AVIAN FLU UPDATE

[dothedd]

ABSTRACTHuman infections of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus have continued to occur in China without corresponding outbreaks in poultry, and there is little conclusive evidence of the source of these infections. Seeking to identify the source of the human infections, we sequenced 31 H5N1 viruses isolated from humans in China (2005-2010). We found a number of viral genotypes, not all of which having similar known avian virus counterparts. Guided by patient questionnaire data, we also obtained environmental samples from live poultry markets and dwellings frequented by six individuals prior to disease onset (2008-2009). H5N1 viruses were isolated from 4 of the 6 live poultry markets sampled. In each case, the genetic sequence of the environmental and corresponding human isolates was highly similar, demonstrating a link between human infection and live poultry markets. Therefore, infection control measures in live poultry markets are likely to reduce human H5N1 infection in China.

jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/short/JVI.05266-11v1

[dothedd]

The Canadian Press
Date: Saturday Nov. 19, 2011 7:50 AM ET
TORONTO — New bird flu research that shows that the dangerous virus can mutate to become easily transmissible among ferrets -- and perhaps humans -- has embroiled the scientific community in a difficult debate.

Some biosecurity experts are concerned the research could be used as a blueprint by nefarious forces and are arguing against publication of the work.

But others, especially influenza scientists, are countering that the flu world needs to know the possible paths the H5N1 virus could take to become one that can spread easily among people so laboratories can be on the lookout for those changes in nature.

"There's been a general interest in understanding what the potential for human transmissibility is from H5N1 and from other influenza viruses. There certainly is an abiding interest in that question -- a policy interest, a public interest, so that is true," says Dr. Thomas Inglesby, director of the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Baltimore, Md.

"But I think that has to be measured against the downside of actually demonstrating the transmissibility in ferrets as a surrogate for people, at one level. And then beyond that an even higher downside of describing in detail the methods by which this experiment could be done again."

A panel of experts that advises the U.S. government on issues where science and terrorism have the potential to intersect is studying the research. The National Security Advisory Board on Biosecurity deals with issues of so-called dual use -- science that is done for valid reasons, but which would be used for evil ends.
The National Security Advisory Board on Biosecurity will not comment on the issue.

The body does not have the power to bar publication, but it is unclear whether a scientific journal would feel comfortable publishing an article if the group says it should not be placed in the public domain.

It's also not clear whether the funders of the research -- in this case, the U.S. National Institutes of Health -- would permit publication if the government's biosecurity advisers objected to publication of an article.

The controversy relates to several papers, two of which have recently been published and another which is in the publication pipeline.

That latter paper is the one garnering the most concern.
The senior author, virologist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, won't talk about the work other than to confirm it is under review by the National Security Advisory Board on Biosecurity.

But Fouchier electrified the flu world in September when he gave an outline of the work at a major influenza conference in Malta.
He told the gathering that in trying to find out whether H5N1 could acquire the ability to spread easily among people, he came up with a virus that spread among ferrets as easily as seasonal flu viruses, according to a report on the meeting in Scientific American.

Ferrets are considered the best animal model for human infection with influenza. It is feared that a virus that could spread easily among the animals would spread easily among people as well.
H5N1 currently does not transmit easily to people or among people. To date there have been 570 confirmed cases of H5N1 infection in 15 countries and 335 of those people have died.

Inglesby says he believes science needs to be conducted and published, but in some cases, some science is too dangerous to be put into the public domain. He says this study may be one such case.
"I think that that principle is one of the underpinnings of science, but it's colliding in this case with a higher principle that science that produces either deliberately or inadvertently results which could lead to widespread dangers -- directly lead to widespread dangers -- should not be immediately reproduced for the world to see," he says.
Flu scientists, on the other hand, may feel like they are caught in a Catch-22 situation. For years they've faced demands from governments anxious to know whether H5N1 could become a human flu virus and what it would take for that to happen.


Read more: www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20111119/debate-rages-bird-flu-research-111119/#ixzz1eBYIOvn1

[Colleenz]

Hi Lone!

[dothedd]

Nov 20, 2011 21:45:01 GMT -5 @lonewolf said:

Did you have a question for us?

Lone,

What think you?

As for me ... there is no doubt in my mind that [IT'S] already out there.

Note my next post on the NVAX THREAD...

dot

[dothedd]

Malta flu conference comments spark bioterrorism alarm

20 November 2011

To a scientist, the comment may have been innocuous enough, but a remark made by a Dutch virologist at a flu conference in Malta has sent bioterrorism experts into a state of alarm over the prospect that the research referred to might actually be published. Virologist Ron Fouchier from the Erasmus Medical Centre in The Netherlands told the European Scientific Working group on Influenza last September that he had made an astounding discovery when he found that a few simple genetic tweaks to the bird flu virus made it far more infectious among ferrets − a standard animal model used to study how viruses spread among humans. He had found, during genetic research as part of an international drive to understand the H5N1 virus more fully, that just five mutations to the virus were sufficient to make it spread far more easily. This week, alarm bells started to ring among bioterrorism experts, many of which are arguing that the research announced in Malta should be buried, and not shared with fellow researchers, lest the new “tweaked” virus is used as a biological weapon. The research is now being scrutinised by an American committee called the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity. The H5N1 virus has been circulating among birds and other animals in recent years and has infected about 500 people; more than half died. But this dangerous virus has not caused widespread human disease because, so far, sick people haven’t been very contagious. But if the virus were to evolve and spread as easily between people as the seasonal flu, it could cause a devastating global pandemic. In an attempt to stay ahead of the H5N1 virus, scientists have been tweaking its genes in the lab to learn more about how the virus works and what it is capable of.

www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=135736

[dothedd]

NOR, mine...

Good night,

dot

[Colleenz]

What do I think? I think that no vaccine needle will ever pierce my skin.

If the government can force you to purchase health insurance why would they not mandate vaccines? Not agreeing with it, just saying it is not so far fetched.

[dothedd]

... I have followed the DOTS ... that have been in place, AND PRIOR TO 2004, when I began doing research on vaccines and the relative issues related to this post....

I have copies of info from 7 years ago that has since been deleted from the Internet. Actually, a group of us have done, and stored the INFO/RESEARCH.

WORLD ORDER

WORLD PLANNED DEPOPULATION

VACCINES THAT WILL BE EFFECTIVE AGAINST THE BIO-STRAIN/STRAINS WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE TO [E V E R Y O N E ].

Ask yourself, how is the US Government going to deal with the retired seniors on social security, Medicare, etc., as well as the population not qualified to hold jobs and pay taxes to support the government/system?

DITTO THAT... to the rest of the world.

EOS[/color]

[dothedd]

Live Avian Flu Virus Placed in Baxter Vaccine Materials Sent to 18 Countries
• Is Big Pharma trying to heal us or kill us ? Toronto Sun reports :

The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.

And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.

“At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark.

“But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.” The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabeled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.

The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.

Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a “serious error” on Baxter’s part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live. But the company, Baxter International Inc., has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event.

On Friday, the company’s director of global bioscience communications confirmed what scientists have suspected. “It was live,” Christopher Bona said in an email.

The contaminated product, which Baxter calls “experimental virus material,” was made at the Orth-Donau research facility. Baxter makes its flu vaccine — including a human H5N1 vaccine for which a license is expected shortly — at a facility in the Czech Republic.

People familiar with bio security rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted. Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences.

While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people. That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created. There is no suggestion that happened because of this accident, however. “We have no evidence of any reassortment, that any reassortment may have occurred,” said Andraghetti.

“And we have no evidence of any increased transmissibility of the viruses that were involved in the experiment with the ferrets in the Czech Republic.”

Baxter hasn’t shed much light — at least not publicly — on how the accident happened. Earlier this week Bona called the mistake the result of a combination of “just the process itself, (and) technical and human error in this procedure.” He said he couldn’t reveal more information because it would give away proprietary information about Baxter’s production process.

Andraghetti said Friday the four investigating governments are co-operating closely with the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Control in Stockholm, Sweden.

“We are in very close contact with Austrian authorities to understand what the circumstances of the incident in their laboratory were,” she said.

“And the reason for us wishing to know what has happened is to prevent similar events in the future and to share lessons that can be learned from this event with others to prevent similar events. … This is very important.”
• Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor writes in Vaccines as Biological Weapons? Live Avian Flu Virus Placed in Baxter Vaccine Materials Sent to 18 Countries :

Deerfield, Illinois-based pharmaceutical company Baxter International Inc. has just been caught shipping live avian flu viruses mixed with vaccine material to medical distributors in 18 countries. The “mistake” (if you can call it that, see below…) was discovered by the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada. The World Health Organization was alerted and panic spread throughout the vaccine community as health experts asked the obvious question: How could this have happened?
……..
Or, put another way, Baxter is acting a whole lot like a biological terrorism organization these days, sending deadly viral samples around the world. If you mail an envelope full of anthrax to your Senator, you get arrested as a terrorist. So why is Baxter — which mailed samples of a far more deadly viral strain to labs around the world — getting away with saying, essentially, “Oops?”But there’s a bigger question in all this: How could this company have accidentally mixed LIVE avian flu viruses (both H5N1 and H3N2, the human form) in this vaccine material?

Was the viral contamination intentional?
The shocking answer is that this couldn’t have been an accident. Why? Because Baxter International adheres to something called BSL3(Biosafety Level 3) – a set of laboratory safety protocols that prevent the cross-contamination of materials. As explained on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosaf…):

“Laboratory personnel have specific training in handling pathogenic and potentially lethal agents, and are supervised by competent scientists who are experienced in working with these agents. This is considered a neutral or warm zone. All procedures involving the manipulation of infectious materials are conducted within biological safety cabinets or other physical containment devices, or by personnel wearing appropriate personal protective clothing and equipment. The laboratory has special engineering and design features.”
• It is bad enough that governments all over the world have been warning about the likely pandemic flu. Now we find out we cannot trust Big Pharma to handle such bio-hazardous material in a safe manner.
• Who knows whether it was intentional? But I sure would like to know what really happened? And I sure would like to see the people responsible fired!
Paul J. Watson adds in ‘Accidental’ Contamination Of Vaccine With Live Avian Flu Virus Virtually Impossible :

Czech newspapers are questioning if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.

The claim holds weight because, according to the very laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.

“The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports the Canadian Press.

Baxter flu vaccines contaminated with H5N1 – otherwise known as the human form of avian flu, one of the most deadly biological weapons on earth with a 60% kill rate – were received by labs in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovenia.

Initially, Baxter attempted to stonewall questions by invoking “trade secrets” and refused to reveal how the vaccines were contaminated with H5N1. After increased pressure they then claimed that pure H5N1 batches were sent by accident. This was seemingly an attempt to quickly change the story and hide the fact that the accidental contamination of a vaccine with a deadly biological agent like avian flu is virtually impossible and the only way it could have happened was by willful gross criminal negligence.
….
According to a compiled translation from Czech newspaper stories, the media over there is asking tough questions about whether the contamination was part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic.

“Was this just a criminal negligence or it was an attempt to provoke pandemia using vaccination against flu to spread the disease – as happened with the anti-B hepatitis vaccination with vaccines containing the HIV virus in US? – and then cash for the vaccines against H5N1 which Baxter develops? How could on Earth a virus as H5N1 come to the ordinary flu vaccines? Don’t they follow even basic precautions in the american pharma companies?” states the translation.

The fact that Baxter mixed the deadly H5N1 virus with a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses is the smoking gun. The H5N1 virus on its own has killed hundreds of people, but it is less airborne and more restricted in the ease with which it can spread. However, when combined with seasonal flu viruses, which as everyone knows are super-airborne and easily spread, the effect is a potent, super-airbone, super deadly biological weapon.

…......follow the dots.......

THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING, ... so to speak.

[dothedd]

January 3, 2012

www.healthaim.com/avian-flu-more-contagious-than-before/





Dangerous lab experiments need more oversight
6-Jan-12
Re: Bird flu research alarms WHO, Dec. 31

There was a time when it took the effort of an entire nation to produce a weapon of mass destruction. Now one man can create such a weapon.

Researchers at the Erasmus medical centre in Rotterdam and at the University of Wisconsin have created a highly transmissible form of the bird flu virus. The wild version of this virus, which is not readily transmissible, killed about 60 per cent of people who have contracted it.

These researchers were about to publish their method before being prevailed upon by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, who funded the study, to delete these details from their publication. What didn't these well-meaning scientists understand?

This is really scary. So far reaction to the implications of the misuse of this kind of work seems to be muted around the world. We should not be naive and believe that this is a one-off situation. The day one of these biological experiments escapes into the general public either through accident or deliberate intent on the part of a mad man is the day millions will march in the streets. But then it will be too late and the results could be catastrophic.

We need far more public input into the protocols which allow such research to be done such as: the necessity of the work; who will do it; where and how it will be done; the security of the work, both biological and physical; and what can be published.

Our government needs to work with other governments around the world to get this under control as soon as possible. If millions end up dead, saying "sorry some nut broke into the lab" won't cut it.



Read more: www.vancouversun.com/health/Dangerous+experiments+need+more+oversight/5956216/story.html#ixzz1iu7dphNm

[dothedd]

January 8, 2012 5:45 am

Southern China Reports Cause of Man’s Death To Be A Contagious Strain of Bird Flu

On New Year’s Eve, China’s state media reported that a 39-year-old man, identified as Xinhua, died on Saturday in Shenzhen, Southern China, from what appears to be a contagious strain of avian flu.

Xinhua Chen was hospitalized, in Shenzhen, on December 21 with a fever. According to China’s official news agency, the provincial health department came out with a statement saying Xinhua had tested positive for the H5N1 avian influenza virus.


Perhaps most disturbing of all is that the man had not traveled outside the city, and had no contact with poultry.

This summer, the United Nations (UN) warned of a possible resurgence of the virus, which peaked in 2006 – infecting people in 63 countries. The UN warned there were indications a mutant strain may be spreading in Asia. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that a variant strain of H5N1, which could bypass the defenses of current vaccines, appeared in late August 2011, in Vietnam and China.

Mutations of various flu strains have been occurring recently worldwide. The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) reported, Alongside last week’s confirmation of another novel flu infection with an H3N2 variant, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched a series of documents to advise health and lab workers on how to identify and report new cases.


On Dec 23, 2011 the CDC confirmed two more novel flu infections, including in a West Virginia child with a swine-origin H3N2 reassortant strain (H3N2v) that includes the M gene from the 2009 H1N1 virus. The child was in contact with an H3N2v case reported on Dec 9, and the newly confirmed case pushed the nation’s H3N2v total to12 so far.

The other novel flu infection involved a swine-origin H1N1 variant (H1N1v) that had also acquired the M gene from the 2009 H1N1 virus. The CDC said the patient, an adult from Wisconsin who had occupational exposure to swine, was the first detection of the H1N1v strain in a human. On the same day the CDC announced the two novel flu cases, it released documents that address preventing seasonal and H3N2v in healthcare settings, interim guidance on H3N2v specimen collection and testing, and interim case definitions for investigating H3N2v infections.

Most H3N2v infections have been mild, and only 3 of the 12 patients were hospitalized, the CDC said. Though it’s not clear if cases will become more common, it’s possible that healthcare providers will care for patients who have H3N2v infections.

Governments worldwide have been preparing for a pandemic since 2009. The World Health Organization (WHO) said, in USA Today, that Tamiflu is useless:

“In 2007/2008, a different A(H1N1) influenza virus developed Tamiflu-resistance,” explained WHO research scientist Aeron C. Hurt, who reported the spike. “On that occasion, it was first detected in large numbers in Europe. However, within 12 months the virus had spread globally, such that virtually every A(H1N1) virus around the world was resistant to this drug,” he explained.

“This previous situation demonstrated the speed and potential for a Tamiflu-resistant virus to spread worldwide,” Hurt added. “Our concern is that this current pandemic 2009 A(H1N1) Tamiflu-resistant virus may also spread globally.”

Meanwhile in the US multiple new cases of H1N1 were reported at the same time the US government warned about a potential bioweapon attack.



www.ukprogressive.co.uk/southern-china-reports-cause-of-mans-death-to-be-a-contagious-strain-of-bird-flu/article16675.html

[dothedd]

Killer bird flu? What's behind the controversy over bird flu research

www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-nw-bird-flu-20120112,0,3451286.story

[dothedd]

Bird flu threat still lurking in Jakarta

Novia D. Rulistia, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 01/10/2012 12:21 PM

A man suspected of being infected with bird flu reportedly died over the weekend, highlighting the continued threat the deadly virus poses in the capital.

PDY, 23, died on Saturday on his way to the Tangerang public hospital, after being rejected by a hospital charged with treating bird flu patients. He is believed to have been infected with the H5N1 virus from his sick pigeon.

He had a high fever on New Year’s Eve and was rushed to the Satya Negara hospital in North Jakarta. The hospital said that he might have suffered from a gastric infection and released him. However, a few days later, his family brought him back to the hospital, which then claimed that based on his symptoms, he might be suffering from dengue fever.

As his condition deteriorated, he was suspected of being infected with bird flu, and it was recommended he be taken to the Sulianti Suroso hospital in North Jakarta as it has specialized facilities for the disease.

However, he was rejected by the hospital because its intensive care unit was full, and instead was sent to Tangerang public hospital. He died en route.

The Jakarta Health Agency has instructed referral hospitals for avian influenza to have all facilities prepared to treat patients following the case in North Jakarta.

“I will ask referral hospitals that treat bird flu to maintain several rooms complete with necessary equipment for bird flu patients in order to avoid the recent incident from happening again,” the agency’s chief, Dien Emmawati, said.

There are three referral hospitals for bird flu in the capital: Sulianti Suroso, Persahabatan Hospital in East Jakarta, and Gatot Soebroto Hospital in Central Jakarta.

“All treatments for patients suspected to have bird flu at the referral hospital are free,” she said.

A relative of the latest bird flu victim, identified as ASR, 5, is currently being treated at the Persahabatan hospital but has tested negative for bird flu after several examinations, Dien said.

She said that among their neighbors, the victim’s family were known to keep pigeons as their pets. It remains unclear whether their pets had been certified as required by a 2007 bylaw on poultry control in Greater Jakarta, which also forbids residents from keeping poultry in backyard farms.

The bylaw was enacted to anticipate the threat of bird flu in the city.

The Maritime and Agriculture Agency chief Ipih Ruyani said the agency had conducted a sweep of the neighborhood and found that many pigeons were roaming around freely.

“Together with the sub-district officers, we conducted a sweep and took 53 samples of the birds in the neighborhood. But we’re still waiting for the results,” she said. “We will also continue inspections in other areas across the city.”

Despite measures taken by the administration, she said poor awareness among people also contributed to the occurrence of avian flu.

“Many residents still keep poultry in their backyard and have uncertified poultry as pets. Some even hide their poultry when we conduct a sweep. They’re not aware that such a thing creates a potential for transmitting the highly pathogenic bird flu virus,” she said.

A senior health official recently said that Indonesia remained a H5N1 virus “hot spot” as backyard poultry farms remained the backbone of the meat supply for the population, including in Jakarta.

Note Chart:
www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/01/10/bird-flu-threat-still-lurking-jakarta0.html

[dothedd]

Bird flu-infected Cambodian boy died

Updated January 18, 2012 01:54

PHNOM PENH (Xinhua) -- A 2-year-and-7 month-old boy from northwestern province of Banteay Meanchey had died early Wednesday from avian influenza A (H5N1) virus after being admitted to hospital for about a week, said a senior health official.

"The boy passed away at 2:00 a.m. early Wednesday due to critical condition," Sok Touch, director of the Health Ministry' s anti-communicable disease department, told Xinhua over telephone on Wednesday.

He said the boy was the nineteenth person in Cambodia to become infected with H5N1 virus, and the first person died this year. "To date, 17 persons had died from H5N1 in Cambodia," he said.

According to a joint statement of Cambodia's Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization last Friday, the boy became sick on Jan. 3, 2012 suffering with fever, cough, runny nose, and vomiting.

He was initially treated by local private practitioners, but his conditions worsened and he was admitted to Angkor Hospital for Children on Jan. 9, where he died.

"The diagnosis of the clinical samples on Jan. 12 found that the boy had contact with sick or dead poultry prior to becoming sick," it said.

Banteay Meanchey is situated in northwest of Cambodia about 400 kilometers from capital Phnom Penh.

[dothedd]

January 19, 2012 12:01 AM

Vietnam, Cambodia report bird flu deaths[/color][/b]

Read more: www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57361592/vietnam-cambodia-report-bird-flu-deaths/#ixzz1kg9pQIGE


HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam on Thursday confirmed its first human death from bird flu in nearly two years, a day after neighboring Cambodia also logged its first fatality this year as new cases of the H5N1 virus are reported in Asia and the Middle East.

Both deaths appear to be linked to contact with poultry, and no human-to-human transmission is suspected. Other human bird flu cases have been reported recently in Indonesia, Egypt and China. Outbreaks typically flare among poultry stocks during the winter flu months, often resulting in a spate of human cases.

In Vietnam, test results confirmed that an 18-year-old Vietnamese man died of the disease Monday after being hospitalized a day earlier, said Dang Thi Thanh of southern Kien Giang province's health department.

She said the man was working at a duck farm in neighboring Can Tho City when he fell sick with a high fever and breathing problems. His house has been disinfected and those who were in contact with him remain under surveillance.

No sick or dead poultry have been reported on the two farms where the man worked or among neighboring flocks, but samples have been collected for analysis and the farms have been disinfected, said Huynh Thi Khai Hoan, an animal health officer in Can Tho City. However, many of the ducks on the farms where the man worked had already been sold.

In Cambodia, a 2-year-old boy died Wednesday after developing symptoms Jan. 3. He was reportedly in contact with sick poultry in his village, according to the World Health Organization. The country's last death occurred in August.

The virus rarely infects humans and usually only those who come in direct contact with diseased poultry, but experts fear it will mutate into a new form that passes easily from person to person.

The WHO says that globally there have been 341 human deaths from 578 confirmed bird flu cases since 2003. About 60 of those deaths occurred in Vietnam.

Before Monday, Vietnam had not seen a human bird flu death since April 2010, according to the Ministry of Health's Preventive Medicine Department.

The government has called for stepped-up efforts to fight bird flu as a massive movement of people and poultry begins ahead of the Lunar New Year festivities, which start next week.

[dothedd]

Five-year-old girl dies of bird flu, second this year in Indonesia
04:46 AM Jan 21, 2012JAKARTA - Indonesian health officials say a five-year-old girl has died of bird flu in Jakarta - just days after her brother succumbed to the virus. This raised the number of fatalities from H5N1 to five in Asia in the last three weeks.

The girl and her 23-year-old brother lived in the same house in Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta and are believed to have been infected by sick pigeons. There was no evidence of human-to-human transmission, the health authorities said.

Indonesia's Health Ministry said several lab tests confirmed the girl had the virus, making her the second fatality in Indonesia this year.

"In the earlier examinations, the bird flu was not detected. It appeared after we conducted several tests," Mr Tjandra Yoga Aditama, the ministry's Disease Control and Environmental Health Chief, was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post newspaper.

Mr Tjandra said the child's condition deteriorated quickly before her death. "Previously, she had shown good physical improvement. That's why we took her out of the intensive care unit," he added.

Bird flu rarely infects humans and usually only those who come in direct contact with diseased poultry. But experts fear it will mutate into a new form that passes easily from person to person.

Indonesia has been hardest-hit by H5N1, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which has recorded more than 330 human deaths due to bird flu around the world since 2003.

Indonesia's Health Ministry said there have been 184 cases of bird flu in the country since the disease was first detected there in 2005 and 152 people have died.

Elsewhere in the region, Vietnam said on Thursday that an 18-year-old died of the disease on Monday after being hospitalised a day earlier. The teenager had been working at a duck farm in Can Tho City when he fell sick with a high fever and breathing problems.

In Cambodia, a 2-year-old boy died on Wednesday after developing symptoms on Jan 3. He was reportedly in contact with sick poultry in his village, according to the WHO.

On Dec 31, a bus driver died in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, a week after being admitted to hospital with fever, health officials said. Agencies

[dothedd]

NEW YORK TIMES

January 22, 2012

China Reports a Second Bird Flu Death in Less Than a Month

BEIJING — A man died in southern China on Sunday from the H5N1 bird flu virus, the Health Ministry reported. It was China’s second such death in less than a month.

The latest victim, an unidentified 39-year-old, fell ill on Jan. 6 and was admitted to a hospital in Guizhou Province the same day, the Health Ministry said in a statement reported by Xinhua, the official news agency.

A 39-year-old bus driver in Shenzhen, a city in Guangdong Province near Hong Kong, died of the disease on Dec. 31.

Both deaths were notable because neither victim reported any contact with birds in the month preceding his illness. The virus is known to spread through contact with infected birds, eggs or bird feces, but experts said a pandemic could occur were it to mutate into a form that was more easily spread.

In the latest case, the victim “did not report obvious exposure history to poultry before the onset of symptoms,” according to the Hong Kong bulletin. But Chinese authorities, who are monitoring 71 people known to have been in contact with the victim, have found no other evidence of flu, the ministry reported.

People who were in contact with the Shenzhen victim also have remained symptom-free, leading some experts to conclude that neither case involved transmission among humans.

Worldwide, bird flu has killed 343 of the 582 people who are known to have been infected, according to the World Health Organization, including 28 of the 42 infected Chinese victims. With the world’s largest poultry population, and close contact between birds and people in rural areas, China is regarded as a major breeding ground for the disease.

Vietnam has reported 60 deaths, including that of an 18-year-old duck farmer last week. A victim in Indonesia also recently died.

[dothedd]

To Better Fight Bird Flu: Wishing the World Would Come Around (Again)
January 25, 2012

Indonesia, the country most affected by the bird flu virus and the one with the highest death toll, is still considered an important player in the whole bird flu drama.

The US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity on Dec. 20 issued a recommendation to ban detailed publication of recent research on an engineered, highly contagious version of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, citing the threat of bioterrorism copycats.

The news may have come as a surprise, but it somehow sounds familiar.

After the unprecedented recommendation and a moratorium signed last Friday by researchers to halt their lab work, the name of former Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari instantly came to mind.

In late 2006, she did the same thing as the NSABB: ask scientists not to publish their research findings.

At the time, Siti Fadilah, working with officials from other developing countries, was leading an audacious campaign to revoke a World Health Organization rule that mandated the sharing of virus samples.

Her problem with the rule was a restriction attached to it that said the genetic codes of newly discovered virus strains could only be accessed by countries meeting certain security requirements. In practice, those countries would be mainly wealthy and Western. Siti Fadilah wanted the protocol revised so data could be accessed by all WHO member states.

It took more than four years before her wishes were partly granted, but in 2010 but the world did change.

Amid much speculation about her decision in 2006 to withhold samples of the bird flu virus — Indonesia was thought to have one of the most lethal strains — one of her official excuses was the fear that pharmaceutical companies in wealthy countries would use it to produce a vaccine only available to them. Poorer nations like Indonesia, she argued, might have to pay dearly to obtain it.

Her persistence in the face of WHO rules drew widespread criticism, especially from researchers working to find ways to prevent a global bird flu pandemic.

The former minister even published a book, “Saatnya Dunia Berubah! Tangan Tuhan di Balik Virus Flu Burung” (“It’s Time for the World to Change! God’s Hand Behind the Bird Flu Virus”), in which she laid out her case.

In the book, later recalled from bookstores because, allegedly, of inaccurate translations and strong objections from some foreign embassies it mentioned, Siti also cited international conspiracy theories behind the string of bird flu outbreaks, even suggesting the virus may have been man-made.

The US government’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is mentioned in the book. It was widely believed, though, that Siti Fadilah’s accusations were baseless.

Regardless, Indonesia, the country most affected by the bird flu virus and the one with the highest death toll, is still considered an important player in the whole bird flu drama.

With the recent NSABB recommendation, the drive to crack the code of the long-mysterious and deadly virus must stop and be rerouted back to square one.

On Friday, researchers from leading flu labs around the world signed a voluntary moratorium, published on the Web sites of the journals Science and Nature, as a sensible response to the emerging controversy over how to handle research that is high-risk but at the same time has the potential to bring a big payoff for the greater good.

Two labs, one at Erasmus University in the Netherlands and another at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have successfully created mutant strains of the H5N1. The breakthroughs were products of research into how the bird flu virus might mutate to become a more dangerous threat to people.

The ban recommended by the NSABB, which came only days after the researchers announced their discoveries, received strong support from critics who also worried that a lab accident might allow the virus strains to escape and wreak havoc.

The US government’s efforts to prevent the research results from falling into the wrong hands is something the world should be able to understand. The United States, which largely funded the Erasmus-Wisconsin research, experienced bioterrorism in 2001, when there was a series of anthrax attacks.

At a newspaper called the South Florida Sun Sentinel, an envelope containing anthrax spores was found in a mail bin, killing veteran photographer Robert Stevens. That same month, letters with anthrax dust were received by the secretary of Senator Tom Daschle in Washington, DC, and by the New York City offices of NBC, CBS, ABC and The New York Post.

But the view of one of the leading researchers from the Rotterdam-based Erasmus University team, Ron Fouchier, must also be taken into account. On Saturday, a day after the moratorium was signed, in an interview with ScienceInsider magazine, Fouchier stated: “As researchers, we work very closely with people in Indonesia. It would be very unwise for us not to share our results with our close collaborators.”

He also said: “It’s a pity that it [the research] has to come to this. I would have preferred if this hadn’t caused so much controversy, but it has happened and we can’t change that.”

The moratorium was deemed the most sensible course of action, as it would give NSABB time to work out a solution on what to do with the findings. If the new research can lead to a more potent antiviral drug, the United States should work closely with the WHO to help countries like Indonesia that are most in need of help in stamping out bird flu.

Unlike in the past, when Siti Fadilah accused the WHO of siding with wealthy countries, the organization must stand strong. It has said the research is “super-important,” but also that it is just as important that the findings are shared. If they aren’t, it could mean the end of global cooperation for pandemic preparedness.

But at home, sadly, Indonesian researchers have remained tight-lipped about what they contributed to the research and about their own expectations for it. This attitude has given the impression that Indonesian researchers seem to feel inferior and lack concern about what happens here. None of them issued any statement despite the good possibility that they will be unable to see the results of research they participated in.

Complacency is the easiest way out. It shouldn’t surprise us, then, that despite massive prevention campaigns Indonesians continue to fall victim to bird flu. And the most worrying recent news is that the resistance of virus strains to antiviral drugs could be on the rise.

Since 2005 Indonesia has struggled to contain the spread of the virus and it remains the country with the highest number of victims, with more than 180 cases and 150 deaths. For now, people only get sick from having direct contact with infected birds, but experts fear that a mutation could enable the virus to easily pass from human to human, which would make a deadly global pandemic much more likely.

Borrowing a phrase from Siti Fadilah, the time is more than ripe for the world to (once again) change. Since the United States is the one country that strongly opposed Indonesia’s decision to withhold virus samples in 2006, it should be easy for Washington to understand why it is crucial that the results of the Erasmus-Wisconsin research are shared with the global community of scientists.

[dothedd]

Friday, January 27, 2012 23:55 PM

Tangerang man positive for swine flu: Health Ministry

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 01/27/2012 11:00 AM

The 18-year-old man in Tangerang, who was suspected of being infected with bird flu and who died on Wednesday, tested positive for swine flu, the Health Ministry said.

The ministry’s head of research and development, Trihono, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday that the man, known as R, had contracted H1N1, which caused a pandemic in 2009.

Trihono said, however, that it was unlikely that the man had died of swine flu. “While swine flu was deadly in 2009 and 2010, it is no longer a harmful disease.”

He added that the disease is a lot like a more common seasonal flu. “The sufferer does not even need to be isolated,” he said.

The World Health Organization announced in 2010 that the H1N1 swine-flu pandemic had passed, but made clear that “this does not mean that the H1N1 virus has gone away”.

Trihono suspected that the patient might have suffered from another, deadlier disease, which led to his death. “That disease killed him rather than the swine flu.”

Officials from Tangerang General Hospital and the regency’s health authority declined to comment on the swine-flu infection, telling the Post that only Health Ministry officials were authorized to make such comments.

The hospital’s spokesman, Achmad Muchlis, had earlier said that R had died from respiratory problems. The man, a resident from Panongan district in Tangerang, died after being treated for five days.

The hospital had conducted polymerase chain reaction tests to confirm whether he had bird flu but they came back negative. It said it would conduct more tests.

“The research and development department has not yet received the patient’s complete medical record. We cannot reveal his cause of death just now,” Trihono said.

The ministry said it would examine the case further as there was a possibility, no matter how small, that the swine flu could transform into a more threatening virus to human beings. “The test that we are about to conduct is aimed at ensuring that the swine-flu threat is still under control,” he said.

In 2009, the Health Ministry reported that at least four Indonesians died from swine flu.

The Jakarta administration is on alert in case of a possible outbreak of bird flu following the deaths
of two siblings in North Jakarta who were confirmed to have contracted the virus. (lfr)

[dothedd]

Bird flu researcher: H5N1 work is 'urgent'

January 26, 2012, 5:30 a.m.
Another researcher whose work on the H5N1 avian flu has been delayed from publication because of the recommendations of a U.S. government advisory board, and who agreed to a 60-day moratorium on further work, has written that studies of the potentially dangerous virus -- including work that creates strains that might infect and sicken humans -- must go on.

Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Tokyo and the University of Wisconsin-Madison's comment article, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, also revealed that the strain of H5N1 engineered in his laboratory and transmitted between ferrets (lab animals that respond to flu much as humans do) did not kill the infected animals and responded to current vaccines and antiviral compounds.

Another team, based in the Netherlands and led by Erasmus Medical Center researcher Ron Fouchier, created a mutant H5N1 virus that killed the ferrets who contracted it -- contributing to concerns that scientific research seeking to understand how flu becomes transmissible in mammals might produce a strain that could kill millions around the world if it escaped the lab and spread among people. Biosecurity experts worried also that publishing the details of how the teams created their mutant flus would allow terrorists or others to weaponize the bird flu.

But Kawaoka argued in Nature that any risks of "misuse and accidental release" do not outweigh the work's benefits.

"I counter that H5N1 viruses circulating in nature already pose a threat, because influenza viruses mutate constantly and can cause pandemics with great losses of life," he wrote. "Because H5N1 mutations that confer transmissibility in mammals may emerge in nature, I believe that it would be irresponsible not to study the underlying mechanisms."

Kawaoka also said that redacting his work would not keep others from also creating mutant H5N1, possibly for misuse, and that the mechanism being discussed by U.S. officials to control dissemination of future research into avian flu transmissibility would prove "unwieldy."

[dothedd]

Has bird flu biology opened bioterror box?

USA TODAY

It was a public health nightmare: A deadly flu bug spread like wildfire around the world, killing tens of millions of people.

That was nearly a century ago. Fears that the nightmare could return today — perhaps with even more terrifying consequences — have set off a heated debate among scientists and, for the first time, delayed the publication of scientific flu research in two professional journals.

The object of those fears: a threatening new version of the bird flu virus that didn't emerge from nature but was born out of experiments in a lab.

Researchers in the Netherlands and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who were trying to determine what genes might mutate and make bird flu attack humans, created a strain that can pass easily among ferrets.

Why should we care that ferrets get the bird flu?

Ferrets are the closest lab animal models to humans for flu vaccine studies. Until now, cases of bird flu passing from infected birds to humans were limited to people — farmworkers usually — who worked closely with the birds. And bird flu almost never passes from person to person.

So creation of a bird flu strain easily transmissible between mammals poses frightening scenarios: What if the strain escaped from the lab and spread among humans? David Nabarro, a World Health Organization expert, estimated that such a pandemic could kill 20 million to 150 million people worldwide.

What if terrorists intent on doing harm learned enough from the published scientific work to reproduce the strain on their own? They could release it to start a pandemic.

The federal National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) reviewed the work, and last month, it requested for the first time ever that two prominent scientific journals, Science and Nature, withhold from the public details of the two potentially dangerous bird flu studies.

Journal editors, sensitive to the security issues, have delayed publication of the studies.

"We have to protect the public by making sure the critical information doesn't get into the hands of those who might misuse it," says Science editor-in-chief Bruce Alberts.

On the other hand, he says, "this knowledge could be essential for speeding the development of new treatments to combat this lethal form of influenza."

Last week, leaders of the two labs involved announced a two-month halt to research on bird flu viruses engineered to pass among mammals, citing "perceived fears" that the microbes may escape from the lab. They called for the World Health Organization to discuss the risks and benefits of their research.

"I think it is a reasonable first step," says University of Michigan virologist Michael Imperiale, a member of the federal NSABB group.

The strains are securely locked down in labs in the Netherlands and Wisconsin, but the episode raises questions about whether such experiments should be done in the first place.

"I'm not convinced a 'doomsday' strain is what we have here," says NSABB chief Paul Keim, an anthrax researcher at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, "but now at this point, we can see the trajectory creating something of very grave concern."

A high rate of death

Why the concern? Bird flu, or H5N1 avian flu, has killed 342 people in the past decade out of 581 who were infected, a death rate of almost 60%, according to the World Health Organization. That percentage is much debated by researchers, who argue it's skewed because many milder cases aren't reported. That rate is about 120 times higher than for the 1918 flu, and roughly 600 times greater than for the 2010 seasonal flu.

The 1918 flu virus strain that killed perhaps 50 million people, including 675,000 Americans, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hangs heavy over the debate. That bug, emerging near the end of World War I, had new genetic features and wreaked havoc on the unprepared immune systems of people at the time.

The nightmare for scientists today is that the mutation-prone bird flu virus — which they say is similarly foreign to the human immune system — could evolve into a strain that could be transmitted from person to person and trigger a similar deadly outbreak. In the ferret flu studies, biologists may have completed that step in the laboratory. The researchers reinfected ferrets with bird flu until a strain evolved that seemed able to move from ferret to ferret by sneeze, raising fears it could travel the same way among people if it escaped.

Outside the lab, some question the wisdom of putting the world at this kind of risk. Bioterror expert Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota asks what good it is to identify threatening new flu genes in a lab when no way exists to monitor Asia's poultry cages for an outbreak.

"We have worried about this for a long time," says microbiologist Ronald Atlas of the University of Louisville. Atlas was a member of the 2004 National Academy of Science panel that described this very scenario — a lab creation aimed at combating a disease triggering pandemic fears — and called for the creation of the NSABB. "My sense is the scientific community is really divided on this," Atlas says.

'Tickling the dragon's tail'

At the dawn of the atomic era, weapons scientists tried "tickling the dragon's tail," in the words of Manhattan Project physicist Richard Feynman, handling radioactive blocks just close enough together to gauge where nuclear chain-reactions start, at considerable risk to themselves and everyone in the vicinity.

Today's biological equivalent comes from "dual-use" microbes, grown in labs to be strong enough to test vaccines but running the risk the microbes could accidentally escape or be hijacked for bioterrorism.

Case in point: the anthrax attacks in 2001, which killed five people. The strain of Ames anthrax bacteria used in the attacks was specifically grown for vaccine testing.

FBI investigators concluded the culprit was a lab insider, researcher Bruce Ivins, who committed suicide in 2008 while the investigation was underway.

Over the past decade, a litany of other microbe reports have drawn concern:

•In 2002, Stony Brook (N.Y.) University researchers reported the re-creation of polio virus from stitched-together DNA fragments. The study raised concerns that bioterrorists could patch together attack bugs from gene scraps alone, not even needing the bugs themselves in a Petri dish.

•In 2005, federally funded researchers published a reconstructed gene map of the 1918 flu virus after a review by Keim's panel. Then-CDC chief Julie Gerberding called the research "critically important in our efforts to prepare for pandemic influenza."

•Last year, the National Research Council reported that the FBI and the "U.S. intelligence community" had inspected a suspected al-Qaeda bioterror lab during the anthrax murder investigation. Critics of the FBI case, such as Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., worried that terrorists were growing microbes for bioterror purposes.

Much like the knowledge that atomic bombs were possible spurred nuclear proliferation during the Cold War, news that bird flu can be made transmissible to mammals could suggest ideas to a well-trained, would-be bioterrorist, Keim says. "The research is out there," he says.

Scientific disagreement

The pages of one journal in the middle of the debate, Nature, reveal the wide disagreement among scientists about whether publishing the lab-made bird flu strain represents a step too far.

"I believe that the risk of future outbreaks in humans is low," wrote flu genetics expert Peter Palese of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York in a Jan. 12 opinion piece.

Bird flu has had millions of chances in tightly packed chicken coops of evolving the capability of transmitting among people, he argues, a natural experiment showing there is little chance of the bug triggering a pandemic.

"Slowing down the scientific enterprise will not 'protect' the public — it only makes us more vulnerable," Palese said.

Palese and some other researchers question the high mortality rate ascribed to bird flu, saying it more likely reflects deaths among the very sickest patients, ones who headed for the hospital.

Mild cases never showed up in records, they suggest. The death rate from the dreaded 1918 flu was about 0.5% (still very high for the flu — that's one in 200 patients), according to a U.S. Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center review.

On the other hand, smallpox researcher D. A. Henderson of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biosecurity in Baltimore wrote in Nature's Jan. 19 edition, "We should not publish a blueprint for constructing such an organism." The lab creation, in his estimation, produced "the ultimate biological threat."

Looking for middle ground

"The real question is, where do we find some middle ground, to make a system that preserves scientific openness but also safety?" Atlas says. "The irony is that we do have the bones of a biosafety system already in place. Everyone seems to forget that."

Under federal law, bird flu must be investigated within a "Biosafety Level 3" lab, requiring special training, equipment, ventilation and oversight. Related regulations require that labs register "select agents," including bird flu.

"Obviously, it went through that process," says spokesman Terry Devitt of the University of Wisconsin- Madison, who notes that the National Institutes of Health approved the research in the first place.

However, Atlas points out the 2004 National Academy of Sciences report that called for the creation of the NSABB also said extra "biosafety" reviews should be conducted at the university level. Devitt acknowledges this wasn't part of the school's review process.

Some researchers, such as chemical biologist Richard Ebright of Rutgers University, have called for assigning the ferret study virus strains to Biosafety Level 4, the highest level of security.

Worldwide, at least 42 labs investigate bird flu, or bugs just as deadly, according to Lynn Klotz of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, and Ed Sylvester of Arizona State University.

Looking at the history of lab infections, such as the SARS death in 2004 of a student in Beijing who caught the disease from two graduate students infected in a lab, they put the odds of a lab "escape" at 80% within four years. An escape doesn't mean a pandemic, but it does offer one an avenue.

Federal officials, according to Keim, have asked the NSABB to review the safety of communication of similar bird flu infection studies.

"We had a debate a decade ago and decided that this science was too important to restrict," Atlas says. "The real responsibility for control has to come from the scientific community."

[dothedd]

Jan 27, 2012 12:33:40 GMT -5 @lonewolf said:

Doth...I don't know about anyone else, but I can't read the text when it's in color.
Just saying.

Lone:

I have a black background skin and the RED is very readable for me. However, I have changed the threads to black.

dot

[dothedd]

Bird Flu Fears in Indonesia: Flap Over Jakarta Pet Market Move
Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja - Straits Times Indonesia | January 30, 2012

Despite lingering fears about the spread of bird flu in the country with the world’s highest number of fatalities from the deadly avian influenza virus, Indonesia’s largest pet market has survived several attempts to relocate it.
Located in East Jakarta, Pasar Pramuka is one of the 23 pet markets in Jakarta that sell birds. It boasts no fewer than 152 stores selling anything from various pigeon breeds and ducks to ornamental chickens.

The market, which is popular with many Jakarta shoppers, sits just 5m from the densely populated Pal Meriam residential area — a clear challenge to municipal laws that ban poultry from being reared within 25m of residential areas.

While the laws specifically refer to farmed poultry and slaughterhouses, it is clear that pet birds would pose similar risks of spreading bird flu to humans.

But the people living near Pasar Pramuka are not worried.

“The pet market has been around for 30 years. We haven’t had anyone here catching bird flu,” Evaldi, 46, who lives about 20m from the market, said as his six-year-old son Razaq Gumanti, played with his pet bird.

His neighbor Damiri, too, told The Straits Times: “They have been keeping Pasar Pramuka market very clean, probably the cleanest market in the country. As long as they keep up with that hygiene work, we should not be worried.”

It is the kind of response that frustrates Ipih Ruyani, Jakarta’s top bureaucrat overseeing the culling of sick poultry and checking on whether poultry handlers keep to the rules. “Their typical argument is: We have been living with live poultry for years. If there were bird flu, we would have caught it a long time ago,” she said, sighing.

Jakarta’s municipal government has been trying to move Pasar Pramuka for the past four years but has been facing delays from a combination of protests from stallholders and the public, as well as slow bureaucracy.

The first attempt was made in 2007, the year 37 people died from bird flu in Indonesia. The country accounts for almost half of human bird flu fatalities, and saw 45 people die in 2006.

The relocation plan was raised again in 2009, with the authorities eyeing Cibubur district, just outside East Jakarta, as the strongest option. Again, however, it failed to materialise: The municipal government never finished the studies required before choosing the exact spot of land to be used in the area.

But there is now a new urgency to make another attempt to relocate Pasar Pramuka: This month, a five-year-old girl became the country’s second bird flu fatality. With January hardly over, there are fears that this year’s fatalities could equal or even surpass last year’s 10.

In recent weeks, the government has been stepping up its checks, clamping down on uncaged poultry in the streets and pet birds that have not been certified as free of the flu virus. Plans are also being made to relocate another major pet market in the capital’s Barito area.

The challenge is made harder by ad-hoc roadside stalls set up by traders to showcase pet animals ranging from chicken and fish to monkeys in the Janitegara area, and a common habit of rearing poultry for food in homes — despite a ban on such practices.

Still, the municipal authorities are determined to make yet another attempt to move Pasar Pramuka. This month, the officials put the relocation of the pet market at the top of their agenda.

But Ipih acknowledged that moving a market that has been there for more than 30 years is no easy task.

The officials will have to keep warning both residents and stallholders about how life-threatening the bird flu virus is, and the urgent need for prevention.

At the same time, they will need to convince stallholders of the need to move, to avoid triggering strong resistance that could lead to more protests.

“It takes a delicate and long process, but we are going to relocate Pasar Pramuka as soon as possible,” a determined Ipih said. “We have earmarked a 2ha piece of land in Cibubur.”

She said that the majority of the traders at Pasar Pramuka and nearby residents now support the relocation — apart from what she called the “stubborn citizen category.”

That would be people such as Abu Busono, 45, who sells Sulawesi ornamental chickens as well as a wide range of pet birds at the market and is strongly opposed to any relocation.

“We don’t need to move. There is no such thing as bird flu, no such thing as poultry to human transmission. Poultry’s disease stays with the poultry, and so does human disease,” he said.

Still, Ipih is confident that Indonesia will not see any possibility of a repeat of 2006, when it saw its worst bird flu fatalities. Thanks to increased public awareness about the disease, she said, bird flu cases have dropped.

In 2006, the authorities had to cull 300,000 poultry around Jakarta’s streets. By 2008, this had fallen to 36,000, and last year, just 13,000.

She said: “If you go to any neighborhood streets today, you see far fewer chickens around. We can find loose chickens nowadays only in the really, really poor areas of the capital, like those who live close to the river banks.”

[dothedd]

Research into mutant flu 'must go on'

Scientist dismisses US group's fear that creation of airborne H5N1 virus could inspire bio-terrorism


Steve Connor

Saturday, 28 January 2012

One of the scientists at the centre of the controversy over the creation a highly dangerous form of bird flu which could cause a devastating human pandemic has denounced attempts by the US Government to censor the research over fears that the findings might be misused by bioterrorists.

Yoshihiro Kawaoka, virologist at the universities of Tokyo and Wisconsin Madison, said that the recommendations of the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity are unworkable and would make it harder for legitimate scientists to develop vaccines and drugs against new strains of pandemic flu.

Professor Kawaoka leads one of the two teams of scientists that have created “airborne” strains of the H5N1 bird flu virus that can be transmitted in coughs and sneezes between laboratory ferrets, the standard animal “model” of human influenza.

The second team, led by Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, has achieved similar results using a different technique, and has also criticised the biosecurity board’s recommendations.

The board, composed of leading US scientists, fears that details of the two studies, which have been both accepted for publication, one by the journal Nature and the other by Science, could be used by bioterrorists or a rogue state to develop “weaponised” versions of the H5N1 bird flu virus to cause a highly lethal pandemic.

In the limited number of cases where H5N1 has already passed by direct contact from poultry to humans, it has killed about 60 per cent of the people it has infected. If it mutated into a highly transmissible virus, it easily could become one the most dangerous viruses in history.

Some scientists have even questioned the need to conduct the experiments, which involved the deliberate mutation of the H5N1 bird flu in order to make it airborne transmissible between the laboratory ferrets.

However, Professor Kawaoka has now broken his long silence over the affair in a commentary article in the journal Nature where he strongly justifies the need for such research, while at the same time condemning the recommendation of the US biosecurity board to censor key details of the research.

“To date, H5N1 viruses have not been transmitted between humans. Some experts have argued that it is impossible. But given the potential consequences of a global outbreak, it is crucial to know whether these viruses can ever become transmissible,” Professor Kawaoka says.

“Some people have argued that the risks of such studies – misuse and accidental release for example – outweigh the benefits. I counter that H5N1 viruses circulating in nature already pose a threat, because influenza viruses mutate constantly and can cause pandemics with great loss of life,” he says.

The US biosecurity board argues that partial redaction of key details of the research would make it harder for bioterrorists to misuse the information, but Professor Kawaoka insists that there is already enough information within the pubic domain to allow knowledgeable people to make a transmissible form of the bird flu virus if they want to.

He also says that the mechanism suggested by the biosecurity board to allow vetted scientists to have access to the data is unwieldy and unworkable because it would require security background checks on thousands of researchers from around the world.

“The redaction of our manuscript, intended to contain risk, will make it harder for legitimate scientists to get this information while failing to provide a barrier to those who would do harm,” Professor Kawaoka says.

All scientists involved in H5N1 research have agreed to voluntary 60-day moratorium until an international meeting is convened to discuss ways around the problem. Professor Kawaoka says that this could lead to a solution to the problem of “duel use” biotechnology.

Professor Kawaoka, who did not reply to requests from The Independent, has told the journal Science that he was prohibited from discussing questions with the general media by Nature, which has accepted his scientific paper for publication.

“The journal advised me to avoid talking to the media until the paper was published. Without being ale to describe our findings, I cannot address fully the issues the media want to discuss,” Professor Kawaoka told Science.

Professor Fouchier, meanwhile, said that he could not respond to questions from The Independent until he was cleared to do so from the journal Science, which has accepted his scientific paper for publication.

[dothedd]

MISSED THIS ONE!!!

WHO "deeply concerned" by mutant bird flu

Sat, December 31, 2011,4:47 PM

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was "deeply concerned" about research into whether the H5N1 flu virus could be made more transmissible between humans after mutant strains were produced in labs.

Two separate research teams -- one in the Netherlands and the other in the United States -- have found ways to alter the H5N1 avian influenza so it could pass easily between mammals.

Two top scientific journals said on Tuesday they were mulling whether to publish full details on how Dutch scientists mutated the H5N1 flu virus in order for it to pass from one mammal to another.

Scientists fear H5N1 will mutate into a form readily transmissible between humans, with the potential to cause millions of deaths.

"The WHO takes note that studies undertaken by several institutions on whether changes in the H5N1 influenza virus can make it more transmissible between humans have raised concern about the possible risks and misuses associated with this research," the Geneva-based United Nations body said.

"WHO is also deeply concerned about the potential negative consequences.

"However, WHO also notes that studies conducted under appropriate conditions must continue to take place so that critical scientific knowledge needed to reduce the risks posed by the H5N1 virus continues to increase."

The WHO said research which could improve the understanding of such viruses was a scientific and public health imperative.

"While it is clear that conducting research to gain such knowledge must continue, it is also clear that certain research, and especially that which can generate more dangerous forms of the virus than those which already exist, has risks.

"Therefore such research should be done only after all important public health risks and benefits have been identified and reviewed, and it is certain that the necessary protections to minimize the potential for negative consequences are in place."

The H5N1 strain of avian influenza has thus far proven fatal in 60 percent of human cases, although only 350 people have died from the disease to date, largely because it cannot yet be transmitted between humans. Indonesia has been the worst-hit country.

Most human cases have involved direct contact with infected birds. China is considered one of the nations most at risk of bird flu epidemics because it has the world's biggest poultry population and many chickens in rural areas are kept close to humans.

A man is in critical condition after testing positive for the H5N1 virus in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, state media said on Saturday.

www.tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuoitrenews/international/who-deeply-concerned-by-mutant-bird-flu-1.56884#

[dothedd]

2012’s second bird flu death confirmed

Updated : Wed, February 1, 2012,10:30 PM (GMT+0700)

The Mekong Delta’s Soc Trang Province has reported another bird flu death, the 2nd case in 2012, according to the Department of Preventive Medicine under the Ministry of Health.

This is also the 2nd person having succumbed to H5N1 virus in the Mekong Delta this year after the case in Kien Giang Province, said Nguyen Van Binh, head of the department.

The 26-year-old female patient in Thanh Tri District was brought to the local hospital on January 23 after showing fever symptoms. She was then transferred to Bac Lieu Province General Hospital on January 25 with viral pneumonia diagnosis since the illness still persisted. She died in the hospital three days later.
Test conducted by Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City has showed that patient was infected with Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, also known as "bird flu".

According to a recent epidemiological investigation, the patient had slaughtered and eaten infected meat, in the area where there was phenomenon of mass poultry death.

The Ministry of Health has directed Soc Trang Province’s Department of Health to strengthen anti-epidemic measures to monitor and prevent the disease from spreading further locally.

HCMC Pasteur Institute has also sent a team of anti-epidemic servicemen to support local health department to investigate and implement preventive measures.

www.tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuoitrenews/society/2012-s-second-bird-flu-death-reported-1.59997

[dothedd]

NSABB explanation of decision to recommend censoring of bird flu research expected soon
Published on January 30, 2012 at 11:21 AM

The NIH is expected on February 1 to release a statement explaining how the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) reached a decision late last year to recommend "that two scientific papers describing research that created strains of bird flu potentially transmissible in humans should be published only if key details are omitted," for fear "that terrorists or hostile nations could learn how to cause a pandemic," a New York Times editorial by Philip Boffey, Times science editorial writer, states.

"The document is unlikely to settle the argument. It deals only with the threat posed by publishing details of the research, not with the even greater risk should the virus escape or be stolen from the laboratory," Boffey writes, adding, "We believe in robust research and almost always oppose censorship. But in this case the risks -- of doing the work and publishing the results -- far outweigh the benefits. Scientists and the public need to see how many eminent experts are less worried about censorship than about evildoers using the information to wreak havoc" (1/28).

[dothedd]

Mexico Fears Second Outbreak of H1N1 as Cases Climb

February 02, 2012

Nearly three years after H1N1, so-called swine flu, first struck Mexico, the virus is making a comeback.

In January, Mexico recorded 1,623 cases of the flu, including 1,456 H1N1 cases. There were 1,000 flu cases in Mexico last year, Health Secretary Salomón Chertorivski Woldenberg said earlier this week. Since the year’s start, 29 people have died of H1N1. Only 35 people died from various flu strains all last year.

Yet, the number of H1N1 cases is not unexpected. The Associated Press reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) “say that H1N1 cases this year are within the normal range.”

Relative to 2009, when H1N1 caused worldwide panic, particularly in Mexico City where schools, museums, cinemas and restaurants were shuttered, the country is also more prepared to fight the illness, said Pablo Kuri-Morales, another official with Mexico’s Health Ministry.

Guinness Records, Mexico’s Favorite Pastime

“First, we know what the virus is,” he said, “second, we have the vaccine, of which 70 million doses were applied three years ago. Third, we know there’s a medicine that’s effective.”

Residents here remember wearing masks and surgical gloves on public transportation, and keeping their kids home. The flu particularly hurt the economy, keeping away clients and generally slowing the capital. Employees lost work days and pay.

“Yeah it was really heavy,” said Jorge Acosta, who runs a shoe repair stand near Chapultepec Park. He lost 70 to 80 percent of his usual income during the swine flu’s height.

“I was working that entire time,” he added.

When H1N1 deaths appeared in the news late January, Mexicans took notice. But looking back on 2009’s response, they’re less anxious.

[dothedd]

Bird flu mutation sparks fears of deadly pandemic

Nick Miller, New York

February 4, 2012.

A GROUP of US scientists warns that current research runs the risk of releasing a virus that could kill half the world's population.

At a public meeting at the New York Academy of Sciences on Thursday night, some of the country's leading virus experts debated the censorship of research into bird flu.

Scientists are observing a 60-day moratorium on research into the virus, after two groups found a way to make it infectious by airborne transmission.
An outbreak of this virus could be worse than the 1918 Spanish flu that killed tens of millions of people, warned Professor Michael Osterholm, who has led research into previous dangerous outbreaks.

"Frankly, I don't want a virus out there that, even if it was 20 times less lethal, would still be the worst influenza pandemic in history," he said.

Professor Osterholm is a member of the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, which in December asked the journals Science and Nature not to publish the full research on the virus.

Bird flu, or H5N1, has infected 600 people on official figures, mostly in south-east Asia, and killed more than half of those - though it is believed the true fatality rate is less as some may have caught the virus but not been hospitalised.

It can currently only be caught by close exposure to infected birds.

However, the new research demonstrated that the virus could be mutated, through genetic manipulation and other methods, into a form that was transmitted between ferrets in airborne droplets from coughs and sneezes. Ferrets are considered a good model for human-to-human virus transmission. The NSABB said this posed a big risk to the world.

Professor Osterholm said one of the researchers, when he described his work at a conference, said he had done "something really, really stupid" in mutating the virus, describing it as a "very, very dangerous virus".

"I wouldn't like to see smallpox get out of the lab, but if it did it wouldn't overly concern me," Professor Osterholm said. "We could contain it. The same thing is true with SARS. But influenza would scare the hell out of me, because it is the most notorious, the 'Lion King' of transmission."

Professor Arturo Casadevall, from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, was also on the NSABB board and said he had originally been against restricting research, but had been persuaded it was necessary.

"If it is the worst-case scenario half the people you know will die, and half the people you don't know will die," he said.

Professor Peter Palese, from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said the moratorium on research should end.

"All evidence we have now suggests H5N1 isn't easily transmitted to humans, and these experiments don't make it more likely," he said. "When do you stop being afraid?"

Experts from around the world will meet in Geneva this month for World Health Organisation talks to assess the bird flu virus research.


Read more: www.smh.com.au/world/bird-flu-mutation-sparks-fears-of-deadly-pandemic-20120203-1qxri.html#ixzz1lKRvXbWS

[dothedd]

Vietnam reports 2nd bird flu death in a month

February 1, 2012

HANOI, Vietnam—A Vietnamese official on Thursday confirmed the country's second human death from bird flu in less than a month, after it went nearly two years with no reported fatalities.

Test results confirm that a 26-year-old woman died of the disease Jan. 28 after being hospitalized in southern Soc Trang province, said Truong Hoai Phong, director of the provincial health department.

The woman had recently given birth in another hospital, but her infant son tested negative for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, Phong said.

Phong said the woman had slaughtered and eaten dead chickens her family raised. He said dead and sick poultry were reported in the woman's neighborhood.

Phong said the woman's house has been disinfected and samples from poultry and people who were in contact with the woman were being tested.

The death came about two weeks after an 18-year-old duck farm worker died of the virus in another province in southern Vietnam.

The virus rarely infects humans and usually only those who come in direct contact with dead poultry, but experts fear it will mutate into a new form that passes easily from person to person.

The World Health Organization says that as of Jan. 24, there have been 344 human deaths from 583 confirmed bird flu cases around the world since 2003. About 60 of those deaths occurred in Vietnam.