in Germany this year and the country was the scene of a widespread bird flu epidemic in 2006.

The disease spread to mammals last year, infecting three cats and a marten. -- AFP

Korea issues warnings as bird flu spreads in Asia​

http://www.kois.go.kr/News/News/NewsView.asp?serial_no=20071226023

Tourists from overseas in Korea were advised to take precautionary measures as Asian nations try to control the H5N1 bird flu virus, officials said Wednesday (Dec. 26).

The warning came as 209 people, who had been linked to close contact with sick or dead birds around the globe, died this year, the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.

"Tourists from overseas, who have a unidentified respiratory or high-fever symptoms, must report to nearby public healthcare offices," the center said in a statement.

Last month, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said it discovered a less virulent strain of bird flu at a poultry farm in the south west of the country.

In 2003, Korea reported the first outbreak of bird flu, which prompted the slaughter of about 5.3 million birds.

Young Egyptian woman falls victim to H5N1 virus​

http://english.pravda.ru/news/hotspots/27-12-2007/103191-bird_flu-0

By Margarita Snegireva. A young 25-year-old Egyptian woman became another victim of bird flu. Apparently, she got the virus contacting the disease from domestic foul, Ministry of Health reported.

Ola Youness Mohammad, from the town of Beni Soweif , some 200 kilometres south of Cairo, tested positive of the H5N1 strain of bird flu after she was admitted to hospital last Friday, said spokesman Abdel-Rahamn Shahin.

Mohammed died Tuesday night, bringing to 16 the number of Egyptians to have succumbed to the fatal strain since it first appeared in the country last year.

A total of 39 bird flu patients have been registered so far in Egypt, including those who died of the disease, Shahin said.

Mohammed contracted the virus after coming in contact with an infected chicken raised by her family, he said.

Since 1997, studies of H5N1 indicate that these viruses continue to evolve, with changes in antigenicity and internal gene constellations; an expanded host range in avian species and the ability to infect felids; enhanced pathogenicity in experimentally infected mice and ferrets, in which they cause systemic infections; and increased environmental stability."

Tens of millions of birds have died of H5N1 influenza and hundreds of millions of birds have been slaughtered and disposed of, to limit the spread of H5N1. Countries that have reported one or more major highly pathogenic H5N1 outbreaks in birds (causing at least thousands but in some cases millions of dead birds) are (in order of first outbreak occurrence): Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, China, Malaysia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Turkey, Romania, Croatia, Ukraine, Cyprus, Iraq, Nigeria, Egypt, India, France, Niger, Bosnia, Azerbaijan, Albania, Cameroon, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Israel, Pakistan, Jordan, Burkina Faso, Germany, Sudan, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Hungary, United Kingdom, Kuwait, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Ghana, Czech Republic, Togo.

Bird flu leaves toddler dead​

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=nw20071227092419385C482855

By Ho Binh Minh

Hanoi - Bird flu killed a four-year-old boy from an ethnic minority group in northern Vietnam, the country's first human case in nearly five months, a health official said on Thursday.

Separately, the government said the virus had returned to the Mekong Delta in the south this month, killing hundreds of ducks and chickens.

The boy from the Thai ethnic minority group fell sick and was taken to a Hanoi hospital on December 14 with high fever and serious pneumonia, the official at the Preventive Medicine Centre in the mountainous province of Son La said.

Chicken is the most popular dish during the Tet festival
The child died on December 16 and tests performed in a Vietnamese laboratory have found the H5N1 virus.

"He was sick after he and his family had eaten about 10 chickens," the official told Reuters by telephone from Son La, 320km north-west of Hanoi, adding a few of the birds had died from an unknown cause earlier on at the farm.

"We have identified 24 people related to the boy. Eighteen of them had direct contact with him, but none of them was sick," he said.

Vietnam's last reported death from the virus was in August when a teenager died. An outbreak in poultry was last reported in October, but Son La was not on the government's bird flu watchlist.

The Son La official said animal health workers slaughtered 1 000 poultry and disinfected the area where the boy had lived.

The H5N1 virus has killed five of the eight Vietnamese who have caught it this year, and the country's death toll is now at 47 since late 2003.

The Agriculture Ministry said the H5N1 bird flu virus had returned to the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh, killing 350 ducks and 430 chickens on five farms in the week ending December 23.

The last outbreak in the area was in early October.

The ministry said the government would start a month-long campaign on January 1 to clean up farms, hatching facilities, slaughterhouses, poultry markets and animal health checkpoints ahead of the Tet festival.

"A history of diseases in the past years show the month leading to Tet is the time bird flu outbreaks flare up in our country," Deputy Agriculture Minister Bui Ba Bong said in a directive, referring to the Lunar New Year festival.

Chicken is the most popular dish during the Tet festival that comes in early next February. Trade and transport of birds often pick up before the holiday.

The H5N1 virus remains mainly a virus of birds, but experts fear it could mutate into a form easily transmitted from person to person and sweep the world, killing millions.

Globally, the H5N1 virus has killed 210 people out of 341 known cases, World Health Organisation figures show. Hundreds of millions of birds have died or been slaughtered.

The WHO tally has not included the death on Dec. 21 by a 25-year-old Egyptian woman or the boy's death in Vietnam.

Avian flu death prompts investigation​

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailcity.asp?fileid=20071227.C01&irec=0

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A woman's death from bird flu a little past midnight Tuesday has prompted a team of health officials to secure her home and surrounding residential area in Kalideres, West Jakarta.

The 24-year-old woman, identified by her initials, DF, died in Cengkareng Hospital, West Jakarta, two weeks after doctors positively diagnosed her with bird flu.

Her death has taken the city's bird flu toll to 24 deaths since the first was recorded July 20, 2005.

The H5N1 virus, the deadliest bird flu strain for humans, has so far killed 94 people and hospitalized around 115 nationally, according to data provided by the Health Ministry.

Indonesia remains top of the list for bird flu cases and deaths globally.

The ministry said it was still trying to determine the exact source of DF's death. Early reports said she may have caught the disease after buying chicken at a nearby market.

The West Jakarta Public Health Sub-agency, in cooperation with the Health Ministry, also sent a team to investigate the source of the disease and to monitor any signs of infection in neighboring residents.

"We have tested 50 people who had been near the victim and thankfully they have all tested negative," sub-agency head Dr. Ariani Murti said.

"We have not seen any signs or symptoms from the people in her immediate area."

Ariani said Kalideres is prone to bird flu because it was "very dirty" and some residents still kept chickens around their houses despite the prohibition by the city administration.

Earlier this year, a boy from the same area also died after becoming infected with bird flu.

He was one of six people living in the neighborhood who contracted bird flu.

Ariani said health services would continue to monitor Kalideres for the rest of the week.

She said her office needed much support from the public and residents to help prevent further infections.

"The people of Kalideres need to, please, stop keeping poultry in their homes, otherwise these cases will keep on occurring," she said.

The second most recent death from bird flu was a businessman identified by initials MS.

On Dec. 2, MS had a fever, acute coughing and respiratory problems. Two weeks later he died in RS Persahabatan Jakarta, East Jakarta. (anw)

Avian flu deaths reported in Egypt, Indonesia, Vietnam​

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/avianflu/news/dec2607avian.html

Dec 26, 2007 (CIDRAP News) – A young woman in Egypt and another of almost the same age in Indonesia died of H5N1 avian influenza yesterday, raising the global H5N1 death toll to 211, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

Also, a Vietnamese official said a boy who died recently in northern Vietnam had the H5N1 virus, according to an Associated Press (AP) report published today. The WHO has not yet confirmed his case.

The Egyptian victim was a 25-year-old woman from Bany Suwef governorate, south of Cairo, the WHO said in a statement. She was hospitalized Dec 21 and died yesterday.

The WHO said the source of her infection was under investigation, while Egypt's health ministry, according to a Reuters report published today, said she had had contact with birds thought to be infected.

The Indonesian woman who died was a 24-year-old from West Jakarta municipality who fell ill Dec 14 and was hospitalized Dec 19, the WHO said in a statement. The source of her exposure to the virus is under investigation.

An official at Indonesia's avian flu center said the woman had bought a live chicken at a market and slaughtered it there before taking it home, according to a Reuters report published yesterday. But he said the case was still being investigated.

Indonesia has had 116 cases of H5N1 illness with 94 deaths, while Egypt has had 39 cases and 16 deaths, according to the WHO. The global count is 342 cases.

In Vietnam, testing has confirmed avian flu in a 4-year-old boy from Son La province in the north, according to an AP story quoting Nguyen Huy Nga, director of the health ministry's preventative medicine unit. The boy died Dec 16 in Hanoi after a 5-day illness, the story said.

Son La, about 187 miles northwest of Hanoi, has not had any recent H5N1 outbreaks in poultry, the AP reported.

If the WHO confirms the boy's case, he will be listed as Vietnam's 101st case-patient and 47th fatality.

Indonesian cluster ruled out
In other developments, Indonesian officials reported on Dec 22 that testing had ruled out avian flu in a family cluster of illnesses.

Lab tests excluded H5N1 infections in six members of an Indonesian family who were hospitalized Dec 21 with suspected cases, according to a Dec 22 Reuters report. Their cases had raised concern about possible person-to-person transmission of the virus.

Nyoman Kandun, Indonesia's director-general of communicable disease control, said two sets of laboratory tests on the six patients were negative for H5N1, Reuters reported.

The patients are from a village in Banten province. They fell ill with high fevers after more than a dozen ducks died in their backyard, the story said.

Test results pending in Pakistan
In Pakistan, confirmatory testing was not yet complete for a group of eight patients, including five in one extended family, in whom previous preliminary tests indicated H5N1, a WHO official said today.

John Rainford, a WHO spokesman in Geneva, told CIDRAP News he expected confirmatory test results would probably be released tomorrow. But he said the results of genetic sequencing of the viruses will take longer.

"The sequencing is on a different track [from the confirmatory tests], and that can take a week or possibly longer," Rainford said.

He also said there may be a new suspected H5N1 case in Pakistan, but information so far was very sketchy. The local disease surveillance system is "engaged and ramped up," with the result that flu-like illnesses are more likely to be reported, he noted.

According to previous reports, the Pakistan patients who tested positive included a veterinarian who had helped cull infected chickens, three of his brothers, a cousin, and three other people: a man and his niece who were involved in poultry culling in the same vicinity as the veterinarian, and a farm worker from another town nearby. Another brother of the veterinarian died of an H5N1-like illness but was buried without being tested.

The WHO sent a team to investigate the Pakistan situation last week, and US Navy Medical Research Unit 3 in Cairo sent a portable lab. The cases occurred in northern Pakistan, not far from the Afghan border.

The WHO's Keiji Fukuda said last week that the Pakistan cases probably represent a mixture of poultry-to-human cases and human-to-human transmission arising from close contact when people cared for sick relatives. The WHO has said there has been no evidence of sustained transmission.

See also:

WHO statement on Egyptian case
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2007_12_26a/en/index.html

WHO statement on Indonesian case
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2007_12_26/en/index.html

After a decade, bird flu still baffles scientists
as it becomes part of daily life for many​

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/headlines/2007/12/27/51313/After-a.htm

Thursday, December 27, 2007
By MARGIE MASON, AP

HANOI, Vietnam -- Baffled scientists first watched a mysterious virus called H5N1 jump from birds to humans a decade ago in Hong Kong, killing six people and forcing the territory to slaughter its entire poultry population. It quieted for a while, but resurfaced in 2003 with even more questions.

Bird flu has since spread to more than 60 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, killing at least 209 people along with hundreds of millions of birds. Pakistan and Myanmar are the latest to experience its migration, both reporting their first human infections earlier this month. Indonesia, the world's hardest-hit country, reported its 94th death Wednesday.

In frequently stricken places like Vietnam, people have learned to live with the disease. Children are taught about bird flu in elementary school, and the nation's poultry is vaccinated twice a year.

But much about the H5N1 virus remains unknown. Experts are still puzzled by its ability to spread and kill. They also do not understand why it infects only a few people, and fear it could morph into a new form that spreads easily among humans, potentially sparking a pandemic that kills millions and cripples national economies.

"It doesn't cease to amaze me that every week or every day we learn something new about this virus," said Juan Lubroth, an animal health expert at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. "From the very beginning we've been saying that no poultry producing country is safe from this disease."

The World Health Organization is currently working to determine whether limited human-to-human transmission could have occurred in Pakistan where up to nine suspect cases were detected, including several relatives. The last infection was reported Dec. 6, and experts say there appears to be no threat of further spread.

A number of other countries have recently detected poultry outbreaks during the winter months when the virus typically flares. The reason why remains unclear, though some experts suspect a pattern that may be similar to seasonal human influenza, which surfaces every year as temperatures drop.

Another mystery is how the virus spreads internationally. How much of a role do migrating wild birds play in transmitting it compared to the trade and movement of poultry, which often crosses borders illegally?

"There are so many questions that are unanswered, and so many things have to come together to cause a pandemic, that nobody can predict it," said Dr. David Heymann, the WHO's top flu official in Geneva. "We don't know all the risk factors."

Most human cases have been linked to contact with infected birds. Scientists believe human-to-human transmission has occurred a few times, but only among relatives in close contact.

In Vietnam, where the virus is entrenched in poultry and 46 people have died, bird flu is no longer a major worry for most who now understand that eating properly cooked eggs and poultry is safe.

Many have changed their shopping and cooking habits to limit the risk, while farmers are more likely to report dead birds because they receive compensation for slaughtering their flocks when sporadic flare-ups occur.

"In small markets around the corner, you see no live chickens," said To Long Thanh, vice director of Vietnam's National Center for Veterinary Diagnosis. "They're already slaughtered and put in a bag. People use gloves to cut it and cook it."

In the winter, warnings are issued to every city and province mandating that vaccinations be finished by a certain date, Thanh said. Animal health experts follow up to make sure no farms have been missed.

"We have a program until 2010 because we cannot predict when it will stop," he said.

WHO is watching other strains of bird flu, including H7 and H9, that are circulating among poultry and have also infected humans.

Still, H5N1 continues to be the virus experts worry most about, because it has spread so far, so fast. More than 60 percent of people infected by it have died.

"We just don't understand it, and what you don't understand is what's dangerous," Heymann said. "So, you have to be dramatic and take the most severe precautions."

WHO confirms human-to-human birdflu case​

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071227/hl_nm/birdflu_pakistan_dc

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Thursday a single case of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 bird flu virus in a family in Pakistan but said there was no apparent risk of it spreading wider.
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A statement from the U.N. agency said tests in its special laboratories in Cairo and London had established the "human infection" through presence of the virus "collected from one case in an affected family."

But it said a WHO team invited to Pakistan to look into an outbreak involving up to nine people, from late October to December 6 had found no evidence of sustained or community human-to-human transmission.

No identified close contacts of the people infected, including health workers and other members of the affected family, had shown any symptoms and they had all been removed from medical observation, the WHO added.

The outbreak followed a culling of infected chickens in the Peshawar region, in which a veterinary doctor was involved. Subsequently he and three of his brothers developed proven or suspected pneumonia.

The brothers cared for one another and had close personal contact both at home and in the hospital, a WHO spokesman in Geneva said. One of them, who was not involved in the culling, died on November 23.

His was the human-to-human transmission case confirmed by the WHO. The others all recovered.

"All the evidence suggests that the outbreak within this family does not pose a broader risk," the WHO spokesman told Reuters. "But there is already heightened surveillance and there is a need for ongoing vigilance."

It was the first human-to-human case of H5N1 transmission in Pakistan, while others have been confirmed in Indonesia and Thailand in similar circumstances of what the WHO calls close contacts in a very circumscribed area.

Global health experts fear the virus -- which has killed 211 people out of 343 infections reported since 2003 -- could mutate into a form that spreads easily from one person to another, possibly triggering a pandemic that could kill millions.

Two Egyptians test positive for bird flu​

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071227/hl_nm/birdflu_egypt_dc

CAIRO (Reuters) - Two Egyptians have tested positive for the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, a day after an Egyptian woman died of the disease, Egypt's health ministry said on Thursday.
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"There are two cases today, one in Damietta and one in Menoufia... Today lab results confirmed that they are infected with bird flu," Amr Kandeel, head of communicable disease control at the health ministry, told Reuters.

The two new cases, both of whom are currently receiving treatment in hospital, bring the total number of human bird flu cases in Egypt to 41, Kandeel added.

State news agency MENA said the Menoufia case was 22-year-old Nora Aboul Abbas Mohamed, but gave no details for the second case.

On Wednesday, 25-year-old Ola Younis died of bird flu in Beni Suef province, south of Cairo, on the same day she was diagnosed as being infected with the highly pathogenic virus.

She was the 16th fatality from bird flu in Egypt.

The H5N1 virus which causes bird flu tends to lie dormant during the summer and Egyptian officials had hoped that after two years of outbreaks it would not re-occur this winter.

But John Jabbour, an official at the World Health Organization, said the new cases were not surprising.

"The agent is there... Since July we've had no human cases and many things calmed down, so people returned to dealing with live birds as usual. Since the virus is there, we expect to have human cases. It's not a surprise at all," Jabbour said.

MENA reported Thursday that veterinary authorities in Sharkia province had culled 12,000 chickens after tests found the flock had been infected with bird flu.

Most of those who have fallen ill in Egypt were reported to have had contact with sick or dead household birds, primarily in northern Egypt where the weather is cooler than in the south.

The government still finds it hard to enforce restrictions on the movement and sale of live poultry.

The death toll is the highest for any country outside Asia and could reflect the high population density in agricultural parts of Egypt.

Experts fear the bird flu virus might mutate or combine with the highly contagious seasonal influenza virus and spark a deadly pandemic which could circle the globe and kill millions.

Around five million households in Egypt depend on poultry as a main source of food and income and the government has said this makes it unlikely the disease can be eradicated.

WHO confirms one person positive for bird flu in Pakistan,
more testing ongoing​

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-12-28-03-10-26

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- The World Health Organization has confirmed that at least one person tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu in Pakistan and medical workers are trying to determine if others were infected, an official said Friday.

Up to eight people who initially tested positive for bird flu in a government laboratory have tested negative in two WHO-approved laboratories, said Khalif Bile, WHO country representative in Pakistan. But further analysis is being carried out to look for antibodies in their blood to determine for certain whether they were infected, he said.

A WHO team from Geneva visited the affected areas in Pakistan last week to investigate whether limited human-to-human transmission could have occurred, especially since five brothers were suspected of being infected. One of those siblings tested positive in the WHO analysis, and samples were never collected from another brother who died.

"No one else was positive so far," Bile said. "That again puts the question to human-to-human, but it's still premature. I think that the good news is that there are no more cases, and there have been no more positive poultry outbreaks for the last four weeks."

He said it would likely take about a week for the final test results to be available. But the suspected human cases, Pakistan's first, have raised awareness among health workers and the public.

"We are checking anyone who has pneumonia and anyone who has symptoms compatible with avian influenza," Bile said. "There is very strong surveillance going on in the affected areas."

At least 212 people have died from the H5N1 virus worldwide since it began ravaging Asian poultry farms in late 2003. The virus remains hard for people to catch, but experts fear it will morph into a new form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic.

So far, most cases have been linked to contact with infected birds.

A number of other countries also have recently reported bird flu. On Wednesday, Egypt, Vietnam and Indonesia each announced a human death. Earlier this month, Myanmar reported its first human case - a girl who survived - and other countries have experienced poultry outbreaks.

WHO experts worried by bird flu transmission​

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=nw20071228091232184C247110

Geneva - Experts with the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday confirmed the first case of inter-human transmission of bird flu in Pakistan, but ruled out any risk of a widespread outbreak.

Laboratory tests established that the person had been infected with the potentially fatal H5N1 strain of the virus, even though had not been in contact with contaminated poultry.

"Because we have an individual not directly exposed to sick birds suggests a limited human-to-human transmission," said spokesperson John Rainford told reporters.

Human-to-human contamination has been reported in Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam in recent months, but has not spread beyond a single person. A suspected case in China was denied by the authorities there.

In the latest case in Pakistan, a WHO statement said preliminary checks had found "no evidence of sustained or community human to human transmission".

It added: "All identified close contacts including the other members of the affected family and involved health care workers remain asymptomatic and have been removed from close medical observation."

Experts fear that if the H5N1 strain mutates into a highly contagious form, it would provoke a pandemic on the scale of the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak, which claimed tens of millions of lives.

The WHO team was sent after the ministry announced the death of a man who was one of six people infected with the H5N1 strain in North West Frontier Province along the Afghanistan border.

A brother of the victim also died before being tested for the virus. Both had worked on a cull of infected poultry.

Bird flu infects Bangladesh farm, chickens culled​

http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest+News/Asia/STIStory_190782.html

DHAKA - NEARLY 2,000 chickens have been culled in a village in northern Bangladesh after the H5N1 bird flu virus has detected at a poultry farm, officials said on Friday.

The latest infection was detected in Dinajpur district, 420 km from the capital Dhaka, a senior official of Fisheries and Livestock Ministry said.

Bird flu was first detected near the capital in March and has since spread mainly to northern districts and forced authorities to cull about 275,000 chickens and destroy nearly three million eggs.

About four million Bangladeshis are directly or indirectly associated with poultry farming, but so far there have been no cases of human infection, government and health officials say.

But experts fear the bird flu virus might mutate or combine with the highly contagious seasonal influenza virus and spark a deadly pandemic which could circle the globe and kill millions of people. -- REUTERS

Bird flu patient recovered​

http://www.china.org.cn/english/government/237379.htm

The father of a young man who died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, early this month has recovered and left hospital, the provincial health authorities said on Wednesday.

The 52-year-old man, surnamed Lu, is in good health. Lu was diagnosed with H5N1 virus four days after his son's death, the second case in Nanjing. The 24-year-old son died of the virus on December 3.

Fresh bird flu outbreak in Myanmar: official, state media​

http://www.physorg.com/news118125760.html

Authorities confirmed the outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus on Thursday after an unspecified number of chickens had died in Yankham village, 580 kilometres (360 miles) northeast of Yangon, the official said.

"We killed more than 1,000 chickens, and so far found no case of human infection," said the official from the Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department in Yangon.

The official New Light of Myanmar daily newspaper also confirmed the outbreak of bird flu and said measures had been taken to halt the spread of the virus.

On December 15, Myanmar and the World Health Organisation announced that a seven-year-old girl from Shan state had become the first confirmed human case of bird flu in the country.

She was hospitalised in late November before being discharged in December after showing signs of recovery, health authorities said.

The official told AFP that the area of the latest bird flu outbreak was located around 60 kilometres southeast of the village where the girl was infected with the virus.

The authorities have killed more than 700,000 chickens, ducks and quail since Myanmar discovered its first outbreak of bird flu among poultry in the central city of Mandalay in February 2006, officials said.

The country's military rulers normally operate under a thick veil of secrecy, but the regime has won rare plaudits from the United Nations for its openness in tackling bird flu.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed 213 people worldwide, mostly in Southeast Asia, since late 2003, according to the World Health Organisation.

The strain is mainly an animal disease, but scientists fear it could mutate to easily jump from human to human, sparking a deadly global pandemic.

European countries report more H5N1 in poultry​

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu//cidrap/content/influenza/avianflu/news/dec2707birds.html

Dec 27, 2007 (CIDRAP News) – Germany, Poland, and Russia recently reported fresh outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza in poultry, according to media accounts and reports from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

On Christmas day, German officials said the virus was found on a small poultry farm in Brandenburg state, near Berlin, according to a report from Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA). The virus was detected among 15 chickens, which prompted the culling of 46 remaining birds, the report said.

The farm's owner was also looking after a neighboring farm's flock over the holiday, and 31 chickens at that farm were culled as a precautionary measure, according to the DPA report. Poultry owners in the area have been advised to keep their birds in closed pens and to report any signs of illness among the birds.

The outbreak is the third detection of H5N1 in Brandenburg state in recent days, according to media reports. In mid-December, an H5N1 outbreak was reported in a small flock of chickens in the Oberhavel region. On Dec 21, a state veterinary official confirmed the virus was found at a small chicken farm in Bensdorf, about 53 miles west of Berlin, according to an earlier DPA report.

Over the summer, two other German states—Bavaria and Thuringia—also reported H5N1 outbreaks, which mainly involved geese and ducks.

Meanwhile, agriculture officials in Poland reported an H5N1 outbreak at six farms near the northern village of Sadlowo Parcele, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Dec 22. The area is within a security zone surrounding Zuromin, the site of a previous outbreak, the AFP report said.

A report from Poland's agriculture ministry said 200,000 birds on the Sadlowo Parcele farms were slaughtered to control the virus, according to AFP.

In southern Russia, emergency officials in the Rostov region reported an outbreak at a small farm in Krasnodar territory, RIA Novosti, Russia's state news agency, reported on Dec 25. Seventy-nine birds were culled, the report said.

Earlier this month the virus was detected at three other sites in the Rostov region, according to OIE reports. In September officials in Krasnodar territory reported another H5N1 outbreak at a chicken farm. The area is vulnerable to the virus because it is on a bird migration route, according to the RIA Novosti report.

In other avian flu developments, animal health officials in the Dominican Republic reported an outbreak of low-pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza at two sites, one of which is a live-bird market in Santo Domingo, the capital, and the other is in the village of La Otra Banda in the southeast, according to a Dec 21 report from the OIE. The findings were confirmed at the US Department of Agriculture's National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa.

Two cases were reported, but there were no bird deaths. The OIE report said 130 birds were destroyed to control the virus.

In April, 25,000 turkeys at a West Virginia farm were culled after tests indicated they probably had been exposed to a low-pathogenic H5N2 virus, according to previous reports. Countries are required to report all H5 and H7 avian flu detections to the OIE.

China Baffled On How Latest Victims Got Bird Flu;
Insists Human-To-Human Transmission Impossible​

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7009574675

December 30, 2007 7:38 a.m. EST

Harriette Cecilio - AHN News Writer

Nanjing, China (AHN) - China remains baffled on how the bird flu virus was transmitted between its latest victims.

This as the surviving patient, surnamed Lu, 52, was discharged from an undisclosed local hospital on Dec. 26, state-run Xinhua news agency reports.

Local health authorities said Lu was treated for 20 days and has been turned over to his family members.

Despite his recovery, however, health officials cannot confirm how Lu was infected with the H5N1 strain of bird flu.

Lu's son died from the virus on Nov. 2. Shortly thereafter, the father developed a fever, fueling speculations that there may have been human-to-human transmission of the virus.

Lu's son was the 17th avian flu casualty in China since 2003. He did not have any contact with dead poultry. Moreover, the Jiangsu Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau said there have been no confirmed bird flu reports in Nanjing.

Nonetheless, Chinese health authorities insisted no human-to-human transmission had been confirmed in the case of the Lus.

Mao Qun'an, spokesman of the Ministry of Health, in an earlier press conference, said the virus has not mutated.

"It has no biological features for human-to-human transmission," Mao said.

He said the father could have become infected through close contact with the son. However, he added it was also possible that both men were infected either by same source or separately from different sources.

Those who came in close contact with the Lus are still under observation.

The World Health Organization had warned that the virus may mutate into a form that allows for transmission from person to person.

Avian flu is usually spread by infected migratory birds.

WHO warns countries to be vigilant as bird flu flares in Asia ​

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/12/30/health/8_05_3412_29_07.txt

By: MARGIE MASON - Associated Press

HANOI, Vietnam ---- The World Health Organization warned this month that countries should be on alert for bird flu because it is again on the move, with Pakistan reporting South Asia's first human infections and Myanmar logging its first human case.

"The key to the public health response is surveillance," said Peter Cordingley, spokesman for the WHO Western Pacific region in Manila, noting that the H5N1 virus often flares when temperatures drop during the winter months.

"If we do actually get to the cases with antivirals early on, the health outcome is a lot better," he said.

WHO experts traveled to Pakistan early in December, said WHO country representative Khalif Bile in Islamabad.

"They are here to get more information and to provide more support in the case of any potential risk," he said, adding that the country's health and agriculture ministries were now working closely with WHO following a "communication gap" when the government did not immediately report suspected cases to the U.N. health agency.

Four brothers and two cousins fell ill last month in Abbotabad, north of Islamabad, while three others who slaughtered poultry in the same area and a nearby town tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus this month.

Two of the brothers died, but specimens were collected from only one.

The cases were positive for H5N1 in initial government testing, but WHO will conduct further analysis to confirm the results.

WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl in Geneva said human-to-human transmission had not been ruled out, but added that poultry outbreaks had earlier been reported in the area and it was unclear if all patients had links to sick birds or infected surroundings.

A doctor who cared for the brothers also experienced mild flulike symptoms, but more testing was needed to determine if she was infected, Hartl said.

Two poultry farms near Abbotabad have been closed and health workers are taking the temperatures of those living in the affected area twice a day, said Minhajul Haq, a district health officer.

"We are on high alert, though we still await any confirmation of human-to-human transmission," he said.

At least 208 people have died from the virus, which began plaguing Asian poultry stocks in late 2003. It remains hard for people to catch, but scientists worry it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic.

With fresh poultry outbreaks reported in a number of countries, including Germany over the weekend, WHO urged nations to be vigilant in identifying and reporting cases in both birds and humans.

Myanmar's first human case was reported Dec. 14 in a 7-year-old girl who fell ill last month and survived, while Indonesia, the country hardest hit by the virus, has announced its 93rd death from the virus.

Two human cases were also recently confirmed in China, one of whom died.

In some countries, like Indonesia, poultry outbreaks and human cases of bird flu are reported year round, but many countries experience a flurry of activity when temperatures drop.

"It starts to pop at this time of the year, not just in this region where it's endemic, but it starts to appear in the West," Cordingley said. "Between now and April is a very dangerous time of the year."

Most human bird flu cases have been linked to sick birds, but experts suspect limited person-to-person transmission may have occurred in a few cases involving blood relatives.

Bird flu hits more farms in north Bangladesh​

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/s2129616.htm

Thousands of chickens have been culled in Bangladesh after the H5N1 bird flu virus infected more farms in the northern part of the country.

The latest infection was detected in two villages about 350 kilometres from the capital Dhaka.

Bird flu was first detected near the capital in March.

It has since spread, mainly to northern districts, and forced authorities to cull around 278,000 chickens.

About four million Bangladeshis are directly or indirectly associated with poultry farming.

So far there have been no cases of human infection.

Bird flu has killed 213 people in 12 countries since 2003.

Another bird flu death in Egypt​

http://iafrica.com/news/africannews/755548.htm

Mon, 31 Dec 2007

Egypt's health ministry on Sunday announced the death of a 25-year-old woman from the H5N1 strain of bird flu — the second case in a week.

Fatma Fathi Mohammed (25) died in hospital in the Nile Delta province of Mansura, where she was admitted on 27 December after complaining of high fever and shortness of breath, health ministry spokesperson Abdel Rahman Shahin said in a statement carried by the official MENA news agency.

Mohammed, who comes from neighbouring Daqahliya province, had been exposed to infected poultry, Shahin said.

It was the 42nd case reported in humans since the virus first appeared in the country in February 2006. Her death was the 17th in Egypt.

She was the second woman to die of bird flu in a week. Oula Yunes Ali (25) died on Tuesday after being admitted to hospital the previous Friday with a high fever.

Two others have been diagnosed with the disease since Ali's death.

The first case is a 50-year-old woman from Damietta province who was hospitalised on December 24 and is in a critical condition, according to the World Health Organisation.

The second case is a 22-year-old woman chicken seller from Menufia province. She was admitted to hospital on December 26 and is currently recovering in intensive care, the WHO said.

Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali warned against "slackness in the preventive measures taken to fight bird flu especially as winter approaches."

Following Tuesday's death, Shahin called on the public to remain vigilant and deplored the relaxation of precautions because of the belief that the virus had disappeared. Her death was the first in six months.

Shahin called for "banning the raising of fowl in towns, transporting them between provinces without authorisation and also reinforcing controls on where they are raised and sold."

He warned that sick people denying they have been in contact with contaminated domestic fowl makes it more difficult to detect the virus and to treat it, which leads to people dying.

Women and children have borne the brunt of the virus because of their role in taking care of domestic fowl.

Egypt's location on major bird migration routes and the widespread practice of keeping domestic fowl near living quarters have led to it being the hardest-hit country outside Asia.

The government says it is conducting a vigorous campaign to combat the spread of the virus through vaccinations and raising awareness.

The World Health Organisation said earlier this year that countries around the world had improved their defences against bird flu, but the situation remained critical in Egypt and Indonesia where the risk of the H5N1 virus mutating into a major human threat remains high.

JPD, thank you for efforts. I pray your health continues to improve.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071231125913.1h8ufowd&show_article=1

Egypt reports third bird flu death in week
Dec 31 09:07 AM US/Eastern

An Egyptian woman died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu on Monday, the health ministry said, the third such death in less than a week.

Fardos Mohammed Haddad, 36, from the Nile Delta province of Menufia died in hospital after being admitted on Saturday with a high fever and difficulty breathing, ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shahin said in a statement carried by the official MENA news agency.

Her death, the second in as many days and the third in less than a week, is the 18th death in Egypt from the disease since the virus first appeared in the country in February 2006.

"She had been exposed to poultry infected with bird flu," Shahin said. "All members of her immediate family and people she has been in contact with recently are being tested for the disease."

Egypt's location on major bird migration routes and the widespread practice of keeping domestic fowl near living quarters have led to it being the hardest-hit country outside Asia.

The government says it is conducting a vigorous campaign to combat the spread of the virus through vaccinations and raising awareness.

Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali on Sunday warned against "slackness in the preventive measures taken to fight bird flu especially as winter approaches."

The World Health Organisation said earlier this year that countries around the world had improved their defences against bird flu, but the situation remained critical in Egypt and Indonesia where the risk of the H5N1 virus mutating into a major human threat remains high.

Link to next weeks thread:

HEALTH - 1/1/08-1/8/08|Weekly Bird Flu Thread: Fourth bird flu death in a week in Egypt

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=271188