From Flu Wiki 2

Forum: News Reports for November 10

10 November 2006

MaMaat 00:51

(If you want any of the links to open in a new window, hold down the shift key and then click on the link)

Summary from Indonesia Outbreak as of 9 November 2006

Cases DiscussedJun-06Jul-06Aug-06Sep-06Oct-06Nov-06Total
Died, no tests22437018
Died, tested positive43233015
Other tested posituve0131005
Symptoms, tests pending424638304124
Tested negative06261911062
Totals10148164514224

Lookout Posts – here are the links (if no Lookout Post exists, it will not be highlighted)

Please visit these threads for latest information from these regions or to add news

NoRegion NameNoRegion NameNoRegion Name
1USA8East Africa15Arab Peninsula
2Canada, Greenland and the Arctic Circle9Southern Africa and Madagascar16Central Asia
3Central America and Caribbean10Northwest Europe and British Isles17Southern Asia
4South America and Surrounding Islands11West and Southwest Europe18Mainland East Asia and Japan
5Northern Africa12Central and Southeast Europe19Southeast Asia
6West Africa13Eastern Europe and Baltic Region20Australasia Melanesia and Micronesia
7Central Africa14Middle East and Caucasus Region21Pacific Islands and Antarctic

(Please see the thread Volunteers Needed as Lookouts Worldwide if you want to help)

Separate threads for India, Indonesia and Nepal – see links below


Summary of News for 9 November 2006

(From WHO as at 31 Oct - latest update) Total human cases worldwide 256, deaths 152 (2006 – 109 with 74 deaths)

Nigeria

Indonesia

UK

Australia

New Zealand

India

Japan

China

USA

Canada

General

Link to news thread for 9 November (link News Reports for November 9 )
(Usual disclaimer about may not have captured everything. Feel free to add your own where omissions have occurred.)
Please note that I copy the links directly from the thread so if they don’t work you may need to re-visit the Thread.

Hope you have an excellent time golfing AnnieB!

MaMaat 00:54

It worked!

Oremus – at 00:56

“”“Great Job MaMa!!!”“”

Oremus – at 00:57

Most Excellent

MaMaat 01:06

Thanks Oremus!

I wasn’t sure if I could do it. I thought I’d make a mistake somewhere…whew! AnnieB does such a lovely job and Thank God she left a template that was easy to use once I figured out what I was doing.

Leo7 – at 01:27

Ok, I’m more than a little disturbed by the article listed above in General from CIDRAP concerning Plavix basically inactivating the effectiveness of Tamiflu. This is BIG news since there are million and millions who take this drug.

Could the pharm D’s and doc’s express some opinions please? Also is there any chance that aspirin that shares “some similarities” with Plavix would do the same? (I know I’m stretching by adding asa in the mix, but millions take the combo Asa plus Plavix).

Oremus – at 01:27

I just learned to bost in bold. Single quotes, not double quotes. 8^)

Oremus – at 01:29

post though I was bosting….er…boasting.

MaMaat 03:16

Oremus, it happens to us all:-)

NEWS

China shares bird flu samples, denies new strain report

BEIJING (Reuters) - “China agreed on Friday to share long-sought bird flu virus samples with international health authorities, after rejecting scientists’ findings that a new, vaccine-resistant strain was circulating in the country.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said 20 virus samples were being sent to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, a WHO collaborating center, raising hopes of a better understanding of how the H5N1 bird flu virus is changing.

“We are very encouraged by that. They are viruses from 2004 and 2005, and we will make follow-ups for the 2006 samples,” Henk Bekedam, the WHO’s China representative, told Reuters.

The decision comes after China rejected findings in a paper published last week by Hong Kong and U.S. scientists that said they had detected a new strain of H5N1 in the southern Chinese province of Fujian last year…”

more… http://tinyurl.com/yf3d88

MaMaat 03:18

NEWS

China reports 10 bird flu outbreaks this year

Chinaview- BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) — “About 47,000 poultry birds died in 10 outbreaks of bird flu in seven provinces on the Chinese mainland this year, said an official with the Ministry of Agriculture on Friday.

    Another 2.94 million fowls were culled, Jia Youling, chief veterinary officer and director of the Veterinary Bureau of Ministry of Agriculture, told a press conference.

    A total of 3,641 migratory birds in west China’s Qinghai Province and Tibet Autonomous Region had died of the disease this year, he said.

    The cases of human infection by bird flu numbered 13 this year…”

http://tinyurl.com/y9h72c

lugon – at 04:20

Humble suggestion re “links”.

If this is being created on a wiki-page or a text file that is then copied over to here, then please remember [[http://www.fluwikie2.com|this syntax]] allows for very long URLs that don’t look long at all. Not depending on tinyurl means people can see where the link goes without having to actually go there.

On a not-too-many-news day, please try it with just one link and see what is least disruptive for your great work.

lugon – at 04:21

Off-topic (or maybe not): fredness is updating a number of wikipages on the main wiki. Adding links and polishing some pages.

If someone already follows “current wikipage activity” (fluwikie.com, not fluwikie2.com), we might have reports as news.

Klatu – at 09:20

WHO apologizes to China for misusing bird flu samples: official

       

UPDATED: 21:35, November 10, 2006

People’s Daily Online

The World Heath Organization (WHO) has apologized to the Chinese government after bird flu samples provided by China were misused by foreign research institutions, China’s chief veterinarian Jia Youling revealed here Friday.

“Mr. (Henk) Bekedam from the WHO Beijing office apologized to me personally twice. His attitude was very sincere and I was deeply moved”, Jia told a press conference hosted by the information office of the State Council, China’s cabinet.

Jia, director of the Ministry of Agriculture’s veterinary bureau, said China provided five bird flu samples to the WHO in June 2005, at the WHO’s request, after a major outbreak in 2004.

“Foreign research institutions improperly used the samples in two cases, violating the intellectual property rights of Chinese researchers,” he said.

In one research paper, the samples were attributed to countries other than China, Jia said, adding that co-author Rob Webster, from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in the United States, had also apologized to the Chinese research institution concerned.

In another case, foreign researchers cited the Chinese sample without giving credit to the Chinese side, which contravenes international practice, Jia said. Jia declined to give the researchers’ names. Jia rejected accusations that China has been reluctant to share its bird flu samples with the international community.

In addition to the five samples provided in 2005, he said China has provided WHO with 20 further samples this year. He said the provision of the 20 samples took several months because of strict, time-consuming procedures on both sides. Great caution was needed to handle dangerous bird flu samples.

Jia said the Ministry of Agriculture will continue to work closely with the international community, including the WHO, to control bird flu.

Xinhua reporters were unable to reach WHO’s Beijing office for comment. But previously Bekedam told Reuters that the Chinese samples were used in research that failed to acknowledge that China’s Ministry of Agriculture had identified the virus, in breach of scientific protocol.

“That happened twice, and I apologized on behalf of the WHO collaborating center because that is bad behaviour among scientists,” he said.

http://tinyurl.com/thsrb

Klatu – at 09:22

Looks like Dr. Chan hit the ground running.

Klatu – at 09:32

Manual eyed to help Japanese abroad in Bird-flu pandemics

Kyodo News

‘’‘Japan plans to compile a manual by year’s end to address a possible outbreak of a new bird flu-mutated human influenza, Foreign Ministry officials said Wednesday. The manual will include measures for the dispatch of a medical team abroad to protect Japanese nationals in the event they cannot flee an affected area, they said.

The Foreign Ministry, which plans to report on the idea to a ministerial meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, will set up a panel of medical experts later this month to draw up details, the officials said. APEC leaders are expected to agree to strengthen joint efforts against bird flu and other infectious diseases at their Nov. 18–19 summit in Hanoi after the Nov. 15–16 meeting of their foreign and economic ministers there.

The government is considering sending a medical team to any country hit by an outbreak that compels it to restrict travel overseas, thus making it impossible for Japanese nationals to leave, according to the officials. Outbreaks will be broken down into six levels — normal conditions, an epidemic among birds, bird-to-human transmission, an outbreak of human-to-human transmission, the spread of human-to-human transmission and global pandemic. With the situation deteriorating chiefly in Indonesia, a global pandemic is currently feared, the officials said. - excerpt

http://tinyurl.com/y9vahc

Snowhound1 – at 10:17

MaMa..Great job on the summary..Do you need “no” sleep? :) I won’t ever be able to do the summary as I can’t keep my eyes open that late. Maybe if I lived on the West coast. :)

ANON-YYZ – at 10:45

Klatu – at 09:22

I read yesterday in one of the news postings here (Reuters) that Chan won’t be in the job until January 2007. I think it’s more likely that China was trying to be low key and stayed away from any comments that would be controversial until the DG election was over, and didn’t want to take the bait even when challenged.

MaMa – at 03:16

If China agrees to releasing samples, then we will all find out whether the latest ‘out burst’ by Chinese officials are justified.

Klatu – at 11:19

ANON-YYZ – at 10:45 wrote:

“Klatu – at 09:22

I read yesterday in one of the news postings here (Reuters) that Chan won’t be in the job until January 2007.”


I think the wheels where already greased when Dr. Chan shook hands with Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi in July/06. She may not officially take over till 2007, but the writing is on the wall and on the Internet.

‘’‘UPDATED: July 30, 2006 Vice premier wu meets Margaret Chan’‘’

“Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi ® shakes hands with Margaret Chan, Assistant Director-General for Communicable Diseases of the World Health Organization (WHO), during their meeting in Beidaihe, a summer seaside resort in north China’s Hebei Province July 29, 2006. Margaret Chan will run for WHO Director-General as China’s candidate in November this year.”

http://tinyurl.com/wl5z4

Klatu – at 11:22

China agrees to share samples of flu strain

Reuters

November 10, 2006

BEIJING: China agreed Friday to share its samples of the bird flu virus with international health authorities, after rejecting scientists’ findings that a new, vaccine-resistant strain was circulating in the country. The World Health Organization said that 20 virus samples were being sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, raising hopes that it will be able to gain a better understanding of how the H5N1 bird flu virus is changing.

Henk Bekedam, the WHO’s representative in China, said: “We are very encouraged by that. They are viruses from 2004 and 2005, and we will make follow-ups for the 2006 samples.”

The decision came after China rejected findings in a paper published last week by Hong Kong and U.S. scientists that reported they had detected a new strain of H5N1 in the southern Chinese province of Fujian last year.”

excerpt

http://tinyurl.com/y6frr4

ANON-YYZ – at 11:28

Klatu – at 11:19

I think the wheels where already greased

I don’t quite understand what you mean. Are you saying that as China decided to sponsor Chan for the DG election, it also decided to release the samples or are you saying that Chan’s election will result in no samples released?

Pseudorandom – at 12:31

Science Magazine’s News of the Week column has an article titled “Is China Coming Clean on Bird Flu?”

Link:

An interesting excerpt: “Julie Hall, the WHO coordinator for communicable disease surveillance and response in Beijing, says China’s Ministry of Health has shared six virus samples from human cases over the past year, but the Ministry of Agriculture hasn’t shared any since 2004. Over the past year, the Health Ministry has reported human cases in provinces where there are no reported poultry outbreaks. Now the PNAS paper suggests that the virus is circulating in poultry in six provinces even more widely than it has in the past, yet information from the Ministry of Agriculture’s surveillance efforts is not showing the same results. “What we need is a clear and comprehensive picture” of which substrains are increasing and which are disappearing—and in what regions—as well as sharing of samples, Hall says.

A better understanding would enable China to evaluate and fine-tune its control measures. And sharing samples could help in the development of vaccines and diagnostics tailored to the strains in circulation. As an example, Hall notes that early this year a human case in northeast Liaoning Province tested negative using then-current diagnostic tests. But once viral strains circulating among poultry in the region were used to tweak the diagnostic test, it produced accurate positive results. “Even a minor change [in the virus] can affect the sensitivity of diagnostic tests,” Hall says.

Last year, China’s Ministry of Agriculture agreed to share 20 viral samples from strains circulating within China in 2004 and 2005. But Hall says that the samples have yet to be shipped to international reference labs. Ministry of Agriculture officials did not return e-mails seeking comment.”

Comment: China’s agreement to share samples came last year. Obviously, they’re following through on that very well! But what good will 20 samples do? In 20 samples, if none turn up as Fujian, there’s still a 95% chance that the prevalence of the Fujian strain is as high as approximately 14% (i.e. the one-sided 95% confidence interval for the proportion of samples identified as Fujian would be (0, 0.1391)). Mildly informative, maybe … decisive, certainly not.

Pseudorandom – at 12:32

Sorry … here’s the link for the above article: http://tinyurl.com/y35wrc

Oremus – at 12:59

ANON-YYZ – at 11:28

I’m thinking, that China released the sequences as payment for Chan’s election.

ANON-YYZ – at 13:03

Oremus – at 12:59

OK, price of admission to the world stage. This is just down payment. Pay some more, to keep Chan in the job.

ANON-YYZ – at 13:03

Release all sequences.

SIPCT – at 13:23

Klatu at 11:19

I fear the phrase you want is “the skids were already greased”

T – at 13:35

only strains that say what they want to say will be released. They get to pick and choose and my guess they would choose the least damning.

DennisCat 13:50

Notice they have only releases 20 of the thousands they have. And those are from 2004 and 2005 before things started to “take off”.

ANON-YYZ – at 13:58

Sure they could try to hide the damning sequences. I am no scientist, but I think as more sequences are released, some scientist will pose more questions that will force more to be released (just like the Fujian strain paper). Now that Chan is elected, China has more to lose than before. We have leverage now. In the past, they could just ignore us, and there was not much we could do about it. But Chan is accountable to the UN, and China wouldn’t want to be embarrass her too much. Imagine China 30 years ago, with this virus, behind an iron curtain. It would have been far worse.

MaMaat 14:26

Snowhound1 at 10:17, thanks! I’m kind of used to being up late:-)

MaMaat 14:39

ANON-YYZ, ‘If China agrees to releasing samples, then we will all find out whether the latest ‘out burst’ by Chinese officials are justified.’

Well IMHO I’m pretty sure all of the samples released will reflect their position on the US paper about the Fujian strain. According to the article posted at 3:18 China has a great deal more than 20 samples they could share (40–50,000+ maybe?). How many of the 20 they choose would you venture to guess might tell scientists something new and significant?

ANON-YYZ – at 14:51

MaMa – at 14:39

Those 20 may be chosen before the Webster paper, and may be irrelevant. Then we can say we don’t buy the ‘out burst’. We need newer samples. The point is, they are now under more pressure to release more. We can see to it.

We can give Dr. Chan a welcome mat, the Red Carpet treatment. On the first day on her job in January, we could present to the new DG of the WHO a petition for China to release all sequences.

MaMaat 14:52

NEWS

Daily Yomiuri online- ‘Health center offers flu prevention tips’

- “With the onset of the influenza season, medical experts are calling on people to be more careful as strict preventive measures against common types of flu may be effective against new types of flu, such as the mutation of avian flu into a human-to-human strain.

The municipal public health care center in Otaru, Hokkaido, published a pamphlet last month about measures to prevent new types of flu and distributed copies to public facilities…”

…”Tatsuhito Tonooka, head of the Otaru center responsible for the pamphlet, is worried about the limited amount of information available on new strains of flu and has collated the latest information, from home and abroad, on a Web site (http://homepage3.nifty.co/sank/).

Tonooka warns, “The possibility of a mutation of bird influenza virus into a new type affecting humans is increasing, so it’s necessary to make preparations…”

more here or http://tinyurl.com/y8vp78

MaMaat 14:54

ANON-YYZ, ‘We can give Dr. Chan a welcome mat, the Red Carpet treatment. On the first day on her job in January, we could present to the new DG of the WHO a petition for China to release all sequences.’

Excellent idea!

MaMaat 15:00

NEWS

The Asian Age- ‘Bird flu alert in Orissa national park’

‘Bhubaneswar, Nov. 10: A flu alert has been sounded in Orissa’s Bhitarakina National Park after migratory birds started arriving over there this winter.

Forest officials have taken precautionary steps to detect sick birds in the park and its vicinity, said Bhitarkanika divisional forest officer (DFO) A. Jena…”

…”Forest staff are keeping a watchful eye on species like bar-headed goose, bramihin duck, plover and the like as they are prone to HN51…….If HN51 mixes with a human influenza strain, it could spark off human influenza pandemic. World Health Organisation has advised all member states, including India, to monitor such type of strain, said Basudev Tripathy, a wildlife researcher with Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehra Dun.

WII has also identified 173 places across the country, including two in Orissa — Chilika lake and Bhitarkanika — which are important sites for congregation of migratory plumed species…”

more here or http://tinyurl.com/tct9y

Klatu – at 15:47

H5N1 Sequence Hoarding Should End

Recombinomics Commentary November 10, 2006

Jia said the Fujian-like strain, which Guan said had emerged in March 2005, was actually the same as bird flu viruses found in Hunan in February 2004 in terms of genetic sequencing.

“Guan said he wanted to alert the world with the paper, but why didn’t he report the markets with virus-carrying birds to the government if he truly believed in his findings?” Jia asked.

He said there were 10 confirmed poultry outbreaks in seven provinces of China this year, adding 95 percent of domestic birds had been vaccinated.

-

“The above comments extended the back and forth disagreements about relatively minor points, and create distractions from the real issue, which is the release of sequences from H5N1 in China. Much of the discussion centers on splitting hairs which is driven by different definitions. Many sequences have been published, so the overall picture of H5N1 spread and evolution are clear.

The definition of the “Fujian-like” strain in the PNAS paper really centers on changes in the H5N1 sequence in or near the receptor binding domain. All parties are well aware of this novel cleavage site, LRERRRK_R, which was first reported in Nature over a year ago. The partial HA sequence of the isolate, A/duck/Fujian/1734/2005, included the full sequence of the HA cleavage site. Earlier isolates, dating back to 2003, had lost a K. These isolates were from Hunan and Taiwan. The Taiwan isolate was from a duck being smuggled in from Fujian province. Both sequences were published in 2004.

China’s Ministry of Health was well aware of the 1734 sequence, because it was used in the MOH report dated January 20, 2006. Moreover, the HA cleavage site of published and unpublished human isolates showed that all had the new Fujian cleavage site. Hong Kong University also published the sequences in March, 2006 showing that isolates from Malaysia and Laos had the novel cleavage site as did sequences from wild birds in Hong Kong, published in June. Moreover, the WHO pandemic vaccine targets included one of the sequences from one of the fatal human cases in Anhui, which, like all human H5N1 cases from China, had the novel cleavage site.

Thus, all parties were well aware of the spread of the Fujian strain long before the PNAS paper was published. the paper had about 250 HA sequences with the Fujian cleavage site. However, there were approximately 150 additional sequences that had different cleavage sites, many of which were also novel.

Moreover, many of the sequences had changes in the receptor binding domain, including isolates from Hunan that had some of the changes found in the newly released sequence from Shanxi. Thus, although there are clear differences between isolates from northern and southern China, these is also recombination between these isolates to generate regions of identity.

The sequences clearly show increased genetic variation in the receptor binding domain and the HA cleavage site. These changes, or combinations of changes can have significant biological effects, which may be species specific. These small differences inpact vaccine development, diagnostic PCR tests which require primer matches, and determination of transportation and transmission of influenza genetic information, which originates in both high and low pathogenic avian influenza.

‘’‘Both squabbling groups have very large amounts of unpublished sequence information for all eight H5N1 gene segments and the time to stop hoarding has past. H5N1 is rapidly evolving and becoming increasingly diverse, as is easily seen by simply comparing receptor binding domain or cleavage site changes.

However, these changes are in all eight gene segments, and the sequence data of the H5N1 isolates in the PNAS paper as well as the sequences from northern China, should be released immediately, along with other hoarded sequences such as those from H5N1 outbreaks in Europe and H5 isolates in North America, which also show recombination with H5N1 in China.’‘’

http://tinyurl.com/yxur6g

ANON-YYZ – at 15:53

Klatu – at 15:47

Webster et al hoarding sequences too?

Europe, and North America?

Klatu – at 16:10

ANON-YYZ – at 11:28 wrote:

“Klatu – at 11:19 I think the wheels where already greased

I don’t quite understand what you mean. Are you saying that as China decided to sponsor Chan for the DG election, it also decided to release the samples or are you saying that Chan’s election will result in no samples released?”


Dr. Chan has dual citizenship, she obtained Canadian citizenship during medical education in Canada, she is still a citizen of China, as are her family. Dr. Chan will not be impartial. The keen interest that Chinese officials displayed in getting her appointed as Director-General of WHO, suggests that they feel Dr. Chan will be a team player. China will release as little or as much information to her/others as suits their purposes.

 You may have noticed that releasing H5N1 sequences, was not her first priority. It might be difficult to address  valid concerns around Africa and women’s health during a pandemic. My 2-cents.

“Chan said she would give attention to reducing the burden of diseases, improving health systems and other health issues, but she said what she most cared about is women and Africans. “

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/401188.cms

Klatu – at 16:14

ANON-YYZ – at 15:53 wrote:

Klatu – at 15:47 Webster et al hoarding sequences too? Europe, and North America?


The surprizing reference to Webster was published in a Chinese Daily (not unexpected). I would expect to here more about this.

Sequence hoarding is going on in Europe, Canada, and the US as well - in my opinion.

Klatu – at 16:25

Style and substance: Italy’s bird flu dynamo

10 November 2006

SciDevNet

“In the worldwide effort to combat the H5N1 bird flu virus, one of the most pressing aspects is openness about data. If genetic sequences of viral samples from round the world are made publicly available, this facilitates tracking, studying and containing the virus.

‘’‘In this article, Martin Enserink profiles Ilaria Capua, the Italian ‘influenza diva’ who has set in motion the global movement to share information on bird flu: GISAID (the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data).

Capua braved scientists’ concerns about being scooped by others if they openly share their genetic sequences. Her actions won her the annual award from ProMed, an email list run by the International Society for Infectious Diseases.’‘’

Beyond this, Capua pioneered a controversial vaccination strategy to eradicate a bird flu strain affecting poultry farms in northern Italy in 2000 and 2001.”

http://tinyurl.com/y4mcct

Any chance China will allow Dr. Capua to be Chan’s understudy?

Leo7 – at 17:35

Klatu and AnonXYZ:

Webster reported months ago he held back sequences for publishing a paper. That isn’t news.

DennisCat 21:21

We have already talked about the role of Vit.D here but here is a newer study. (to be published in Dec)

Deficiency in vitamin D may predispose people to infection

“In the July 2005 FASEB Journal, Adrian F. Gombart of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and his colleagues reported that vitamin D boosts production in white blood cells of one of the antimicrobial compounds that defends the body against germs. … On the basis of more than 100 articles that he collected, Cannell and seven other researchers now propose that vitamin D deficiency may underlie a vulnerability to infections by the microbes that cathelicidin targets. These include bacteria, viruses, and fungi, the group notes in a report available online for the December Epidemiology and Infection… Molecular geneticist John H. White of McGill University in Montreal and his colleagues were the first to observe that cathelicidin production is ramped up by vitamin D—or, more specifically, by the hormone 1,25-D, the vitamin’s active form (SN: 10/9/04, p. 232: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20041009/bob8.asp). Through a cascade of events, vitamin D transforms into a compound, called a prehormone, that circulates in blood and then is converted locally, as needed, into 1,25-D. …

http://tinyurl.com/yyxsyh

Klatu – at 22:34

Bird flu samples on way to US

 We hope that in the future these scientists will be sitting down together and they will have fewer discussions in the media…

(China Daily) Updated: 2006–11–11 10:01

The latest shipment of bird flu virus samples from China is expected to reach the United States next week, senior health officials said in Beijing on Friday.

(photo)

Jia Youling, China’s chief veterinary officer, holds a news conference at the State Council Information Office in Beijing November 10, 2006.

[Reuters]

“Following the five bird flu strains delivered in 2004, the Ministry of Agriculture has provided 20 more virus samples to the World Health Organization,” China’s Chief Veterinary Officer Jia Youling told a press conference organized by the State Council Information Office.

The samples will be sent to a WHO collaborating laboratory with the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), he said. “We are happy about the development,” Henk Bekedam, the WHO’s China representative, told China Daily.

“I don’t know what kind of clearance they’ll have to go through on the other side, how long it will take, but we expect the CDC can confirm they have received them some time next week.” China told the WHO Beijing office on March 1 that it was ready to provide the 20 samples requested by the UN organization in early February, according to Jia.

But it took time to arrange the logistics and go through customs procedures for both the Chinese side, the WHO and the recipient of the shipment of highly pathogenic virus samples, Jia said. China has been co-operative in sharing bird flu information and samples, despite four of five samples submitted in 2004 being misused by some foreign researchers, he added.

The WHO made the samples available to foreign researchers, who twice published the genetic sequence and other data of four of the five samples without giving credit to the Chinese scientists who did the research. Bekedam said he had apologized on behalf of the WHO collaborating centre and he hoped there would not be a repeat of the situation. He stressed that sharing information and sharing samples is key in the fight against communicable and new diseases.

At Friday’s press conference, Jia and his colleagues categorically rejected claims by US and Hong Kong researchers that a new, vaccine-resistant H5N1 virus variant, called Fujian-like, was isolated in southern China, which caused five recent human infections in the region. The researchers claimed in a paper published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States that the virus had already triggered an outbreak in neighbouring countries.

Commenting on the study, Jia said: “There is no such new ‘Fujian-like variant’ at all. It is utterly groundless to assert that the outbreak of bird flu in Southeast Asia was caused by avian influenza in China.” He said the data cited in the paper were “unauthentic” and the research methodology was not based on science.

The WHO’s Bekedam said: “We hope that in the future these scientists will be sitting down together and they will have fewer discussions in the media but more discussions among scientists, and then that we can all share what their finding is.”

At a press conference on the so-called Fujian-like variant on Thursday in Geneva, Minister of Health Gao Qiang said he had issued a formal invitation to the WHO, asking the organization to send experts to China to judge the real situation.

“These experts can go to any place in China, and we hope they can evaluate China’s avian flu control situation in a scientific and technical way,” he was quoted as saying by the Xinhua News Agency.

Gao said the Chinese Government is open, transparent, objective and responsible in the prevention and control of bird flu.

http://tinyurl.com/yn3uqt

======

Recombinomics Commentary

November 10, 2006

Thus, all parties were well aware of the spread of the Fujian strain long before the PNAS paper was published. the paper had about 250 HA sequences with the Fujian cleavage site. However, there were approximately 150 additional sequences that had different cleavage sites, many of which were also novel.

Klatu – at 22:40

Klatu – at 22:34 wrote:

Bird flu samples on way to US

We hope that in the future these scientists will be sitting down together and they will have fewer discussions in the media…


I guess we’re getting under someone’s skin, good!

cottontop – at 22:43

Here’s a question that might seem dumb, but exactly how do you transport bird flu samples? Does someone personally assist the samples on a plane? Ship UPS?

Klatu – at 22:50

Leo7 – at 17:35 Klatu and AnonXYZ:

Webster reported months ago he held back sequences for publishing a paper. That isn’t news.


I guess you are right.

Klatu – at 22:51

This is also old news.


Text of Dr. Capua’s Letter Regarding Bird-Flu Samples March 13, 2006 5:54 a.m.

Below is the text of Dr. Capua’s email letter urging colleagues to post bird-flu samples in a public database. (Some contact information has been omitted to protect privacy.)


Messaggio originale-----

Da: Ilaria Capua - IZSVe [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Inviato:giovedì 16 febbraio 2006 12.26 Oggetto:Nigerian and Italian HA sequences

Dear All,

Several of you have asked me to have (reserved) access to the sequence data on the recent avian HPAI H5N1 strains we have isolated. This is to inform you that we have decided to deposit the full HA sequence of the Nigerian and Italian H5N1 viruses in a public database, as we truly believe that collaboration between medical and veterinary virologists is essential to improve knowledge on the H5N1 epidemic, and that sharing sequences will be beneficial to all. We invite other scientists to follow our example, as we are convinced that information generated with public funds should be used primarily to improve knowledge on public health issues and that making significant information unavailable “until it is published” could slow down the process of understanding the dynamics of this epidemic - which is not what most of us are paid for.

Accession numbers will be available on the OFFLU website shortly. Please feel free to forward this email to any colleagues you believe could be interested in accessing the sequence data.

Kind regards Ilaria Capua

OIE/FAO and National Reference Laboratory for Newcastle Disease and Avian Influenza Virology Department Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie Viale dell’Universita’ 10 35020 Legnaro Padova, Italy

                                   * * *

Below is the text of an email from David Lipman, director of the National Center for Biotechnology Information in Bethesda, Md., which runs GenBank, to Dr. Capua, after she wrote to her colleagues asking them to publicly release their bird-flu sequences. (Some contact information has been omitted to protect privacy.)


Messaggio originale-----

Da: Lipman, David (NIH/NLM/NCBI) Inviato: venerdì 3 marzo 2006 15.00 [Ilaria Capua] Oggetto: Thank you

Dear Professor Capua -

I read the article about your position on access to H5N1 sequence data and I’m writing to thank you for taking your position on access to influenza sequence data. Like you, I believe that putting publication priority over the health of the public is wrong. If there is anything we can do to help you in your work, please contact me directly.

Sincerely,

‘’‘David J. Lipman, M.D. Director, NCBI/NLM National Institutes of Health/DHHS’‘’

URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114221407089396217.html

Klatu – at 22:56

cottontop – at 22:43 wrote”

“Here’s a question that might seem dumb, but exactly how do you transport bird flu samples? Does someone personally assist the samples on a plane? Ship UPS?”


A slow boat from China?

Apology to Frank Loesser (1910–1969).

ANON-YYZ – at 23:00

cottontop – at 22:43

Better not be UPS. What happened if some one breaks a vial?

I think it’s shipped under very tight security and strict protocol.

Klatu – at 23:06

DennisC – at 21:21 wrote:

We have already talked about the role of Vit.D here but here is a newer study. (to be published in Dec)


Good stuff Dennis!

anon_22 – at 23:15

ANON-YYZ – at 23:00 cottontop – at 22:43

Better not be UPS. What happened if some one breaks a vial?

I think it’s shipped under very tight security and strict protocol.

Collecting, preserving and shipping specimens for the diagnosis of avian influenza A(H5N1) virus infection

It’s an 83 page 2.46 MB document!

11 November 2006

tjclaw1 – at 00:00

Problem is that many small town doctors don’t know how to handle these specimens. My family doctor told me today that they have not had any pandemic training. I mentioned something about special methods of collecting and shipping specimins and needing to send them to a special lab. She didn’t know anything about it and commented that she would just call infectious disease person. Also commented that it didn’t make sense that they were not providing any training for docs who would be expected to treat these people.

Shouldn’t CDC or HHS be making sure these docs know what to do?

nann – at 00:51

funny thing, but the Rsoe havaria map..” world map “ shows all kinds of epidemics currently going around the entire globe…and there are major out-breaks of Dengue fever, or bleeding disease as its called..I thought this disease was in Africa only, excuse my ignorance, but BF cases also cause internal hemorage as well. dont they ?

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