(If you want any of the links to open in a new window, hold down the shift key and then click on the link)
Please visit these threads for latest information from these regions or to add news
| No | Region Name | No | Region Name | No | Region Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | USA | 8 | East Africa | 15 | Arab Peninsula |
| 2 | Canada, Greenland and the Arctic Circle | 9 | Southern Africa and Madagascar | 16 | Central Asia |
| 3 | Central America and Caribbean | 10 | Northwest Europe and British Isles | 17 | Southern Asia |
| 4 | South America and Surrounding Islands | 11 | West and Southwest Europe | 18 | Mainland East Asia and Japan |
| 5 | Northern Africa | 12 | Central and Southeast Europe | 19 | Southeast Asia |
| 6 | West Africa | 13 | Eastern Europe and Baltic Region | 20 | Australasia Melanesia and Micronesia |
| 7 | Central Africa | 14 | Middle East and Caucasus Region | 21 | Pacific Islands and Antarctic |
(Please see the thread Volunteers Needed as Lookouts Worldwide if you want to help)
Separate threads for India, Indonesia and Nepal
(From WHO as at 31 Oct - latest update) Total human cases worldwide 256, deaths 152 (2006 – 109 with 74 deaths)
Egypt
China
USA
U.S., Europe can curtail economic effect, study says (link http://tinyurl.com/y7n8jm)
General
Link to news thread for 11 November (link News Reports for November 11 )
(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!
Hi MaMa
Just sneaked in for a quick peek at happenings in my absence - congrats on a superb News Summary - thank you so much for doing this - do you want to carry on ??
The golfing time was great fun and the golf was “not unreasonable” - very tired now though!
Catch you later
Italy, Sardinia Island 11/12/06
An exotic strain of the BLUE TOUNGE VIRUS affecting animals has been detected on Sardinia Island and a 20km (12.5miles) protection zone has been set up, the European Commission said on Thrusday. The Commission was informed in Monday that an exotic strain of the blue toungue virus sterotype 1, different from those which have affected any paet of Europe to date, has now been found in southern Sardinia, Italy. It appears that the new strain has been transported from northern Africa by insect.
Blue tounge Disease? Hmmm. Learn something new everyday. Wish they would have specified which insect.
Found this is the “breaking news” of the Bankok Post but I cannot find a date on it. I have a feeling that it is an old report but I just don’t know.
New bird flu strain spreads to Thailand
“Scientists have discovered a new strain of bird flu that appears to sidestep current vaccines. It’s infecting people as well as poultry in Asia, and some researchers fear its evolution may have been steered by the vaccination programs designed to protect poultry from earlier types of the H5N1 flu.
The discovery by Yi Guan of the University of Hong Kong and colleagues is reported in Tuesday’s issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The new variant has become the primary version of the bird flu in several provinces of China and has spread to Hong Kong, Laos, Malaysia and Thailand, the researchers report. It is being called “H5N1 Fujian-like,” to distinguish it from earlier Hong Kong and Vietnam variants.
“We don’t know what is driving this,” report co-author Dr. Robert G. Webster of St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., said in a telephone interview, the AP reported.”
DennisC-
Haven’t we been hearing about this story for the past two weeks? And it’s still current news on the sites I’ve just checked. Hmmm. Could it be, to possibly downplay this “fujian like strain”? China seems awfully keen on downplaying it. Maybe there really isn’t any new strain. ;-)
cottontop
Learn about blue tongue by a google search. It affects a lot of critters.
cottontop- or here… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetongue_disease
NEWS
The Nation(Thailand)- Govt to build plant for bird-flu vaccine, Oct28 2006
Public Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla yesterday gave the go-ahead to plan for a vaccine plant to produce both influenza and bird-flu vaccines for humans in case of a global pandemic…”
…”The cost of a plant with the capacity to produce two million doses of vaccine per year could be at least Bt600 million, he said. The ministry had already signed an agreement with China to build a vaccine plant, presumably in Saraburi, but the plan was suspended after the September coup.
To set up its own vaccine plant, Thailand has to start from scratch given the “zero” expertise it possesses, Mongkol said.
Another priority for the ministry is to make bird flu a national agenda item in order to improve the handling of outbreaks of the disease, which has become endemic in the country, and push for completion of the preparedness plan for the feared influenza pandemic…”
…”“We need to know exactly if using bird flu vaccine on poultry like in Vietnam will help curb the infection,” he said.
Reports of bird-flu cases either in humans or poultry pose a big “question mark”, while records of many deceased patients list the cause of death as simply “severe pneumonia with reasons unknown”, he said.
“Could it be bird flu? We don’t know exactly. The virus has evolved and this is what we fear the most,” Mongkol added…”
http://tinyurl.com/yc78c8
cross-posted to Southeast Asia thread
Manila Times
“The Department of Health will donate aging medicines for avian-flu patients to Indonesia or Cambodia but hopes the supply will be replenished in case the flu breaks out here.
“We’re donating Tamiflu medicines to either Indonesia or Cambodia because the medicines donated by Unilab two years ago are expiring in November 2007 and we want to maximize the use of these medicines,” Health Undersecretary Ethelyn Nieto told a press conference on Friday on Avian Influenza Pandemic Preparedness sponsored by the department and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Nieto was quick to explain that if the Philippines needed Tamiflu in the future, the supply will be replenished.
“Thank God, the Philippines is still free from avian flu,” she said. - excerpt
I read this morning that there is some kind of epidemic going on in the philipines..not sure what disease it is, Has anyone else heard that story today ? Also catastrophic epidemic in Pakistan, saying 5,000 people were infected by it. Later in the morning the Icons were off the map…” Rose havaria “ map site. It must be a miracle that each and every country was healed of their epidemics over night..never heard of such a thing…also does anyone have an update on NC. Schools etc ?
DennisC – at 10:47 wrote:
“Found this is the “breaking news” of the Bankok Post but I cannot find a date on it. I have a feeling that it is an old report but I just don’t know. - “New bird flu strain spreads to Thailand”
The original article appeared Oct 30. There are over 400+ citations in Goolge to Webster and that phrase. The following expands on it for those who missed it.
Sometimes the devil is in the details.
Bloomberg
Oct 30/06
“The findings from China may mean that the vaccine being used there doesn’t give broad enough protection, researchers said. More study is needed to determine why the virus has eluded vaccines in China, where immunizing poultry is compulsory, while appearing to remain effective in Vietnam, said Robert Webster, who helped write the study.
We need to find out what the difference is, said Webster, a virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, in a telephone interview. `It’s the same vaccine, and it’s made in China, so we need to find out if the vaccination policy is not being followed or some vaccine is not up to snuff.
Officials from the United Nations’ Food and Animal Organization are checking to see whether vaccines in China protect against the Fujian-like strain, said FAO chief veterinary officer Joseph Domenech.
`If the vaccines are not protecting against new strains of the virus, then those strains have to be included,’‘ he said today in a telephone interview.” - excerpt
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aUxASXpZsYYI&refer=japan
Crimea (an autonomous republic of Ukraine ) bird influenza is discovered
the establishment of the cases of the disease of bird by ‘highly pathogenic influenza the specialists Of Reskomprirody and hunting economies achieved raids. Were inspected the territories of hunting economies, the branches of Crimean natural preserve, Kerkinitskogo ornithological preserve, the reservoirs, utilized for the drinkable water supply, collector-drainage construction.
Were shot out 1279 birds for the veterinary analysis. Thus the virus of bird influenza was established in the Dzhankoyskeye region , in Krasnogvardeyskiy (pigeons) and Bakhchisarayskeye region (rooks), after which the corresponding measures were accepted.
having problems with machine translation of Hungarian problems again. (from RSOE) This is all I can get:
Hungarian
Health-officer ….prescribe visiting and prelim closure …Serving the metropolitan Kútvölgyi in hospital …. symptoms the 6–48 ticker incubatory time after spewing , diarrhea , heat , creeps , abdominal spasm…
HOT OFF THE PRESS - Samples of 1918 first wave virus found
Taubenberger’s team at the NIH working on pre-1918 autopsy samples from London have found 3 samples that tested positve for flu from January - July 1918. This result was only obtained 4 days ago, ie Nov 8, and they haven’t characterized it yet.
Taubenberger mentioned it in his latest NIH videocast Great Teachers - Influenza: Past Pandemics and Future Threats
Also, 31 cases from 1908–17 tested positive by RT-PCR (for the matrix gene) for influenza RNA, of which 15 were positive for H3. They have not been able to characterize the NA gene yet, but tests for N1, N2, N3, N4, N6, N8 were all negative.
COMMENT
I was so excited when I first heard this from his email that it was a bit hard to keep that to myself until I was sure that he had gone public with it. :-)
I hardly need to point out how important it would be if we can find out the characteristics of the virus going round in the first wave.
Let’s hope that RT-PCR comes back as H1. Then we’re in business.
Or at least they are….
Nov 7th, actually, to be exact.
The 3 samples were from patients who died on Jan 12, May 11, July 11 of 1918, from the archives of the Royal Londond Hospital.
Nann at 1534 -
RSOE site is a funny thing. Keep checking in on it every day and you’ll get the feel for how they manage the stories and the icons. They do a sweep once a week to clear out the icons that involve events that are no longer “news”. The two stories you referenced have been on there a while, and I’m guessing have had no newsworthy developments in several days.
AnnieB at 1:55, thanks! Your template is very easy to use, thank God you left it- formatting is so not my forte:-)
If you’re needing a break from doing the news summary I could continue to do it (most days anyway) til the New Year. Let me know what you’d like.
NEWS
Livestock Department orders disinfectant spraying at poultry farms across the country
ThaisNews (Thailand)- “The Director-General of the Livestock Development Department orders disinfectant sprayed at poultry farms across the country on Monday, November 13, to prevent bird flu from spreading during winter. Residents in the flooded areas are warned not to bring their poultry inside their house as they might be infected.
Yukol Limlaemthong (ยุคล ลิ้มแหลมทอง), Director-General of the Livestock Development Department, said that on Monday, November 13, livestock provincial officials nationwide are going to spray disinfectants at poultry farms to kill bird flu disease left in the nature.
As for the inundated areas, the officials will go there immediately after the water has declined. At the same time, the department is closely monitoring removals of poultry to make sure that all precautions are observed to prevent bird flu spread. It is also distributing animal feed to flood stricken farmers…”
…”Mr Yukol added that farmers and residents should not neglect the possible return of bird flu although there has been no report on the outbreak for more than 90 days. The disease might be hiding in the nature. He also warned those who have been affected by flood for months not to bring poultry inside their residence. If it is unavoidable, the animals should be confined in a cage to avoid direct contact.”
http://tinyurl.com/y6ehse
cross-posted to the Southeast Asia thread
Canadian Government Orders 5.5 Million Courses of Relenza
MELBOURNE, Australia, Nov. 10, 2006-- “In May 2006 the Canadian Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers of Health agreed to step up their efforts to strengthen the public health capacity in preparing for an influenza pandemic.
Biota has now been informed that as a consequence of this initiative, the Canadian Government will increase the overall stockpile of antivirals to 55 million courses, and increase the proportion of zanamivir to 5.5 million courses…”
http://tinyurl.com/y28d7h
cross-posted to the Lookout Post For Canada Greenland and the Arctic Circle thread
GSK predicts unrest if bird-flu mutates
Several governments around the world have promised to send in the army to protect GlaxoSmithKline manufacturing plants that produce bird flu vaccine should a pandemic break out, the drug maker’s chief executive, Jean-Pierre Garnier, has said.
“People don’t realise the disorder which comes from a scary event such as a true pandemic. It is not going to be the time to line up to your friendly pharmacist because there will be hundreds of people there. There will be panic episodes,” Mr Garnier said. advertisement
The Government is expected to make a decision in the next few weeks on what measures to take to protect the UK should bird flu mutate so that it can be passed from human to human, creating a global pandemic. As well as stocking up on antibiotics and face masks to reduce the risk of infection, the Department of Health is also expected to build a reserve of bird-flu vaccine.
GSK is one of several major pharmaceutical companies working on a vaccine against H5N1, the current strain of bird flu. It has signed a deal to supply its vaccine to Switzerland and an unnamed Asian country. It is in talks with other countries including the UK and US.
“We’re hopeful the UK will come to a decision before the end of the year because other countries are knocking on our door,” Mr Garnier said.
He said GSK could switch some of its factories making normal flu vaccine to the bird-flu drug. GSK has major flu drug plants in Germany and Canada. Mr Garnier said no countries had said they might requisition GSK factories in the event of a pandemic.
Just my opinion-
I am in favor of bulldozers and mass graves if it comes to that. Almost anything to remove the bodies from the living since we know that the virus can live for a week or so in cool water.- Hope I don’t offend any followers of Zoroaster but that is the one why I would not recommend- that is placing the bodies on mountains or rooms open to above and let the birds clean the bones (although the practice did save them from the Bubonic plaque).
Some plans call for wrapping the bodies in a sheet and soaking in bleach until they can go to a mass grave. I would say that mass graves should also have a listing of those in the grave and individual bodies labeled in some way.
NEWS
RP to give away old bird-flu medicine
The Manila Times(Phillipines)- “The Department of Health will donate aging medicines for avian-flu patients to Indonesia or Cambodia but hopes the supply will be replenished in case the flu breaks out here.
“We’re donating Tamiflu medicines to either Indonesia or Cambodia because the medicines donated by Unilab two years ago are expiring in November 2007 and we want to maximize the use of these medicines,” Health Undersecretary Ethelyn Nieto told a press conference on Friday on Avian Influenza Pandemic Preparedness sponsored by the department and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Nieto was quick to explain that if the Philippines needed Tamiflu in the future, the supply will be replenished…”
http://tinyurl.com/yjryyv
cross-posted to the Southeast Asiathread
OOPs How did I do that, that post was for another thread….(What Do We Do with the Bodies thread) And I only had one window open. Strange.
My apologies for duplicating Klatu’s post at 15:27. I’ve gotta learn to read everything first:-)
Message for MaMa
I am happy for you to carry on doing the News Summary for a bit - even if you want to do week about - or if you are into a routine that is great. Just let me know what suits you best. I must admit, that midnight on the Wiki is a busy time here for me in NZ and I feel a bit ‘rushed’ to get it done lately.
Everyone go to Monotreme`s site quickly!The US embassy in Tunisia has recommended 12 week preps and he has the link and commentary.Let`s just see how long it stays up this time.
Reconscout – at 20:36
Everyone go to Monotreme`s site quickly!The US embassy in Tunisia has recommended 12 week preps and he has the link and commentary.Let`s just see how long it stays up this time.
This has been discussed on this thread
Start from November 10, Blue Ridge Mountain Mom – at 23:27 onwards.
“anon_22 – at 16:44 HOT OFF THE PRESS - Samples of 1918 first wave virus found
Taubenberger’s team at the NIH working on pre-1918 autopsy samples from London have found 3 samples that tested positve for flu from January - July 1918. This result was only obtained 4 days ago, ie Nov 8, and they haven’t characterized it yet.
Taubenberger mentioned it in his latest NIH videocast Great Teachers - Influenza: Past Pandemics and Future Threats
Also, 31 cases from 1908–17 tested positive by RT-PCR (for the matrix gene) for influenza RNA, of which 15 were positive for H3. They have not been able to characterize the NA gene yet, but tests for N1, N2, N3, N4, N6, N8 were all negative.
COMMENT
I was so excited when I first heard this from his email that it was a bit hard to keep that to myself until I was sure that he had gone public with it. :-)
I hardly need to point out how important it would be if we can find out the characteristics of the virus going round in the first wave.
Let’s hope that RT-PCR comes back as H1. Then we’re in business.
Or at least they are….”
Comment:
Will this help save lives? Significance? If an N1 then…?
On CDC homepage. End to End Preparedness for Pandemic Influenza, in DC. A little late starts tomorrow.
I have not READ EVERYTHING so I may have missed it but is anyone associated with FW attending?
Apologies if this has been mentioned here already, I spend way to much time reading other things on here:)
Ottawa Guy – at 20:52
Comment:
Will this help save lives? Significance? If an N1 then…?
I think you mean H1. :-)
The thing to remember is that Taubenberger’s published work on the 1918 virus were all based on samples from those who died in the second wave.
If they find H1 instead of H3, which was the circulating strain just before, that means they have caught the virus at a very early stage of becoming a pandemic virus. They don’t become efficient in h2h nor have the later virulence right out of the gate. Those characteristics evolved over time, albeit a very short timeframe of only a few months.
Assuming they have enough fragments from those samples to study the sequences, especially the internal genes, we may be able to determine which mutations facilitated those changes.
anon_22 – at 16:44 Let’s hope that RT-PCR comes back as H1.
Anon_22, This does sound fascinating. Can you translate, in lay terms, the specific implications of the above snippet from your post.
Message for AnnieB
I don’t mind doing the summary for a while. How about a month (like a vacation:-) and then maybe we could take half a week each for a bit and see how that works. Then nobody is maxed out having to do it every day of the week. You’ve done an amazing job with the summary all along but it’s no good for anybody to burn out. I think sharing the workload is a good thing for all concerned. Does that sound ok?
Ah, anon_22, I was interrupted in writing my post at 21:41 and my screen did not refresh until I posted. Your answerat 21:31 covers it I believe. But if you want to go into more depth, go for i!
Edna Mode – at 21:44
I don’t know what we might find but since the ability to study tiny fragments has improved tremendously, as long as we can find the cases and the samples, there is real hope of some very interesting findings.
Since we know so little about influenza virology, (read Taubenberger virology series Part 1 - incl. origins of 1918 virus, Part 2 - incl. what we don’t know, Part 3, and Part 4) the questions that we want answered are wide open ie ANY virology data from the first wave, even if it only confirms what we already know, is likely to be significant. Especially if, at the same time, we also have samples pre-1918.
What we know at the moment about the 1918 virus is only from the final finished product. That does not tell us a lot about how it got there and why.
Having both pre-1918 and first wave samples to compare with 2nd wave samples is IMHO our best shot at finding out!
FYI I am writing up a new thread from a different source that approaches the 1918 problem in a different way with some interesting findings. Give me an hour or so to finish it up. :-)
BTW the videocast that I linked at 16:44 is his latest lecture given only a few days ago, and is again well worth watching.
For example, he expands on the receptor binding issue and says that it is more than just 2,3 or 2,6. There are variations in the internal sugars of the receptor binding sites even if the terminal dissacharides are the same eg 2 human viruses might both bind to 2,6 terminals, but they would be terminals of different sugars. We don’t know, for example, whether there might be different patterns of distribution of these 2,6 receptor sites in different age groups that might explain the pattern of virulence.
The thing about this guy is that he keeps telling you what we don’t know, but in telling that, raises tremendous possibilities and new ways of thinking. At least for me.
NEWS
Laos joins Vietnam in trial bird vaccination project
The Nation(Nov.11/06)- “Laos is taking part in a Vietnamese trial to vaccinate poultry against bird flu despite concerns the vaccine may lead to a mutation in the deadly virus, a senior Lao official said yesterday.
The land-locked country is in the first stage of the study, having injected 3,000 ducks and 5,000 chickens in two poultry farms in Vientiane with a trial vaccine.
“We are now closely monitoring the effectiveness of the vaccine to see if it can produce immunity in the birds,” said Somphanh Chanphengxay, deputy director of Laos’ National Avian and Human Influenza Coordination Office.
“The big concern is that the vaccine might cause a mutation in the virus,” said Somphanh.
Vietnam persuaded Laos to join the trail months ago after the neighbouring country was hit by H5N1 bird-flu outbreaks in 2004 and this year.
Somphanh said the second stage of the experimental would involve injecting the poultry with a stimulant. The final results will be available in a few months…”
more… http://tinyurl.com/ybpkh6
This is the new paper, published online in the Journal of Virology and summarized on this thread
ABSTRACT:
In the last few years, the genomic sequence data for thousands of influenza A virus strains, including the 1918 pandemic strain, and hundreds of isolates of the avian influenza virus H5N1, which is causing an increasing number of human fatalities, have become publicly available. This large quantity of sequence data allows us to do comparative genomics with the human and avian versions of the virus. We find that the nucleotide compositions of influenza A viruses infecting the two hosts are sufficiently different that we can determine the host at almost 100% accuracy. This assignment works at the segment level, which allows us to construct the reassortment history of individual segments within each strain. We suggest that the different nucleotide compositions can be explained by a host-dependent mutation bias. To support this idea, we estimate the fixation rates for the different polymerase segments and the ratios of synonymous to nonsynonymous changes. Additionally, we provide evidence supporting the hypothesis that the H1N1 influenza virus entered the human population just prior to the 1918 outbreak, with an earliest bound of 1910.
MaMa - sounds perfect - November is yours, I will start up again in December - thank you thank you. If at any time you need to take a break just let me know.
Annie (big kisses and hugs)
Two new cases of bird flu in Indonesia
Indonesia has confirmed two new human cases of bird flu, with both victims alive and being treated in a Jakarta hospital, a Health Ministry official said.
Confirmation came from two tests, Dr Muhammad Nadhirin, from the ministry’s national bird flu centre, told Reuters.
“The position is 74 cases, 55 of whom have died,” he said.
One of the victims of the virus is a 35-year-old woman and the other a two and a half-year-old boy. The two are not related and are from different parts of West Java province.
Nadhirin said it had not yet been determined whether the two had had contact with fowl, the most common way for humans to catch bird flu.
AnnieB, you’re welcome and right back at ya:-)
closed for speed