(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 forum threads for India, Indonesia and Nepal
link to Indonesia wiki page
(From WHO as at 13 Nov - latest update) Total human cases worldwide 258, deaths 153 (2006 – 111 with 76 deaths)
Indonesia
Africa
Egypt
Australia
Greece
Canada
USA
General
Link to news thread for 18 November (link News Reports for November 18 )
(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.
Thanks to all of the newshounds!
This article should win sort of Booby Prize for whoever formulated its headline because the point of the article is that though a bird flu pandemic may have been temporarily averted, the threat still looms:
World may have averted bird flu pandemic: expert
Sat Nov 18, 11:20 PM ET
SYDNEY (AFP) - The world may have already averted a bird flu pandemic by widespread chicken culls and the isolation of infected humans, Australia’s chief medical officer has said.
But if a new flu virus did begin spreading rapidly among humans all the world’s preparations might be shown to be insufficient, John Horvath wrote in the Medical Journal of Australia.
“It may be that the world has already averted an influenza pandemic by actions it has taken in response to H5N1, such as extensive culling of poultry and isolation of infected humans,” he said.
“Yet all preparations may seem insufficient if the world comes face to face with a rapidly spreading novel virus like the one that emerged in 1918.”
Scientists fear the H5N1 virus, which has spread from poultry to humans and killed more than 150 people worldwide, mainly in Asia, could mutate to become easily transmissible among people.
That could lead to a global flu pandemic which could kill more than the tens of millions killed by the “Spanish Flu” in 1918.
Horvath noted that the changes in the world since previous pandemics, such as faster and cheaper international travel and more densely populated countries, would make it easier for disease to spread.
Leading immunologist Peter Doherty said in the same government-sponsored report that while some kind of pandemic outbreak was certain in the future researchers were divided over whether it would be caused by the H5N1 virus.
“There’s the quandary: the potential threat has horrific proportions but it is not clear whether anything will actually happen,” he wrote.
The top UN coordinator on avian influenza, David Nabarro, said earlier this month the H5N1 virus was likely to remain a significant global threat for the next decade.
“The risk of a mutation to cause pandemic is still very much there,” he said. “As long as the virus is present in birds, there will also be a threat of sporadic human infection, and a possibility of a mutation which would cause at the end of the day a pandemic.”
Someone tell me that the H5N1 in DE is low path
H5N1 in DE is low path
(Did that make you feel any better, Carrey?)
Inky, find the Pandemic Misinformation Hall of Shmae thread; think that’s what it’s called… tough competition, that.
If I was editor, I would have changed that headline to
World seems to have Temporarily Delayed Killer Flu Pandemic
(“Only a matter of time; go prepare to cope with supply chain disruptions”)
Shame; shame on me I can’t type or proofread perfectly. Can’t work as an editor; I question authority more accurately than I type…
“They” don’t really know how “low-path” turns into “high-path” (starts to hear “Loch Lomond” ) but, I know, high-path isn’t generated only by being a strain outside of whatever jurisdiction the article is being published in…
crfullmoon - at 10:29 - Re: Carrey, you took the words right out of my mouth. Scary.
Pakistan
Dengue fever infects 5000 in Pakistan, with 39 more patients in the past 24 hours.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-11/19/content_5349697.htm
Article @ 11:23:
Dengue suspect cases in Pakistan close to 5,000 www.chinaview.cn 2006–11–19 16:21:38
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) — Additional 99 patients with signs and symptoms similar to dengue fever have been admitted to different hospitals across Pakistan thus bringing the total number up to 4,965 patients in this south Asian country.
Quoting the Pakistani health ministry, a TV channel reported Sunday that 39 more patients were declared positive for the dengue virus during last 24 hours increasing the confirmed cases to 1,763.
So far, dengue fever has caused 44 deaths in Pakistan with 43 from the southern Sindh province and one from the North West Frontier Province.
As many as 825 patients have so far been admitted to different hospitals in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad and its southern neighbor Rawalpindi with symptoms to those of the dengue fever and 18 declared positive for the dengue virus. The total number of positive cases of dengue virus in the twin cities now stands at 324.
Infections rise in deadly flu outbreak
HEALTH officials in Canberra suspect another person has been infected in an influenza outbreak which has swept through a nursing home and already killed six elderly residents.
The powerful strain has infected 57 people, including at least seven nursing home staff.
Tests were still being conducted yesterday to determine if the latest respiratory illness was part of the same strain, a spokeswoman for ACT Health Minister Katy Gallagher said.
The latest victim was a 90-year-old man who passed away at the Jindalee Nursing Home in Canberra’s south on Thursday night. Staff notified authorities on November 1 that an unknown illness had swept through the residence.
Health authorities have offered staff and residents of the home anti-viral medication, including the drug Tamiflu, and have sought assistance from the commonwealth.
ACT Acting Chief Health Officer Charles Guest reassured residents, staff and their families that the outbreak was not connected to pandemic influenza or the deadly H5N1 virus, commonly known as bird flu, following analysis of the virus.
More here: http://tinyurl.com/y8gs3g
Saw this at Free Republic, comment 3472:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1711256/posts?page=3491#3491
China Denies Bird Flu Cover-Up Chinese officials on Friday expressed anger at any suggestion that Beijing has been covering up the appearance of a new strain of the bird flu virus.
A United States-based journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, last week published a report by American and Hong Kong researchers that said a vaccine-resistant strain—identified as the “Fujian strain”--had been found in poultry outbreaks in southern China. The strain also appeared in Hong Kong, Laos, Malaysia and Thailand, according to the report.
China’s top veterinarian, Jia Youling, head of the Veterinary Bureau at the Ministry of Agriculture, strongly disputed the findings to reporters in Beijing Friday.
“There is no such new Fujian-like virus variant at all,” said Jia. “It is utterly groundless to assert the outbreak of bird flu in Southeast Asian countries was caused by avian influenza in China.”
The World Health Organization’s representative in China, Dr. Henk Bekedam, said a much wider study is necessary to know whether a new strain exists.
“The discussion about [what is] new or not new needs to be done by scientists,” he said. “This is a very specific, specialized area, and, to come to a conclusion, I really think you need to get all the global experts together, and then to agree if it’s new or not.”
Dr. Bekedam on Friday said the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture had assured his office it has finally shipped 20 bird flu virus samples from 2004 and 2005 that the WHO has been requesting since last year. He says scientists need to see the samples, so they can watch for virus mutations and start developing new vaccines.
“Today, we are very hopeful” Bekedam said. “Today, those virus [samples] are being shipped. We hope as well tomorrow to start discussing about the viruses, which are also the viruses of 2006 to be shared.”
The H5N1 strain of bird flu is currently the dominant virus that first crossed over to humans in 1997 in Hong Kong. It has killed more than 150 people worldwide since then, most of them in Asia. Most, but not all, were infected by contact with animals.
Scientists are worried that the virus may mutate to a strain that can easily jump from human to human, and cause a global pandemic that could kill millions of people.
China’s earlier reluctance to hand over the virus samples triggered speculation by some Western researchers. They alleged the Chinese were hoping to get a commercial advantage by being the first to come up with a new vaccine. China denied the allegations.
When they test for Dengue do they simultaneously test for H5N1? Aren’t the symptoms for Dengue similar to flu?
RE the outbreak in Canberra, they “reassure” the public that it is not H5N1, but do not mention that they have actually tested for H5N1 in these patients? Anyone have data on that?
This article is dated Nov 11 but news page is dated today Nov 19.
Bird flu ‘out of control’ in Chinese province
“The Chinese government says the spread of the deadly H5N1 bird flu in one of its provinces is not under control and has warned of a potential disaster there. There have been three fresh outbreaks of the avian virus in the north-eastern province of Liaoning in 24 hours, and a new suspected human infection.
And the Middle East has now seen its first definite case of H5N1 bird flu. The authorities in Kuwait have confirmed that a migratory flamingo found on a beach died of the lethal strain. They say another bird suspected of having the virus had the milder H5N2 strain.
There have been six outbreaks in the past month in China and the government has responded with mass culls of poultry. The most recent outbreaks, which killed about 1100 chickens, prompted the authorities to cull 670,000 poultry in the areas affected, and place 116 people in quarantine.
The outbreaks are being blamed on migratory birds, but the head of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Beijing said it was possible that they were due to village-to-village spread of the virus. ….
The Nov 19 New Scientist article (above) didn’t “seem right”
I checked and that flamingo story is a recycle from 2005 http://tinyurl.com/ybgfhc
Here is a current posting from Dr. Niman at Recombinomics.
Beijing
Last Updated: 1:40am GMT 20/11/2006
“On one side is an internationally renowned scientist at the forefront of the fight against bird flu. On the other is the Communist Party.
The authorities in Beijing, accused of covering up Sars three years ago, are pursuing a bitter feud with a professor who published a paper hinting at a new cover-up, this time of the avian influenza virus. Professor Guan Yi’s paper was ostensibly about a strain that it found to have become the dominant type in poultry. He and his team had to work without the authorities’ approval. The new strain’s dominance also implied that the mass vaccination programme must have failed, or even been counterproductive.
The paper did not comment on the government’s openness, but the growing number of birds it found carrying the virus contrasted with the lower number of outbreaks officially being reported.
Government scientists have launched a campaign against Professor Guan and his colleagues, who include some of the world’s leading virologists, accusing them of being “unscientific” and using “flawed” methods.
The professor, who works at Hong Kong University, helped to identify Sars, even as Beijing’s attempt to cover up the number of deaths it caused triggered a political crisis.
His research has already led to authorities raiding one of his laboratories. One diplomat working on bird flu said they appeared to regard him as an “outsider”. “His team are annoying the hell out of them by doing research like any scientists anywhere in the world and then reporting their findings,” the diplomat said.
The team tested 53,000 Chinese chickens, ducks and geese in the second half of 2005 and the first half of 2006, comparing the results with a year before.
Despite an intensive vaccination programme, the proportion of birds infected had increased from 0.9 to 2.4 per cent. By the end of the period, 95 per cent of virus samples found were a strain known as “Fujian-like”, because it originated in Fujian, south-east China. This strain was responsible for this year’s human cases in south-east Asia.
Jia Youling, China’s chief vet, said the study had “no basis in fact”.
Henk Bekedam, head of the World Health Organisation in Beijing, said the study suggested either China knew of the strain but had not reported it, or a lack of thorough surveillance.”
Hey, I’ll bet Dr. Niman knows just how Professor Guan feels.
Niman worked with Guan Yi.