Avian flu updates page 8

[Martin]

avian flu updates page 7 at
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=160093&highlight=avian


Illegal bird trade may be contributing to spread of bird flu

The World Today - Tuesday, 2 August , 2005 12:26:00
Reporter: Karen Barlow
ELEANOR HALL: The rapid spread of the deadly Asian bird flu virus is sparking concerns about the effectiveness of the international containment protocol.

The highly contagious strain of avian flu has now turned up in poultry stocks in Siberia and Khazakstan, and some health authorities say it's only a matter of time before the disease hits European Union countries.

Russian doctors have been quick to blame migratory birds flying in from infected regions of China. But bird experts say an illegal trade in poultry cannot be ruled out as the source of the latest outbreak, as Karen Barlow reports.

KAREN BARLOW: In a bid to halt the spread of bird flu, all domestic birds in a western Siberian region will be slaughtered today. That's thousands of geese, chickens and ducks from more than a dozen villages.

Just over the border in Kazakhstan, the cull has been underway for days, and a bird transport ban has been imposed on the affected areas.

The virus was first detected two weeks ago in the area, and the World Health Organisation is still yet to confirm that it is the highly contagious strain of the virus, H5N1.

The WHO's Bob Dietz is in Manila.

BOB DIETZ: You know, everyone is aware of the seriousness of this virus and I think people are reacting to it very quickly. Any one specific outbreak of course might pop up in some place we didn't expect.

We know this virus to be active in… across Asia, okay? We know it's been in Korea, in Japan, in South East Asia, in China. We know that in some places it's been taking lives in some places it's only been attacking poultry flocks or in some instances, wild fowl.

KAREN BARLOW: Russia Health Officials have been quick to blame migratory birds, such as cormorants, gulls and bar-headed geese for the outbreak.

But Australian migratory bird expert, Professor Richard Kingsford of the University of New South Wales, says that's not the only explanation.

RICHARD KINGSFORD: Well, it's a bit questionable, isn't it? These birds are likely to fairly sedentary at the moment because they're in their breeding season, so they're not doing big movements.

So you would expect if we're seeing a whole lot of outbreaks that these have somehow got into those birds and been latent for some time in those populations before they're actually exhibited.

So what I think we're seeing, we may be seeing that some of these birds are contracting this virus as they work their way up through some of these really infected areas.

KAREN BARLOW: The import of poultry products is banned from infected countries.

But Professor Kingsford says he suspects that an illegal trade has been going on between Russia, Kazakhstan and infected areas of China.

RICHARD KINGSFORD: Well, I would imagine that people may be moving poultry between borders. It may well be that as far as getting between different countries with people moving across the borders, it's still, I think, the big question is whether humans are in fact a greater potential source of this virus.

In fact it may be that these geese are contracting the virus from reservoirs of poultry in different parts of northern Europe and Western China, and I guess from a conservation point of view, it's a real worry for some of these populations that are clearly going to be all but wiped out where they're breeding in these colonies.

KAREN BARLOW: Well, yes, there's such fear about this flu that there are reports of Russian poultry farmers trying to shoot down migratory birds.

RICHARD KINGSFORD: Yeah, which I guess is a bit like holding back the tide.

KAREN BARLOW: Bob Dietz from the World Health Organisation says migratory birds are the prime candidates for transmission, but he admits infected countries are not secure.

BOB DIETZ: There is always poultry trade, it's usually a very vigorous one throughout Asia. There's no magic bullet here. There's no quick solution. You would think this is human beings acting, we can all act rationally.

Well, there are many factors pressing on the situation, there are economic concerns, personal concerns, political concerns, as well as the concerns about threat of disease. And you have to look at this as a whole situation.

ELEANOR HALL: And that's Bob Dietz from the World Health Organisation ending that report from Karen Barlow.



http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1428173.htm

 

[libtoken]

Bird flu strikes another region of Russia

Pravda,News from Russia
http://newsfromrussia.com/main/2005/08/02/60921.html

17:29 2005-08-02

Veterinary officials in Moscow said Tuesday that an outbreak of the bird flu that is likely to infect humans spread to another region of the country.

The outbreak began in the Novosibirsk region in early July and has killed thousands of domestic fowl. The veterinary service last week identified the virus as the H5N1 strain, which can fatally infect humans, but no human cases have been reported in Russia.

The same strain has been recorded in a village in the adjacent Altai territory, and Yevgeny Nepoklonov, a deputy head of the nation's veterinary service, said on NTV television Tuesday that it has now also been found in a village in the Tyumen region, further west in Siberia.

Domestic fowl also died in the nearby Omsk region, but the strain there hadn't been determined yet.

"A quarantine has been imposed on the settlements affected, and necessary measures are being taken to contain the sources of infection," the veterinary service said in a statement.

The Emergency Situations Ministry said the outbreak already had killed 2,707 domestic fowl, including 325 since Sunday morning.

Authorities in all regions affected by the outbreak have tightened control over poultry farms, disinfecting their workers and checking fowl. The administration of the Novosibirsk region has ordered the killing of 65,000 domestic fowl in all 14 villages affected.

Several regional governments also have imposed bans on poultry sales across provincial borders.

Gennady Onishchenko, Russia's chief epidemiologist, sought to assuage public fears during an inspection trip to the Novosibirsk region Tuesday, saying the outbreak was being successfully contained.

The veterinary service said that the virus apparently had been brought by birds migrating from Southeast Asia. The virus has swept through poultry populations in large areas of Asia since 2003, killing tens of millions of birds and at least 60 people, most of them in Vietnam and Thailand.

Almost all the humans who have died contracted the virus from poultry, but experts worry it could mutate into a more deadly virus that could spread from person to person, the AP reports.

 

[Martin]

Posted on Tue, Aug. 02, 2005





Bird flu spreads to another Russian region

Associated Press


MOSCOW - Russian veterinary officials said Tuesday that an outbreak of an avian flu strain that can infect humans has spread to another region in Siberia, while authorities were struggling to contain the virus.

The outbreak began in the Novosibirsk region in early July and has killed thousands of domestic fowl. The veterinary service last week identified the virus as the H5N1 strain, which can fatally infect humans, but no human cases have been reported in Russia.

The same strain has been recorded in a village in the adjacent Altai territory, and Yevgeny Nepoklonov, a deputy head of the nation's veterinary service, said on NTV television Tuesday that it has also been found in a village in the Tyumen region, further west in Siberia.

Domestic fowl also died in the nearby Omsk region, but the strain there has not yet been determined.

"A quarantine has been imposed on the settlements affected, and necessary measures are being taken to contain the sources of infection," the veterinary service said in a statement.

The Emergency Situations Ministry said Tuesday the outbreak already has killed 2,707 domestic fowl, including 325 since Sunday morning.

Authorities in all regions affected by the outbreak have tightened control over poultry farms, disinfecting their workers and checking fowl. The administration of the Novosibirsk region has ordered the slaughter of 65,000 domestic fowl in all 14 villages affected.

Several regional governments also have imposed bans on poultry sales across provincial borders.

Gennady Onishchenko, Russia's chief epidemiologist, sought to assuage public fears during an inspection trip to the Novosibirsk region Tuesday, saying the outbreak was being successfully contained.

The veterinary service said the virus apparently had been brought by birds migrating from Southeast Asia. The virus has swept through poultry populations in large areas of Asia since 2003, killing tens of millions of birds and at least 60 people, most of them in Vietnam and Thailand.

Almost all the humans who have been killed contracted the virus from poultry, but experts worry it could mutate into a more deadly virus that could spread from person to person.

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/breaking_news/12285566.htm

 

[Martin]

U.S. mail may deploy medicine in emergency
Government looking for new ways to distribute drugs, says HHS secretary

The Associated Press
Updated: 5:26 p.m. ET Aug. 2, 2005


WASHINGTON - In the event of a flu pandemic or a bioterrorism attack, help could arrive via door-to-door mail delivery or from the fire station down the street, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said Tuesday.

Leavitt, in an hour-long interview with Associated Press reporters and editors, said it’s clear that the system of delivering medicines in the United States is inadequate in the event of an emergency.

He said it was “in some ways an absolute certainty” that a flu pandemic would occur. “If it happens anywhere, there is risk everywhere,” he said.

The federal government is particularly concerned about bird flu, which since 2004 has sickened 109 people, 55 of whom have died, because people lack immunity to the virus.

Leavitt said the federal government was looking to stockpile 20 million doses of a bird flu vaccine and another 20 million doses of Tamiflu, an antiviral medication to treat the disease.

The vaccine, in human clinical trials, has created an immune response in those who had taken it, he said. Still to be determined, he said, is how much is necessary to produce a sufficient response.

Medicine delivered within 12 hours
Leavitt said the government’s goal is to have the medicine delivered within 12 hours of decision to deploy the medicine, but that exercises have revealed flaws in the delivery system.

“We’re finding that the distributions systems are not adequate to put medicines in the hands of people fast enough, so we’re beginning to look at alternative ways to speed that up,” Leavitt said.

“We’re looking at having more points of distribution, for example. We’re experimenting with having the postal service being able to deliver them, because they walk those routes every day.”

He said other possibilities included using firehouses as distribution points.

Leavitt said that it would take four to six months to mass produce a vaccine for the avian flu, and that capacity is insufficient to produce both a vaccine for pandemic flu as well as avian flu.

“One of the difficulties is if in fact we end up with a pandemic flu vaccine needing to be produced, it does compromise our ability to produce both the annual flu and the pandemic flu vaccine,” he said. “We’re in the process of doing aggressive contingency planning to determine how we can ratchet up production dramatically.”


http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8801097/print/1/displaymode/1098/

 

[Martin]

H5N1 Bird Flu In Europe?

Recombinomics Commentary
August 2, 2005


Avian flu is approaching the Sverdlov area [Yekaterinburg]. Dangerous virus already pronik on territory Ural Federation Oblast. This week began to behave communications about discovering of infected birds in Tyumen and Kurganskoi areas.

The above machine translation suggests H5N1 may have already entered Europe. Yekaterinburg is in the Ural Mountains about 50 miles from the Kurgan Region. If infected birds were in the Kurgan Region when the Russian media report was written, those birds should have already reached the Ural Mountains. The Kurgan region is southwest of the Tyumen region and would mark the furthest reported point to the west for the migration from Chany Lake in the Novosibirsk area

Russia just announced a quarantine of all poultry, further supporting the level of concern. Regardless of whether H5N1 enters Europe today or in the next few days, it is likely to run though the continent and inflict considerable economic and psychological damage.

Since the migration has not started for most of the waterfowl in Qinghai and Chany Lakes regions, it seems likely that the rapid spread of H5N1 across Russia will be reported throughout Asia and beyond.


http://www.recombinomics.com/News/08020509/H5N1_Europe.html

 

[Kim99]

Ports ordered to be on the alert for strange diseases
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=02HEA020805
(02-08-2005)

HA NOI — The Ministry of Health is asking personnel at the nation’s entry points, such as airports, bordergates and harbours, to be on the alert for the penetration of strange diseases into Viet Nam.

All persons with a fever upon entering the country will be quarantined and given timely medical treatment, according to deputy health minister Trinh Quan Huan.

Huan said a strange disease transmitted from swine that occurred recently in China had not yet appeared in Viet Nam. "We have seen encephalitis B infections pass from pigs to human through mosquitoes. We now have vaccine to prevent the disease," said Huan.

Bird flu

A woman in Ha Tay Province tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus, bringing to a total of four the number people infected with the virus in the province since early this year, one of whom has died, said the director of provincial Preventive Health Centre.

Centre director Hoang Ñuc Hanh said Nguyen Thi Them, 49, was brought to the local hospital with symptoms of fever, coughing and chest pain on July 22. Three days later, she was moved to the National Institute for Clinical Research in Tropical Medicine and received the testing result there.

Hanh said Them’s family ate chicken bought at a local market some days before she showed signs of fever. A centre team has visited her village in Quoc Oai District to spray chemicals around the family and market. — VNS

 

[Kim99]

Another Leap for Avian Influenza

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2005/802/4

MOSCOW--In yet another alarming leap for the H5N1 avian influenza strain, Russian authorities have reported the first outbreak of the virus on their soil: Thousands of poultry have been killed around the Siberian capital of Novosibirsk. H5N1--whose presence was confirmed by the Russian Center for Animal Health Control in Vladimir--has already hit poultry farms in large swaths of Southeast Asia and China and has infected more than 100 people in these areas (ScienceNOW, 6 July, 2005), prompting experts to fear that it could spawn an influenza pandemic.

At a press conference today, Russia's chief sanitary physician Gennady Onishchenko said that the first reports of bird deaths came on 19 July from a village called Suzdalka, in the Zdvinsky Region of the Oblast (province) of Novosibirsk, where wild birds and poultry mingle at a lake. But the virus has since spread to the surrounding provinces of Omsk, Tomsk, Tyumen, and Altay. Poultry culling has begun in an effort to stop the spread, with some 65,000 birds scheduled to be destroyed in the next few days.
A spokesperson for the World Health Organization says that since this is the first outbreak in Russia, authorities should send samples to a foreign lab to confirm the presence of the viral strain. Poultry deaths have also been reported in neighboring Kazakhstan, and one man from the village of Golubovka was reported to have been hospitalized with what may be bird flu symptoms. But there is no official confirmation of the culprit.

With lots of backyard chickens, bird trading at markets, and a poor infrastructure, it's unlikely that Russia can halt the westward spread of the virus, which means it may reach Europe as well, says Ilaria Capua, an avian influenza researcher at the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Venezie in Italy. "It looks bad ... It's going to be very, very, very hard to stop it."
--ANDREI ALLAKHVERDOV AND MARTIN ENSERINK

 

[Kim99]

Animated Bird Flu Map

From another thread~Please click on this!

http://photos21.flickr.com/30702564_43c4810428_o.gif

 

[Claudia]

H5N1 Bird Flu In Europe?

Recombinomics Commentary
August 2, 2005


Avian flu is approaching the Sverdlov area [Yekaterinburg]. Dangerous virus already pronik on territory Ural Federation Oblast. This week began to behave communications about discovering of infected birds in Tyumen and Kurganskoi areas.

The above machine translation suggests H5N1 may have already entered Europe. Yekaterinburg is in the Ural Mountains about 50 miles from the Kurgan Region. If infected birds were in the Kurgan Region when the Russian media report was written, those birds should have already reached the Ural Mountains. The Kurgan region is southwest of the Tyumen region and would mark the furthest reported point to the west for the migration from Chany Lake in the Novosibirsk area

Russia just announced a quarantine of all poultry, further supporting the level of concern. Regardless of whether H5N1 enters Europe today or in the next few days, it is likely to run though the continent and inflict considerable economic and psychological damage.

Since the migration has not started for most of the waterfowl in Qinghai and Chany Lakes regions, it seems likely that the rapid spread of H5N1 across Russia will be reported throughout Asia and beyond.


http://www.recombinomics.com/News/08020509/H5N1_Europe.html

I fear this may well be the most accurate assessment of the current situation available. As was pointed out not long ago, I think "we're screwed".

 

[Martin]

UPDATE: Quarantine imposed on all poultry farms in Russia
21:53 | 02/ 08/ 2005



MOSCOW, August 2 (RIA Novosti) - A quarantine has been introduced at all poultry farms in Russia after the bird flu virus was discovered in the Novosibirsk region (Siberia), the Agriculture Ministry said.

According to the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Supervision, research shows the bird disease was caused by the H5N1 virus and preliminarily spread by migrant birds from South East Asia. The bird flu was discovered in 14 settlements in five districts of the Novosibirsk region, in a village of the Altai Territory (southern Siberia), and in a village of the Tyumen region (West Siberia).

Information is being verified in other regions where bird deaths have been reported.

The incineration of diseased birds and of birds that may have come in contact with them in a number of villages suspected of bird flu outbreaks allowed the virus to be localized.

The Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Supervision is doing everything possible to control and eliminate the areas of infection and is taking sanitary measures, including instructing the population on rules of sanitation for poultry. Experts have been assigned to the Novosibirsk and Tyumen regions and the Altai Territory to assist in conducting epidemic countermeasures.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20050802/41078180.html

 

[Martin]

Russia to Give Bird Flu Shots to Troops Participating in Chinese War Games
Created: 02.08.2005 16:09 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:37 MSK, 10 hours 32 minutes ago


MosNews


Russian troops taking part in Russian-Chinese war games will receive bird flu shots.

Deputy commander of the Russian Land Forces, Vladimir Moltenskoi, was quoted by RIA-Novosti as saying Russia fears some troops may contract certain infections, bird flu in particular.

All the Russian troops will also receive a special cotton uniform with short sleeves and caps with extended peaks due to the high air temperatures on the Shandong peninsula where the war games will take place later in August.

Russia’s Defense Ministry has also provided several other measures for sanitary and medical care for the Russian participants of the war games. In particular, “the cooks and their assistants will be Russian and will cook for our troops,” Moltenskoi said.

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/08/02/birdflutroops.shtml

 

[Martin]

Bird flu may cost Russian poultry farmers $1 bln
14:10 | 02/ 08/ 2005



MOSCOW, August 2 (RIA Novosti)-The zone of the chicken flu outbreak in Russia is expanding: the virus has been found in the Altai territory and the Omsk region in the south of Western Siberia, a leading business daily reported Tuesday.

Kommersant wrote that poultry farmers had calculated that if bird flu affected poultry farms, their losses might reach $1 billion.

Dmitry Rylko, director of the Institute of the Agrarian Market Situation, said: "There will be a catastrophe if the virus spreads to Tyumen (north of Western Siberia), Omsk and further, to European Russia," where the country's largest poultry farms are situated.

Experts warn that bird flu may spread to European Russia with chicken egg supplies, up to 50% of which are exported from Tyumen and Krasnoyarsk (Eastern Siberia). If bird flu spreads to such regions as the Leningrad or Moscow regions, virtually every poultry farms will have to be closed.

Market players say that if chicken flu affects poultry farms, their losses may exceed the investments made in the industry over the past five years, which, according to the Russian Poultry Farmers Union, have reached to $800-900 million.

The measures taken by poultry farms to ensure that their products are not contaminated - additional disinfecting and the use of disposable packing for egg transportation - has put the prices of these products by more than 10%.

"Now all producers have to insure their poultry, which will raise the cost of poultry meat production by an average of 3-5%," said Dmitry Aveltsov Stavropolsky, the financial director of the Stravropol Broiler company.

A poultry farm spokesman speaking on the condition of anonymity said: "While we will be resuming production, Brazilian and American chicken legs will again take our place on the market and it will take much more effort and money to force them out of the market for the second time."

According to the paper, market players do not expect a sudden rise in retail prices for chicken meat and eggs. However, in the opinion of Ilya Kunkov, chairman of the board of directors of the Sinyavinskaya poultry farm, "they will probably increase in fall and winter."


http://en.rian.ru/business/20050802/41074347.html

 

[Kim99]

Russia to Give Bird Flu Shots to Troops Participating in Chinese War Games
Created: 02.08.2005 16:09 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:37 MSK, 10 hours 32 minutes ago


MosNews


Russian troops taking part in Russian-Chinese war games will receive bird flu shots.

Deputy commander of the Russian Land Forces, Vladimir Moltenskoi, was quoted by RIA-Novosti as saying Russia fears some troops may contract certain infections, bird flu in particular.

All the Russian troops will also receive a special cotton uniform with short sleeves and caps with extended peaks due to the high air temperatures on the Shandong peninsula where the war games will take place later in August.

Russia’s Defense Ministry has also provided several other measures for sanitary and medical care for the Russian participants of the war games. In particular, “the cooks and their assistants will be Russian and will cook for our troops,” Moltenskoi said.

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/08/02/birdflutroops.shtml

Very interesting, considering China has not even admitted a bird flu problem.

 

[Housecarl]

Ok, I just got finished listening to a live web simocast of WABC's John Batchelor Show with John Loftus being interviewed. He's saying that wht PRC has basically put a quarantine on the effected area and are jsut going to let the infection burn itself out killing whomever it does. Loftus also made the statement that a bunch of researchers and doctors involved with this have either been arrested or placed in a contained area to suppress information on the outbreak.

Apparently this is alledged to have started with the consumption of ill/dead wild waterfowl/ducks in the area by the population. This was not called flu by Loftus, it was called a strain of Ebola. I know that I haven't followed this apparnently close enough because I thought that this and the pig outbreak were either related or were being misidentified due to obstructions by the PRC. If this is Ebola, I came across a story from 2000 in the People's Daily http://english.people.com.cn/english/200010/26/eng20001026_53621.html, that stated that the PRC was donating money, a paultry $30,000 US, to help Uganda with an outbreak there.

I have seen a couple of posting asking if this was an accidental release. Whether it is or not, if this is in the migratory bird population, it's going to follow the same spread pattern that West Nile has, which means it is about to get really bad.

 

[libtoken]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L03365915.htmBird

flu could spread to European Russia - ministry
03 Aug 2005 09:34:52 GMT

By Aleksandras Budrys

MOSCOW, Aug 3 (Reuters) - A strain of the bird flu virus dangerous to humans found in Siberia may spread to the heavily populated European part of Russia, where the main poultry farms are located, the Emergencies Ministry said on Wednesday.

"In autumn, some wild birds migrate from the northern part of Siberia to the Caspian and Black Sea regions," a ministry statement said.

"Risks of epidemic outbreaks in the industrial poultry breeding sector therefore increase and losses in zones of infection may be as high as 75 to 100 percent of the poultry population. Human infection, especially among workers at poultry farms, cannot be ruled out."

The Agriculture Ministry said in a statement late on Tuesday that all poultry farms in Russia have adopted a regime aimed at protecting them from the virus.

Russia consumes over 2 million tonnes of poultry meat a year and imports more than half of it -- mainly from the United States, Brazil and the European Union.

Bird flu comes in different strains, such as H5 and H7, which have nine different subtypes. The H5N1 subtype is highly pathogenic and can be passed from birds to humans, although there have been no cases of human to human transmission.

More than 50 people have died in Asia from H5N1 since late 2003, raising fears it could mutate and trigger a global epidemic. The H5N1 strain has so far been officially confirmed in three Siberian regions of Novosibirsk, Altai and Tyumen.

SLAUGHTERING BIRDS

Tests have not revealed presence of the virus in another Siberian region, Omsk, where 350 head of domestic poultry and 123 wild birds died, the ministry said.

On Tuesday Novosibirsk began slaughtering birds in 13 locations where the virus had been discovered, a spokesman for the regional administration said on Wednesday.

"Slaughtered poultry from 68 households was put in plastic bags together with disinfectant and incinerated in specially prepared pits located at a distance from settlements," he said.

The spokesman said the slaughtering may be finished in a week to 10 days.

The ministry said the virus had so far killed 2,707 domestic birds in the Novosibirsk region and another 300 in Altai, where no new deaths among poultry were registered on Tuesday.

"The situation has stabilised in the Tyumen region. Around 100 birds had died at small private farms so far and no new cases have been registered in the last 24 hours," Sergey Palevich, deputy head of the Tyumen veterinary inspectorate, told Reuters.

So far no cases of humans being infected with bird flu had been registered.

 

[libtoken]

http://www.tass.ru/eng/level2.html?NewsID=2283438&PageNum=0
Bird flu threatens Maritime territory, Russian authorities say

03.08.2005, 06.37

VLADIVOSTOK, August 3 (Itar-Tass) - The commission on preventing and eliminating emergency situations and ensuring fire safety under the administration of Russia's Maritime territory announced the region on Wednesday a zone threatened by bird flu.

The decision was made because of the cases of infection among poultry, caused by the bird flu virus in Siberian regions and the proximity to southeast Asia, where the incidence of bird flu has been on the rise.

Veterinary services in municipal districts have been put on alert. The presence of veterinary authorities is mandatory during the loading or unloading of animals, meat, and fodder on the far eastern railroad.

Exhibitions of poultry or trade in live poultry is prohibited across the whole Maritime territory. An exception was made for pet-shops which have permits of veterinary services.

Just two terminals in the region will be allowed to handle cargoes of meat and animals. It will ensure quality control of potentially dangerous shipments arriving in the Maritime territory, a regional administration official said.

Far eastern authorities also stepped up measures to prevent the spread of the infection at poultry farms, which include regular disinfection procedures and checks of all domestic poultry.

Fowl and birds of passage will be checked for bird flu virus, too, after selective shooting.

 

[Kim99]

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200508/03/eng20050803_200043.html

English People's Daily Online
UPDATED: 11:30, August 03,

70 percent of waterfowls in southern Vietnam positive to bird flu virus


Up to 70 percent of waterfowls in Vietnam's southern Mekong delta have been tested positive to bird flu virus strain H5N1, local newspaper Labor reported Wednesday.

Local veterinary agencies culled 4,620 poultry, mainly ducks and chickens, after they detected small outbreaks of bird flu in capital city Hanoi and the three southern localities of Can Tho, Ben Tre and Dong Thap last month, the country's National Steering Committee on Anti-Bird Flu was quoted as saying in the report.

To minimize possible new outbreaks, Vietnam is vaccinating chickens and ducks in northern Nam Dinh province and southern Tien Giang province against bird flu viruses, including H5N1, on a trial basis. It will vaccinate some 43 million poultry, including chickens, ducks, geese and doves within several months starting in early August.

On Tuesday, deputy head of Vietnam's Preventive Medicine Department under the Health Ministry, Nguyen Van Binh, said the country detected three human cases of bird flu infection last month. A 26-year-old woman from southern Ho Chi Minh City and a 24- year-old man from southern Tra Vinh province have died of the disease, while a 49-year-old woman from northern Ha Tay province has remained hospitalized.

The department, in mid-July, confirmed that a total of 60 local people from 23 localities had been infected with bird flu since late December 2004, of whom 19 died.

The ministry is the sole agency in charge of announcing the official number of human cases of bird flu infections in Vietnam.

Source: Xinhua

 

[Kim99]

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/08020502/H5N1_Qinghai_Villages_Razed.html

Commentary
.
Three Villages Razed In Qinghai After H5N1 Bird Flu Riots?

Recombinomics Commentary
August 2, 2005

According to the Qinghai Bulletin Board Service (BBS), the state of emergency imposed on the farming community and its surroundings in the Northwestern Qinghai City / Town of Yushu was lifted on the night of 28th July.

When natives living further from the area made a trip to the farming community, they discovered that it had "vanished" together with 3 of its surrounding villages. Only some ruins, blocks from collapsed walls, remained. Apparently, the farms and villages had been flattened and there were signs that they had been razed.

It is believed that some inhabitants from those 3 villages were workers in the farm. Around 200 people were estimated to have inhabited or worked in those 3 villages and the farm. There whereabouts are, as yet, unknown.The above translation of a boxun report suggest that three villages were razed in response to unrest linked to a forced bird flu quarantine in Yushu in northwestern Qinghai in China. China has imposed news blackouts and arrested reporters in the past, so verifiable news from the area is difficult to obtain.

News outside of China however, points toward a virulent strain of H5N1 linked to Qinghai Lake has killed ducks and geese in several areas of southern Siberia in Russia as well as the adjacent region in Kazakhstan. There are now reports of five suspected cases of H5N1 in Kazakhstan linked to infected geese, suggesting many similar cases would be possible in Qingahi and Xinjiang provinces in China, where there have been three outbreaks linked to migratory birds and all involved dead geese.

Although it is possible that the ability to infect humans has been recently acquired, boxun reports in May and June described human fatalities in the Qinghai Lake region. In addition, several strains of H5N1 capable of infecting humans were also described.

The news blackout in China as well as additional suspect cases in neighboring Sichuan province which may be spreading further south to Yunnan province has suggested that a raging H5N1 pandemic in China is being covered-up.

 

[Martin]

Bird flu might spread out of Siberia

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Wednesday, August 3, 2005 (Moscow):


Avian flu could spread to European Russia when migratory birds fly southwards during autumn, the Emergency Ministry has said.

The birds are thought to have brought the virus to Siberia. Russia's first recorded outbreak of Bird Flu has killed more than 2,700 fowl in the west of Siberia.

It has spread to a handful of regions east of the Ural Mountains, which divide the European and Asian parts of the country.

Authorities have identified the virus as the H5N1 strain, which can fatally infect humans, but no human cases have been reported.

In a statement on its website, the ministry said there was "growing danger" that bird flu could spread to European Russia when migratory birds move to the Caspian and Black Sea regions in autumn. (AP)

http://www.ndtv.com/template/templa...ug=Bird+flu+fears+in+Russia&id=76925&callid=1

 

[Martin]

Vietnam Begins Mass Vaccination of Poultry

By MARGIE MASON
AP Medical Writer
Posted August 3 2005, 5:22 AM EDT


HANOI, Vietnam -- Vietnam this week began administering the first of about 20 million shots to the nation's poultry stock in the largest-scale bird flu vaccination program ever conducted here.

Officials will have to overcome considerable logistical hurdles for the program to be a success: The vaccine must be kept cool, and millions of chickens running freely must be caught by hand twice -- once for the initial injection and three to four weeks later for booster shots.











At first, To Long Thanh, vice director at the National Center for Veterinary Diagnosis, wasn't sure the country could accomplish that. But over the past several months, he's become convinced the country is doing the right thing by moving forward with the pilot program to vaccinate millions of chickens and ducks in two provinces.

Thanh said if all goes well, the program could be expanded to nearly all provinces by year's end.

Officials and volunteers on Saturday began giving about 91,000 injections in parts of Tien Giang province and will start vaccinating another 2.9 million birds on Monday. Nam Dinh province was set to begin its trial vaccinations Thursday and will immunize 4.2 million birds next week.

Of all the countries in Asia, Vietnam has been the hardest hit by avian influenza. The virus has killed 41 people here. Twelve have died in Thailand, four in Cambodia and three in Indonesia.

Since late 2003, about 45 million birds have died or been slaughtered in Vietnam. The losses have devastated farmers, and the government has not been able to fully compensate them.

"The first thing is that in Vietnam and in some Southeast Asian countries, the culling shows it is not stamping it out," Thanh said, sitting among stacks of bird flu books and reports in his small Hanoi office. "That means that you can cull or kill or destroy a lot of poultry, but it cannot eliminate or reduce the pathogenic virus."

International health officials fear the virus could eventually begin spreading from person to person, killing millions worldwide. So far, most human infections have been traced back to contact with birds.

The World Health Organization said it was pleased with Vietnam's decision to vaccinate, but it warned that healthy birds can still carry the virus.

"The vaccination program will need to be accompanied by an intensive surveillance program so that we can continue to monitor the distribution and evolution of the virus once the beacon of large-scale poultry deaths has been switched off," said WHO epidemiologist Peter Horby in Hanoi.

The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization also applauded the action.

"It's a learning curve for Vietnam. I think it's wise that they're doing two pilot areas to get lessons from that experience before they go wider," said Juan Lubroth, an animal health official with the FAO in Rome. "I think a vaccine is a tool, if applied correctly, will be very, very successful."

The Vietnamese government has earmarked about $37 million for some 400 million doses of the vaccine to be used nationally.

It will use two Chinese vaccines for the pilot program -- an H5N2 vaccine for chickens and an H5N1 vaccine for ducks, Thanh said. Earlier this year, similar vaccines were tested on a smaller number of poultry in Vietnam. The results have not been fully analyzed, but he said they show promise.

Avian influenza vaccines also have been used in China, Indonesia, Pakistan and Mexico, Lubroth said.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/na...h11aug03,0,738496.story?coll=sns-ap-tophealth

 

[Gayla]

Plan to Combat Bird Flu Outbreak Theorized

By JOSEPH B.VERRENGIA, AP Science Writer

Public health scientists say millions of human deaths in an avian flu outbreak in Southeast Asia could be prevented if authorities rapidly impose quarantines and travel restrictions and widely distribute antiviral medications.

To work, they said such an emergency plan must be enacted within two days and the spread of the virus limited to a few dozen cases, even though communications in much of the region are rudimentary and entire economies and transportation networks could be disrupted.

"Containment is challenging," said Neil Ferguson of Imperial College in London and lead author of one of a pair of studies examining avian flu control measures. "We just can't cherry-pick the more easily implemented solutions."

Since 2002, the virus has swept through poultry populations, killing at least 60 people, most of whom were farmers and poultry workers in Thailand and Vietnam who contracted the illness directly from infected birds.

The virus has been carried as far north as western Siberia by migrating wild birds, which have infected poultry farms there. Authorities have killed millions of birds to stem its spread.

There are very few cases of the H5N1 influenza virus spreading from person-to-person. But the H5N1 virus is so lethal that a global pandemic could spread quickly and agencies are beginning to develop emergency plans.

According to some predictions, the virus could spread unchecked once as few as 40 people are infected in an untreated community.

Some scientists predict the containment effort probably would be concentrated in poor, hard-to-reach villages in Thailand, Vietnam and other countries. That's where most of the region's poultry stocks are located, which serve as a reservoir for the virus.

Others predict it will erupt in an urban setting because flu spreads so quickly and that's where poultry markets and distribution centers are located.

Either way, as many as 3 million doses of antiviral drugs like Tamiflu could be needed, researchers said.

And, according to a second analysis by researchers in the United States, early intervention is so essential that even prevaccination with a poorly effective vaccine would buy precious time for scientists looking for ways to keep the new flu strain out of southeast Asia's surging cities — and beyond.

Public health officials said the British and U.S. studies, based on computer simulations, offer good advice. However, a real outbreak probably would be harder to contain because so many unknown factors remain. They include how contagious the virus will be, how severely ill people get and who is at greatest risk.

"We need to look at these models in a balanced manner," said Margaret Chan, director of infectious disease surveillance and response at the World Health Organization.

Plus, the models used in both studies assume that drugs would work against the virus.

"It's possible that we end up with a strain that doesn't respond to the type of drug stockpiled," she said.

In the British study, which appears in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, Ferguson's team simulated an outbreak in rural Thailand. Researchers said that to limit the outbreak to 200 cases, the problem would have to be recognized when as few as 30 people were infected. Antiviral drugs would need to be distributed to 20,000 people living in the surrounding area, they said.

Ferguson recommends stockpiling 3 million doses of antiviral, while also closing schools, airports, workplaces and other venues.

In a second paper appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science, Ira Longini of Emory University and others report that vaccinating half of an urban population in a city would limit the infection rate to one case for every 1,000 people within two weeks. Currently there is no effective vaccine against H5N1.

Starting with a single infection, Longini simulated the spread of the virus in a population of 500,000 in which individuals mixed in settings such as households, neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, a hospital, markets and a temple.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050803...G8FZJ2s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3czJjNGZoBHNlYwM3NTE-

 

[Martin]

Epidemic may spread to Russian heartlands
From Jeremy Page in Moscow



A STRAIN of bird flu that can be fatal in human beings could spread to the heavily populated European part of Russia from Siberia, Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said yesterday.



The H5N1 strain of avian flu had already spread to another part of western Siberia, but no human infections had been registered in Russia, officials said.

“In autumn, some wild birds migrate from the northern part of Siberia to the Caspian and Black Sea regions,” the Emergencies Ministry said.

“Risks of outbreaks in the industrial poultry-breeding sector therefore increase and losses in zones of infection may be as high as 100 per cent.” It added: “Human infection, especially among workers at poultry farms, cannot be ruled out.”

Last week Russia reported its first outbreak of H5N1, which has killed 60 people across Asia, in the Novosibirsk region of western Siberia, about 1,750 miles (2,816km) east of Moscow.

It has since spread to the neighbouring regions of Altai and Tyumen — both east of the Ural Mountains that divide Russia’s European and Asian parts — and killed more than 2,800 birds. Russia’s chief epidemiologist said last week that authorities believe that the virus was brought to Siberia by wild ducks from South-East Asia. They say the infected birds could come into contact with breeds that migrate to Europe and North America.

Russian health officials began slaughtering some 65,000 birds this week in the 13 areas where the virus was found.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1720182,00.html

 

[libtoken]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L03582512.htm

Bird flu may reach Europe but threat limited
04 Aug 2005 10:35:49 GMT
By David Evans

PARIS, Aug 4 (Reuters) - The discovery of bird flu in Siberia means migratory wildfowl may now carry the deadly virus to Europe, but the region is well set to limit the threat, the world animal health body said on Thursday.

Authorities in Siberia say they have detected the same H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus that has swept large parts of Asia, killing more than 50 people in the region, mostly in Vietnam.

The Paris-based OIE, which draws up global animal health guidelines, has been notified of the presence of an H5 type virus in Siberia by the Russian authorities.

Experts believe migratory wild birds such as geese and ducks may have carried the virus from infected Asian countries to Siberia.

Now it could be Europe's turn.

"The disease probably arrived in Siberia from Asia through wild birds and there's no doubt that birds from there fly to Europe," OIE Director-General Bernard Vallat told Reuters.

H5N1 is a particularly virulent strain of avian influenza, of which there are many types. It has led to the death of 140 million birds in Asia at a cost running to billions of dollars.

But farm structures are far different in Europe.

"It's not definite that even if infected birds arrived in Europe that they would pass the virus onto farm animals, the probability of contact is much less than in Asia," Vallat said.

"Farms here are enclosed and separated from one another."

In Asia, small backyard farms and unregulated local markets have allowed the disease to take hold as well as maximising the contact between people and infected birds.

Russian officials said there was a strong chance that the virus in Siberia would soon spread to the European part of Russia, where the country's poultry industry was concentrated.

Thay are also in contact with authorities in neighbouring Kazakhstan, where poultry deaths were recorded last month.

CONTROLS TIGHTENED

Scientists said last month that the discovery of dead birds at Lake Qinghaihu, a protected nature reserve in western China, meant the virus could soon spread outside Asia.

The virus, which affects ducks with little harm but kills chickens, had very rarely been seen to kill wild birds.

The World Health Organization (WHO) fears the virus would kill millions of people worldwide if it mutated and acquired the ability to pass easily from human to human.

A senior Russian veterinary official said the Netherlands and France were potenial destinations for migratory wildfowl.

The Dutch farm ministry played down the threat, saying after a risk assessment that further measures were unnecessary.

The Netherlands experienced a major outbreak of the less dangerous H7N7 bird flu strain in 2003, when 30 million birds were destroyed at a direct cost of more than 150 million euros.

Vallat said that despite the high density of farms in the Netherlands, which increased the risk of the disease spreading, surveillance and eradication plans had been stepped up.

"Since the last outbreak of bird flu, the authorities have taken new measures, they're much more prepared. We have the veterinary structures in place to act very quickly, to cull potentially infected animals and stop the disease," he said.

"We're not too worried about it," he added.

Swiss firm Roche said this week it was in talks with the WHO on donating substantial quantities of its anti-bird flu drug Tamiflu to the U.N. agency. And Britain's Acambis Plc said it was developing a potentially breakthrough new shot that could offer permanent protection against all types of flu.

 

[libtoken]

Vietnam vaccinates poultry to fight bird flu
04 Aug 2005 06:27:55 GMT

Source: Reuters

GIAO CHAU COMMUNE, Vietnam, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Vietnam has begun to vaccinate 210 million poultry as part of an all-out effort to eradicate the deadly bird flu virus which has killed 42 people in the country, half of them since December.

The Agriculture Ministry said it would use more than 400 million batches of vaccine imported from China and the Netherlands to inoculate chickens, ducks and quails against the deadly H5N1 virus.

"All efforts are for the health of the people. We will have to take whatever action required, regardless of the cost," Agriculture Minister Cao Duc Phat said this week as he launched the vaccination campaign.

The campaign began in the northern province of Nam Dinh, 90 km (55 miles) south of Hanoi on Thursday, with veterinarians teaching farmers how to administer the vaccine.

"We will make sure that every duck and chicken will be vaccinated," Pham Minh Dao, head of Nam Dinh's Animal Health Department, told Reuters as farmers in Giao Chau commune took their chickens in cages for the free injections.

Other provinces with high risks of infection, most of them in the Mekong Delta rice basket, will vaccinate between September and November, before the arrival of the winter when the deadly virus seems to thrive best.

CONTROLLABLE

The virus has killed at least 61 people in Asia since it arrived in late 2003 -- nearly all of whom contracted it from infected fowl -- and experts have feared ever since it would mutate into a form which could pass easily between people, which it cannot now.

If it did mutate into such a form, the world would face a pandemic in which millions of people could die and experts have been trying to figure out how to minimise the impact.

Scientists who used computer models to stimulate an outbreak of a mutated strain said this week it could be done if the right strategies were put in place and there was a mobile stockpile of anti-flu drugs.

The H5N1 virus appears to be able to hide in healthy-looking ducks, thus putting other birds and people at risk in a region where duck farming is widespread, scientists say.

In the Mekong Delta, 70 percent of ducks carry the deadly virus, state media quoted animal health officials as telling a bird flu conference in Hanoi this week.

Vietnamese officials say tests show ducks in the delta live with the H5 component but the birds show no symptoms, making it difficult to detect the disease.

The H5N1 virus killed two more Vietnamese last week, taking the country's toll to 42. It has also killed 12 Thais, four Cambodians and three Indonesians.

More than 140 million chickens have been slaughtered in the region in a bid to halt the disease, but experts say it is now endemic in several countries, including Vietnam.

 

[libtoken]

Kazakhs unsure if local bird flu threatens humans
04 Aug 2005 11:33:24 GMT

By Raushan Nurshayeva

ASTANA, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan confirmed on Thursday an outbreak of bird flu in the north of the country but said scientists needed more time to discover whether the virus was dangerous to humans.

Some 400 geese died at a poultry farm in the village of Golubovka in the Pavlodar region in late July. Veterinary officials say the virus is avian influenza, but have yet to define the exact type.

"Results of the tests being carried out are due by August 10 and then it will be clear if it is dangerous to humans or not," Kasym Mukanov, deputy head of the Agriculture Ministry's veterinary department, told a news conference.

"So far we have not detected any cases of the disease transmitted to humans in this village," he said. Foreign scientists including some from Israel were assisting in testing the virus.

Across the border in Russia, a quarantine has been imposed in the Novosibirsk region after an outbreak of bird flu was found to be of the H5N1 type dangerous to humans.

Avian influenza is split into strains such as H5 and H7, which in turn have nine different sub-groups.

H5N1 is highly pathogenic and can be passed from birds to humans, although there have been no known cases of human to human transmission.

The Kazakh strain has been defined as H5 but the sub-type is not known.

In Moscow, the emergencies ministry said Russia had culled 4,884 head of domestic poultry in Siberian regions neighbouring Kazakhstan in the last few days to prevent the virus spreading.

Kazakhstan imports insignificant amounts of poultry from Russia. The United States is the main supplier of poultry, mainly chicken.

Mukanov said ta total of 2,350 geese and 450 ducks had been destroyed to contain the spread of bird flu in Kazakhstan. No outbreaks of the disease had been reported in other regions of the vast Central Asian nation.

A 20-year-old man from Golubovka in hospital with symptoms similar to those of bird flu was in fact suffering from advanced pneumonia, he said. (Additional reporting by Aleksandras Budrys in Moscow)

 

[Kim99]

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-08/04/content_3310173.htm

Bird flu case suspected in east Japan

www.chinaview.cn 2005-08-04 20:13:31

TOKYO, Aug. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- A case of bird flu was suspected in east Japan's Fukushima Prefecture, Nihon Keizai reported Thursday.

According to the Japanese economic daily, the prefecture announced Wednesday that the blood serum of some chickens in a local hennery tested positive for a bird flu virus and the National Institute of Animal Health in Ibaraki Prefecture is now conducting confirmation tests.

The Fukushima prefectural government is now taking emergency efforts to sterilize the hennery facility and restrict transporting chickens in affected area to other places, the newspapers said.

Japan reported an outbreak of bird flu, the first in the country since 1925, in Yamaguchi Prefecture last December. Enditem

 

[Kim99]

http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/1420/


***Human-to-Human Bird Flu Pandemic Expected 'in Very Near Future'
03 August, 2005 18:39 GMT
a d v e r t i s e m e n t



The bird flu virus 'is capable of living and reproducing itself in many different forms, and this is why scientists are certain that it will be aggressive.'
A weapon for combating the bird flu virus must be developed as soon as possible in order to avoid a possible pandemic, the vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences Rem Petrov, a specialist in the area of theoretical and applied immunology, told ITAR-TASS today.
According to the scientist, "so far there have been no cases of the virus being transmitted from person to person. However, we already know that it can be transmitted from birds to pigs."

Could Kill Tens of Millions

"According to research conducted by Russian scientists, in the very near future bird flu will start to be transmitted from human to human -- and, in this case, a pandemic will occur," Petrov stressed.

He said that according to initial predictions, a bird flu pandemic may begin as early as this year or next near.

"The whole world must be on alert," the scientist said, adding that "all services must prepare for this already very real threat.

"The danger is really very great," the scientist continued. "This virus is capable of living and reproducing itself in many different forms and this is why scientists are certain that it will be aggressive."

According to his information, a pandemic could kill tens of millions of people worldwide.

Vaccine Development Underway

At present, Petrov said, it is important to eradicate the source of infection in time and prevent the virus from spreading further. If people become infected with bird flu they must be immediately isolated and the local area quarantined.

ITAR-TASS reported Petrov as saying that a vaccine against bird flu may be ready by next year, and Russian research in this area is on a par with that in Europe and the USA.

"A real competitive battle will begin soon, and Russia's chances of winning are not bad," he said, adding that "however, under the circumstances the most important thing is to create a vaccine as soon as possible and not compete among ourselves."***

 

[Martin]

04/08/05 - Health section

Britain warned over bird flu pandemic

Britain would be "overwhelmed" if a deadly strain of pandemic bird flu reached its shores, a leading expert warned today.

Once the virus spread as far as the UK it would be impossible to contain, said Professor Neil Ferguson.

The only chance of averting a global disaster costing many millions of lives would be to snuff out the strain rapidly at its point of origin in south-east Asia.

The H5N1 avian flu strain, which infects poultry, has already killed more than 50 people in the region.

Scientists and public health experts are bracing themselves for the terrifying consequences of the virus mutating into a form that can pass from one person to another.

The result could be a wildfire of infection spreading rapidly across the globe and leaving a trail of death in its wake.

The virus is so lethal it could kill even more people than the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which claimed between 20 and 40 million lives.

Computer simulations have now shown that even if the strain became transmissible between humans it could be halted in time - but only with swift, co-ordinated international action.

The new deadly version of the virus would have to be identified while confined to only about 30 people, Prof Ferguson's team found.

Antiviral drugs would have to be distributed rapidly to the 20,000 individuals nearest those infected, and the outbreak limited to fewer than 200 cases.

Failure to take action swiftly enough would result in catastrophe, say scientists. If the virus got as far as Britain, it would effectively be too late.

Prof Ferguson said: "What can we do if it hits our shores? We couldn't stop it. There would be a constant number of new cases and we would be overwhelmed very rapidly."

Urgent research was under way to see to what extent deaths could be prevented in the UK, he said.

Two separate teams of scientists investigated the worst case scenario for bird flu and came to similar conclusions. Both models focused on Thailand, one of the places at highest risk from 'bird flu.

Prof Ferguson's group found that an international stockpile of three million courses of antiviral treatment would be enough to contain an outbreak. But it would mean being able to deploy the drug anywhere at very short notice.

Simulations

The other team, led by Dr Ira Longini, from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States, simulated a sub-population of 500,000 in which individuals mixed in a variety of settings, including households, schools, workplaces and a hospital.

Social meeting places such as markets, shops and temples were also included. The researchers found that targeted use of antiviral drugs could contain an outbreak if action was taken within 21 days.

Dr Longini's team calculated a reproductive number for the virus of about 1.6. This represents the average number of people within a population a single person with the disease is able to infect.

With a moderate reproductive number of this size, an outbreak could be contained with 100,000 courses of antiviral treatment, said Dr Longini.

Prof Ferguson's team worked out a slightly higher reproductive number of 1.8. Even such a tiny increase in the reproductive number meant far more treatment courses were needed.

Dr Longini said: "Our findings indicate that we have reason to be somewhat hopeful. If - or, more likely, when - an outbreak occurs in humans, there is a chance of containing it and preventing a pandemic. However, it will require a serious effort, with major planning and co-ordination, and there is no guarantee of success."

Rapid spread

The two research papers appear in the latest issues of the journals Nature and Science. A news briefing in London heard that if a pandemic strain emerged and nothing was done, it would cross international boundaries in just two to three months.

In just one year, half the world's population - more than three billion people - would be infected. There have been 108 cases of H5N1 flu and 54 deaths recorded so far among people exposed to poultry in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.

Recently an outbreak of the same strain was detected in wild migratory geese at Qinghai Lake in western China - the first confirmation that the virus can pass between wild birds.

Experts are worried that migrating birds might spread the virus to densely populated regions of southern Asia, or even Europe.

Dr Peter Aldhous, Nature journal's chief news and features editor, who recently spent 10 days researching avian flu in Vietnam, said: "What these new papers do is indicate for the first time that it is theoretically possible to contain a pandemic strain of influenza at its point of origin.

"That's very significant, because it could save millions of lives and billions of pounds." It was important for the World Health Organisation and other public health bodies to look very carefully at the findings, he said.

But he warned that simply telling Asian countries what to do would be counterproductive. "Vietnamese authorities in particular are deeply suspicious of foreigners interfering in their affairs," said Dr Aldhous.

Currently the antiviral drug Tamiflu, made by Swiss-based pharmaceutical company Roche, stands the best chance of curbing pandemic bird flu. It is effective against multiple strains of influenza and can also be used as a preventative treatment.

Prof Ferguson said he understood Roche was prepared to make free donations of Tamiflu to the World Health Organisation to help meet the threat.

In talks

A spokeswoman for Roche said: "We are in discussions with the WHO but details are still being finalised."

She said Roche had increased production of Tamiflu eight-fold since 2003. However, details of its production capability were confidential.

According to New Scientist magazine, the WHO currently has 120,000 courses of Tamiflu treatment.

A Department of Health spokesman said: "We are aware of this research. The World Health Organisation is the international agency with responsibility for co-ordinating the international response to a potential or actual influenza pandemic.

"The UK works closely with the WHO, and has donated £500,000 to WHO to support surveillance in SE Asia - recognising that key to managing such an event is to identify it at the earliest opportunity.

"The WHO has indicated its intention to build up an international stockpile in line with the quantities of antivirals scientists predict would be needed to control the initial outbreak in the way described."


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/text/print.html?in_article_id=358143&in_page_id=1774

 

[libtoken]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L05004828.htm

Bird flu may be spreading in Kazakhstan, Russia
05 Aug 2005 10:48:31 GMT
By Dmitry Solovyov and Aleksandras Budrys

ALMATY/MOSCOW, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Bird flu detected in northern Kazakhstan and in three Russian regions may be spreading further, officials said on Friday, but measures were being taken to curb the outbreak.

Senior Kazakh veterinary officials confirmed on Thursday bird flu had broken out in the Pavlodar region bordering Russia's quarantined region of Novosibirsk, where the virus has been found to be of the H5N1 type dangerous to humans.

Health officials fear H5N1 circulating in Asia could mutate into a lethal strain that could rival or exceed the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 20-40 million people worldwide at the end of World War One.

It was premature to say whether the bird flu in Pavlodar was dangerous to humans, officials said.

A disease with similar symptoms is already killing birds in neighbouring regions. Some 364 hens have died in a village in the eastern Kazakh region, while 37 wild ducks have been found dead at the Vinogradovka lake in the Akmola region, the Kazakh Emergencies Ministry said on its official Web site www.emer.kz.

It said sanitary and veterinary controls were being heightened to contain the spread of the disease, while in Akmola 70 hens and 30 ducks living on private farms that may have been in contact with wild ducks had been destroyed.

ANOTHER SIBERIAN REGION?

In Russia, a local official said the Siberian region of Omsk may have joined the three regions where bird flu has been officially confirmed. Federal veterinary authorities were not immediately available to confirm that.

The Omsk administration Web site www.omskportal.ru quoted acting governor Natalya Frolova saying the bird flu virus had been found in dead wildfowl in the Sargatsky district.

Russia has culled over 10,000 domestic birds in the last few days to prevent the virus spreading, the Russian emergencies ministry said on Friday.

It said in a statement that no new deaths had occurred among wildfowl and domestic poultry on Thursday in the Altai, Tyumen and Omsk regions. In the Novosibirsk region, 139 birds were found dead.

The statement said the virus found in the Novosibirsk region was of the H5N1 subtype, which is dangerous to humans. It did not specify the virus in the Altai, Tyumen and Omsk regions.

 

[libtoken]

German states ban Russian, Kazakh chicken imports
05 Aug 2005 11:56:44 GMT

Source: Reuters

Background CRISIS PROFILE: Death and displacement in Chechnya


MORE
BERLIN, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Three German states have banned imports of live chickens and some poultry products from Russia and Kazakhstan to curb the spread of bird flu from Asia, following guidance from the country's agriculture ministry.

"Rheinland-Palatinate already took action at the beginning of this week to ban the import of animals and products that can transmit bird flu," Rheinland-Palatinate environment ministry said in a statement on Friday.

The states of Hesse -- home to Frankfurt airport -- and Bavaria have imposed similar restrictions.

A spokeswoman for Germany's agriculture ministry said the 16 states had sole responsibility for banning imports, but it had issued guidance advising them to take precautions.

In its statement, Rheinland-Palatinate said it was acting "in advance of the publication of a corresponding European Union regulation".

Senior Kazakh veterinary officials confirmed on Thursday bird flu had broken out in the Pavlodar region bordering Russia's quarantined region of Novosibirsk, where the virus has been found to be of the H5N1 type dangerous to humans.

Health officials fear H5N1 circulating in Asia could mutate into a lethal strain that could rival or exceed the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 20-40 million people worldwide at the end of World War One.

Germany's states recently ordered a stock pile of anti-viral drugs as part of a national anti-flu pandemic plan, including GlaxoSmithKline Plc's <GSK.L> Relenza.

 

[Kim99]

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/thesunherald/news/world/12307316.htm

Russia concedes bird flu will spread into Europe

LOS ANGELES TIMES


MOSCOW - Russian authorities, struggling to contain an outbreak of avian flu that has killed thousands of birds in Siberia, admitted Thursday that a spread of the virus into Europe seems almost inevitable.

"It is quite likely that the flu will creep westward. What else can it do? The infection is picking up momentum," said Viktor Maleyev, deputy director of the Russian Health Ministry's Institute of Epidemiology.

Equally worrying, health officials confirmed the outbreak includes a strain that has been known to affect humans, known as H5N1. Scientists fear expansion of the virus' geography increases the chances of a major outbreak within the human population.

While there have been isolated cases of avian flu around the world, including in the United States, the most dangerous strain of the virus until now has been concentrated largely in Asia, with human cases limited to Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia.

Some poultry farms on the west side of the Ural Mountains -- the dividing line between European and Asian Russia --are under precautionary alerts. In Murmansk and in the populous Moscow region, chicken farms are tracking imports of birds and feed.

But authorities said the virus probably will spread along the flyways of migratory waterfowl, which within the next month or two will begin flying out of Siberia toward warmer climes along the Volga River, and eventually the Black Sea and Southern Europe. Large numbers of wild waterfowl have died on Siberian lakes, in addition to the deaths among domestic geese and chickens.

"In autumn, some wild birds migrate from the northern part of Siberia to the Caspian and Black Sea regions," the emergency situations ministry said in a statement.

"Risks of epidemic outbreaks in the industrial poultry breeding sector therefore increases, and losses in zones of infection may be as high as 75 percent to 100 percent of the poultry population. Human infection, especially among workers at poultry farms, cannot be ruled out," the ministry said.

On Thursday, three more districts of the Siberian Altai region reported mass deaths of poultry, and Russian television showed pictures of government workers outfitted in white biological protection suits slaughtering hundreds of other birds at infected farms.

In some towns, citizens set up roadblocks to prevent desperate farmers from evading quarantines and escaping with their flocks.

So great was the fear of human infection that health officials set up quarantine rooms in hospitals and began screening all residents of the affected areas who exhibit signs of a fever. There have been no confirmed human cases in Russia so far.

"Medical personnel will be doing the rounds from house to house," Gennady Onishchenko, chief state epidemiologist, said at a news conference in Novosibirsk. "What is the point of these house to house rounds? To identify people who are sick. That is to say, any temperature is enough to actively monitor that person's health. To find out the nature of that temperature."

While it was reported previously that a man in neighboring Kazakhstan had become infected with avian flu, it was learned this week that the man had pneumonia. Across the world, the virus has claimed 55 human lives, though there have been no documented cases of human-to-human transmission.

Still, that remains a possibility, and a growing one, as long as the virus itself continues to expand its range, scientists say. The most pressing concern is that the virus will acquire the ability to be transmitted between humans--opening the possibility of a dangerous and widespread influenza pandemic.

Maleyev said that while the long migratory patterns of wild birds in Russia carried the possibility of transmission into Europe and, theoretically, into North America, the possible danger also is mitigated by Russia's harsh winters, which provide a much less fertile breeding ground for disease than the warm climates of Asia.

Natasha Yefimova of the Moscow bureau contributed to this report.

 

[Martin]

Flu could infect half world's people in year



An outbreak of flu in rural Southeast Asia could spread around the globe in three months and infect half the world's population within a year, unless strict measures to contain it are introduced, scientists said on Wednesday.

The warning comes from researchers who used computer models to investigate what would happen if the bird flu virus, which is currently rife among poultry in areas of Cambodia, Thailand and Viet Nam, mutated into a form that spread easily among humans.

Scientists believe it is only a matter of time before the virus, known as H5N1, mutates to become more infectious to humans, possibly by swapping genes with the human flu virus.

"This is the event we are all scared might happen at any time," said Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London and the leading author of the study. "We'd be faced with an event worse than the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic."

The avian flu virus has killed more than 50 people in Asia, more than half of those who have been infected. Almost every death was traced back to the person coming into contact with infected poultry in the countryside. The Spanish pandemic of 1918 is believed to have claimed up to 40 million lives worldwide.

Professor Ferguson's team modelled the spread of a mutated bird flu virus among 85 million people living in Thailand and a strip of neighbouring countries. After watching how quickly the virus spread around the globe, they tested various strategies for containing an outbreak. "Until now, the idea of stopping an outbreak hadn't been investigated," he said.

If an outbreak was detected in its infancy, with less than 50 people infected, models show it could be contained by administering antiviral drugs to the 20,000 people closest to those infected, the researchers reported in the journal Nature Thursday. Combined with other measures, such as shutting schools and workplaces, it would take around 60 days to contain the outbreak, with the number of cases totalling no more than around 200.

To deal with the worst case scenario of an bird flu outbreak, the scientists called for an international stockpile of 3 million courses of antiviral drugs to be set up, ready to be deployed anywhere in the world within a few days of an outbreak being detected.

A spokeswoman for Roche, which manufactures the antiviral drug Tamiflu, confirmed that the company is in talks with the World Health Organization about building a stockpile of the drug, but refused to give further details. The WHO already has 120,000 courses of Tamiflu, but with Britain and France each waiting for orders of 15 million courses from Roche, the company will have to decide which takes priority.

Professor Ferguson's research was reported alongside a second study published online Thursday by the US journal Science, which modelled an outbreak of flu among half a million people living in Thailand.

Source: China Daily

http://english.people.com.cn/200508/05/eng20050805_200456.html

 

[Kim99]

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20050805/41097043.html

Bird Flu vaccine to be developed in Russia in 2006

MOSCOW, August 5 (RIA Novosti) - A Bird Flu vaccine will be developed in Russia sometime in 2006, said Rem Petrov, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

"In 2006, we will be able to create a vaccine against bird flu. In Russia, there are several places where the vaccine is being developed, in particular St. Petersburg and Irkutsk," he said.

"This is a rapidly mutating virus. Having appeared among chickens, it has developed the possibility of changing hosts, i.e. infecting pigs and people. There is no vaccine against the virus. If it begins to spread, we could see an epidemic.

"There is no need to panic... We must be prepared for the worst," he said.

Flu is not included in the list of compulsory inoculations in Russia.

"An epidemic cannot be stopped in this way. Two weeks ago we were discussing this problem at the Federation Council, and senators recommended introducing a flu inoculation and tackling the problem on a nationwide level.

"There is a danger of bird flu spreading to other regions of Russia," he said.

 

[Martin]

Europeans warned as bird flu heads west
By Kim Murphy in Moscow
August 6, 2005

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High death rate concerns WHO
Russian authorities, struggling to contain an outbreak of avian flu that has killed thousands of birds in Siberia, have admitted that a spread of the virus into Europe seems inevitable.

"It is quite likely that the flu will creep westward. What else can it do? The infection is picking up momentum," said Viktor Maleyev, deputy director of the Russian Health Ministry's Institute of Epidemiology, on Thursday .

Equally worrying, health officials confirmed the outbreak includes a strain - H5N1 - that has been known to affect humans. Scientists fear expansion of the virus's geography increases the chances of a serious outbreak.

While there have been isolated cases of avian flu around the world, the most dangerous strain of the virus until now has been concentrated largely in Asia, with human cases limited to Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia.

Some poultry farms on the west side of the Ural Mountains - the dividing line between European and Asian Russia - are on alert.

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AdvertisementIn Murmansk and in the populous Moscow region, chicken farms are tracking imports of birds and feed for possible signs of infection.

But authorities said the virus probably will spread along the flight paths of migratory waterfowl, which within the next month or two will begin leaving Siberia and heading towards warmer spots along the Volga River, and eventually the Black Sea and southern Europe. Large numbers of wild waterfowl have died on Siberian lakes, in addition to the deaths among domestic geese and chickens.

"In autumn, some wild birds migrate from the northern part of Siberia to the Caspian and Black Sea regions," the emergency situations ministry said.

"Risks of epidemic outbreaks in the industrial poultry breeding sector therefore increases, and losses in zones of infection may be as high as 75 per cent to 100 per cent of the poultry population," the ministry said in a statement. "Human infection, especially among workers at poultry farms, cannot be ruled out." On Thursday three more districts of the Siberian Altai region reported mass deaths of poultry, and Russian television showed pictures of government workers in white biological protection suits slaughtering hundreds of other birds at infected farms.

In some towns, citizens set up roadblocks to prevent farmers from evading quarantines and escaping with their flocks.

So great was the fear of human infection that health officials set up quarantine rooms in hospitals and began screening all residents of the affected areas who exhibited signs of a fever. There have been no confirmed human cases in Russia so far.

It was earlier reported that a man in neighbouring Kazakhstan had become infected with avian flu, but it was revealed this week he had pneumonia.

The virus has claimed 55 human lives worldwide. The most pressing concern is that it will acquire the ability to be easily transmitted between humans - opening the possibility of a dangerous and widespread influenza pandemic.

Los Angeles Times


http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1474294

 

[Jim in MO]

Bird flu spreads in Russia, may be in Kazakhstan

washingtonpost.com
Bird flu spreads in Russia, may be in Kazakhstan

By Dmitry Solovyov and Aleksandras Budrys
Reuters
Friday, August 5, 2005; 11:05 AM



ALMATY/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Bird flu has been officially confirmed in two more Russian regions, and the disease may also be spreading in Northern Kazakhstan, officials said on Friday.

Health officials fear that a subtype of bird flu dangerous to humans may mutate into a lethal strain that could rival or exceed the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 20-40 million people worldwide at the end of World War One.

The presence of the highly pathogenic H5N1 subtype that can cause disease in humans has so far only been confirmed in one Russian region, Novosibirsk. But four other Siberian regions have been confirmed to have some sort of bird flu virus.

Russia's Agriculture ministry said on Friday the disease had been confirmed in wildfowl in two locations in the Kurgan region and in one in the Omsk region. Bird flu has already been confirmed in the Altai and Tyumen regions.

The ministry statement said the virus found in Kurgan and Omsk did not appear to be highly pathogenic.

H5N1 bird flu has killed more than 50 people in Asia since late 2003, mostly in Vietnam. Bird flu has also led to the death of 140 million birds at a cost running to billions of dollars.

Russia has culled over 10,000 domestic birds in the last few days to stop the virus spreading, the emergencies ministry said.

The ministry said in a statement no new deaths had occurred among wildfowl and domestic poultry on Thursday in the Altai, Tyumen and Omsk regions.

However, 139 birds were found dead in Novosibirsk region.

Senior veterinary officials in neighboring Kazakhstan have confirmed bird flu has broken out in the Pavlodar region, bordering Novosibirsk.

Officials there said it was premature to say whether the Pavlodar outbreak was dangerous to humans.

But a disease with similar symptoms is already killing birds in neighboring regions.

Some 364 hens have died in a village in the eastern Kazakh region, while 37 wild ducks have been found dead at the Vinogradovka lake in the Akmola region, the Kazakh Emergencies Ministry said on its official Web site www.emer.kz.

It said sanitary and veterinary controls were being heightened to contain the spread of the disease, while in Akmola 70 hens and 30 ducks living on private farms that may have been in contact with wild ducks had been destroyed.

 

[Kim99]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2005_08_05/en/

Avian influenza – situation in Viet Nam – update 27

5 August 2005

The Ministry of Health in Viet Nam has today confirmed an additional three cases of human infection with H5N1 avian influenza. One case was reported in Ha Tay Province, one in Tra Vinh Province, and one in Ho Chi Minh City. The patients from Tra Vinh and Ho Chi Minh City died.

The newly confirmed cases bring the total in Viet Nam since mid-December 2004 to 63 cases, of which 20 were fatal.

 

[Kim99]

More info. on the 1918 flu:

Here's some additional information on the 1918-1919 Pandemic...on page 220, of John M. Barry's book, "The Great Influenza", written in 2004, we find this passage:

Quote:
Influenza was indeed exploding in the city (Philadelphia). Within seventy-two hours after the parade, every single bed in each of the city's thirty-one hospitals was filled.



On page 221:

Quote:
In ten days-----ten days!-----the epidemic had exploded from a few hundred civilian cases and one or two deaths a day to hundreds of thousands ill and hundreds of deaths per day.




Also from page 221:

Quote:
On October 5, doctors reported that 254 people died that day from the epidemic, and the papers quoted public health authorities as saying, "The peak of the influenza epidemic has been reached." When 289 Philadelphians died the next day, the papers said, "Believing that the peak of the epidemic has passed, health officials are confident."

The death toll in Philadelphia continued to increase for several more days, approaching 1,000 dead per day.


From page 242:

Quote:
In 1918 in particular, influenza struck so suddenly that many victims could remember the precise instant they knew they were sick, so suddenly that throughout the world reports were common of people who toppled off horses, collapsed on the sidewalk.

Death itself could come so fast, Charles-Edward Winslow, a prominent epidemiologist and professor at Yale, noted, "We have had a number of cases where people were perfectly healthy, and died within twelve hours." The Journal of the American Medical Association carried reports of death within hours: "One robust person showed the first symptom at 4:00 P.M., and died by 10:00 A.M."

In The Plague of the Spanish Lady: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919, writer Richard Collier recounted this: In Rio de Janeiro, a man asked medical student Ciro Viera Da Cunha, who was waiting for a streetcar, for information in a perfectly normal voice, then fell down, dead; in Cape Town, South Africa, Charles Lewis boarded a street car for a three-mile trip home when the conductor collapsed, dead. In the next three miles six people aboard the streetcar died, including the driver.


And the pandemic presented different symptoms in different geographic locations...cholera in one town, dengue fever in another, malaria in a third, typhoid in a fourth, dysentery in a fifth. Severe earaches were common, along with severe headaches. And the severe respiratory infections were almost a given everywhere.
Logged

 

[HangingDog]

How would the human polymorphism PB2 E627K be in a bird?

What circumstances would have to occur to make that happen?

Especially at this early stage.

Could it occur naturally?

Would it have to be a bird catching bird flu from a human?

If this cant happen naturally, it may have been put in the bird to enhance the effectiveness of h5n1.

 

[The Flying Dutchman]

-I hope Martin won't mind me adding a few tidbits (news articles) These are interesting - at least to me
Shakey



<B><font size=+1 color=blue><center>US health officials closely watching Russian bird flu</font>
August 5 2005
WASHINGTON
<A href="http://www.eyewitnessnewstv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3665340">FOX NEWS</A>
Health officials in the United States are keeping an eye on an avian flu strain that has hit Russia.</B></center>
Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt (LEH'-vit) told the C-B-S "Early" show this morning that the outbreak in Russia could signal "the pandemic we're worried about."

Leavitt says since 1997 the avian flu strain has been found in at least ten counties and since last year it has infected more than 100 humans.

Leavitt says U-S medical experts are in Russia and the other countries where the strain exists, helping those countries deal with it.

The avian flu strain killed thousands of domestic fowl last month in Russia, but no human cases have been reported.

 

[The Flying Dutchman]

-



<B><center>Fri, Aug. 05, 2005
<font size=+1 color=purple>Russia concedes bird flu will spread into Europe</font>
<A href="http://www.sunherald.com/mld/thesunherald/news/world/12307316.htm">LOS ANGELES TIMES</A>
MOSCOW - Russian authorities, struggling to contain an outbreak of avian flu that has killed thousands of birds in Siberia, admitted Thursday that a spread of the virus into Europe seems almost inevitable.</B></center>
"It is quite likely that the flu will creep westward. What else can it do? The infection is picking up momentum," said Viktor Maleyev, deputy director of the Russian Health Ministry's Institute of Epidemiology.

Equally worrying, health officials confirmed the outbreak includes a strain that has been known to affect humans, known as H5N1. Scientists fear expansion of the virus' geography increases the chances of a major outbreak within the human population.

While there have been isolated cases of avian flu around the world, including in the United States, the most dangerous strain of the virus until now has been concentrated largely in Asia, with human cases limited to Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia.

Some poultry farms on the west side of the Ural Mountains -- the dividing line between European and Asian Russia --are under precautionary alerts. In Murmansk and in the populous Moscow region, chicken farms are tracking imports of birds and feed.

But authorities said the virus probably will spread along the flyways of migratory waterfowl, which within the next month or two will begin flying out of Siberia toward warmer climes along the Volga River, and eventually the Black Sea and Southern Europe. Large numbers of wild waterfowl have died on Siberian lakes, in addition to the deaths among domestic geese and chickens.

"In autumn, some wild birds migrate from the northern part of Siberia to the Caspian and Black Sea regions," the emergency situations ministry said in a statement.

"Risks of epidemic outbreaks in the industrial poultry breeding sector therefore increases, and losses in zones of infection may be as high as 75 percent to 100 percent of the poultry population. Human infection, especially among workers at poultry farms, cannot be ruled out," the ministry said.

On Thursday, three more districts of the Siberian Altai region reported mass deaths of poultry, and Russian television showed pictures of government workers outfitted in white biological protection suits slaughtering hundreds of other birds at infected farms.

In some towns, citizens set up roadblocks to prevent desperate farmers from evading quarantines and escaping with their flocks.

So great was the fear of human infection that health officials set up quarantine rooms in hospitals and began screening all residents of the affected areas who exhibit signs of a fever. There have been no confirmed human cases in Russia so far.

"Medical personnel will be doing the rounds from house to house," Gennady Onishchenko, chief state epidemiologist, said at a news conference in Novosibirsk. "What is the point of these house to house rounds? To identify people who are sick. That is to say, any temperature is enough to actively monitor that person's health. To find out the nature of that temperature."

While it was reported previously that a man in neighboring Kazakhstan had become infected with avian flu, it was learned this week that the man had pneumonia. Across the world, the virus has claimed 55 human lives, though there have been no documented cases of human-to-human transmission.

Still, that remains a possibility, and a growing one, as long as the virus itself continues to expand its range, scientists say. The most pressing concern is that the virus will acquire the ability to be transmitted between humans--opening the possibility of a dangerous and widespread influenza pandemic.

Maleyev said that while the long migratory patterns of wild birds in Russia carried the possibility of transmission into Europe and, theoretically, into North America, the possible danger also is mitigated by Russia's harsh winters, which provide a much less fertile breeding ground for disease than the warm climates of Asia.