http://www.recombinomics.com/News/11160602/H5N1_Suhaj_4.html
Four Suspect H5N1 Patients Hospitalized in Suhaj Egypt Recombinomics Commentary November 16, 2006
The university hospital in Suhaj detained 3 children and a factor for the suspicion of their injury by the bird flu epidemic and they are Faten Ahmed Shawqi, its sister Manar and Shaimaa and their neighbour Mohamed Al Sayed “a worker” the child and the worker was injured by a pneumonia and a sharp descent in the heart and lost the awareness -
The above translation desscribes four suspect H5N1 bird flu patients hospitalized in central Egypt. Two patients are already unconcious, and the cluster includes three siblings and a neighbor.
Clusters in Egypt are cause for concern. The HA from a recent fatality had M230I, which matches all three seasonal flu’s (Influenza A H3N2 and H1N1 as well as Influenza B. The change creates five consecutive amino acids (QSGRI) that match the receptor binding domain of infleunza B, raising ocnerns of increased human-to-human transmission.
notice from today’s news thread the bird cases: 720 km south of the capital, Cairo. and the new one 65 km north of Cairo
sounds like something is “on the wing” in Egypt
This will be the next hot thread.
Leo7 are you saying that just because 1) we have a family cluster 2) the new Nature report shows that there is the “more human” modification in H5N1 in this area 3) there are new cases of bird flu among birds there 4) one of the latest deaths was from there. 5) the migratory birds are now in that area 6) …
sick birds- check virus w/ new affinity for humans- check cluster of sick humans- check ground zero- ?
Map showing location of Suhaj
The following might also come in handy in the coming days.
A report was recently posted about a child in the far north (north of Cairo) suspected of succumbing to H5N1. NewsNow.
I believe I just heard the sound of a shoe dropping.
The Sequence from Djibouti, Blood of Girl matches the recent Egyptian cases except for the one Egyptian case that has the S227N polymorphism.
No need to overtrack on Egypt. Remember that we are very limited to the sequences that we are allowed to see.
The pandemic strain could emerge from anywhere.
I do think it’s notable that Suhaj is along the Nile. If you track African epidemiologies, you’ll find diseases moving along waterways.
Still no healthcare workers or extended family clusters.
Just for ducks lets say that one human is infected for every 100,000 chickens. The spread we’re currently seeing is *still* explicable just by the rampant epizootic in poultry.
This is yet another case that is the same as all the others we’ve seen to this point.
Clearly, it isn’t good news, as every additional human infected could be the one where a better human-adapted virus emerges and undergoes favorable selection pressures. But we *still* have no evidence to suggest that such a strain is circulating here.
I don’t want to sound to harsh here, we do need to watch these. But of itself this is not evidence of the other shoe.
Egyptians do have cause for extra vigilance. I’m a bit disappointed that they haven’t been able to contain their situation as effectively as Turkey did. The Turks still have my admiriation for that, which with $4 will buy you most selections on the Starbuck’s coffee menu (none of which are likely strong enough for Turkish tastes, but I digress…)
Mary in Hawaii…. I think so too. The jig is up folks. The dominos have begun to fall.
Spirit—
I disagree. As yet this is no worse than what we’ve seen in Indonesia. In the absence of additional cases identified in the next 24 hours, I don’t think we can jump to the conclusion of a changed virus yet.
Lisa,
The Egyptian cases from deaths as recent as two weeks ago do show significant mammallian-adaptive polymorphisms.
Feel free to contact me via my NS1 profile with your address and I’ll send a text document from ClustalW revealing the alignments and signatures of several seasonal influenza polymorphisms onto the H5N1 background.
We can’t conclude anything at this point, but the latest viral genetics existing in Egypt are very special.
Well, we should know if this cluster is any different from the others over the next 24 hours or so, in which case the MSM will just be catching on to these first four and there’sll still be time to fill in any prep holes you’ve eaten into in the name of rotating stock.
Too much information→after too much activity during the day I’m having a CRPS flare tonight that is making me a bit hoopy between pain and failed efforts to defeat it. (local time is 1:30 am, I’m up because it hurts too much for me to fall asleep).
I may create an email just for wiki use. Let me think on that one a bit.
Lisa-
What region (in the email, of course)?
The latest Egyption case - A/Egypt/12374-NAMRU3/2006(H5N1) also shows a five aa identity in the Receptor Binding Domain of the HA to a seasonal Influenza B strain.
In other words, the Egyptian H5N1 and the Seasonal Influenza B share HA 226:230 = QSGRI.
The Egyptian H5N1 now has a wider template to acquire mammallian transmissibility from seasonal strains.
bump
NS1 – at 05:07
The Egyptian H5N1 now has a wider template to acquire mammallian transmissibility from seasonal strains.
The infection process is non linear. More adaptations lead to more infections which lead to more adaptations. It could start really fast (less than 10 weeks) or it may be years. NOT
I think we need to be in wait and watch mode for a while longer before we start getting overly excited. If it is similar to the Cikelet, Indonesia cluster one week will reveal a lot. My concern, will the media in Egypt be allowed to report what is going on there?
Klatu – at 01:13
Your maps are really useful. To prevent sidescroll, make sure the bigger maps open in a new window by putting %newwin% in front of your pmwiki markup. Thanks!
If this is the lastest breaking news from Egypt, I am not finding it anywhere. I searched BBC World new, Promedmail, news.yahoo, news.google, allafrica, reuters, and world poultry news. No mention of new human infections.
Keep watching those clusters while I go shopping!
cottontop – at 07:09
Me either, just reports of finding h5n1 inbirds with no human infections.
Folks, calm down. Save your energy. Suspected is just that and there have been thousands of people ‘suspected’ fo having h5n1 in the past year and little if any panned out to be true.
Monitor. Prepare. Educate.
I’m monitoring other blog sites, and they mention nothing. But yet, Wonderer has a link. Hmmmm
cottontop and Grace RN,
You will likely not find it in English. Niman has quoted a machine translation, probably from Arabic to English. I just tried to look for info in Arabic, but the script throws me for a loop. Maybe someone else can do better. Here is a site with links to multiple translation sites, some for Arabic to English:
Here is the media source (in Arabic) as cited per Nimans site per FluTrackers site (follow the link in Wonderers post, then go to Nimans media sources at the bottom of the commentary page, then the link in the first post on the FluTracker site):
Cottentop — FluTrackers had it last night here. Not much chatter on it, but a link.
If it can’t be confirmed by other sources, then i find any single report suspicious.
Should I post this on the Northern Africa thread, or not?
Here is another translation of the article on the news site cited on my 8:25 post:
Wrote Sanaa Mustafa and Hisham [aalmraaGy]:
The academic hospital in Sohag 3 children detained and laborer for the suspecting in their injury in epidemic [‘anflwnzaa] the birds captivating illusion Ahmed her yearnings and sister is landmark and Shayma Mustafa and pulling their sovereign Mohammed” laborer “the children hit and working in inflammation pulmonary and sharp descent in the turning and lost all the consciousness withdrawal of samples was complete from stricken for sending her to the central factories in ministry of the health. Stature group of the expensive work in continuation [‘anflwnzaa] the stricken birds in the transfer to houses and her clouds of samples from the birds for sending to institute researches of the animal in hectic.
The doctor AbdulRahman announced [shaah] of the spokesman official for ministry the health and the inhabitants [aanHSaar] the stubborn injuries between the birds in the farmer and the houses and stability cases of the injury for the human being 15 case only died from her 7 ladies since last month February. [shaah] to lack indicated moving virus of the illness from human stricken to person sound. Student of the doctor is victory sovereign head sector of the preventive matters [waalmtwTnt] in ministry of the health in the symposium informational first about [‘anflwnzaa] the birds quickly direction of the educators to the hospital in case occurrence of any offers [l’anflwnzaa] the birds or pulmonary appearance of inflammation without concealment of the truth.
Translation site:
I think it is a legitamate news article. Yes cottontop, post it on the Northern Africa lookout post thread.
New Bird Flu Cases Discovered in Egypt
Four Egyptians were admitted to hospital Thursday in the southern governorate of Sohag on suspicion of contracting the bird flu virus, according to newspaper reports Friday.
The victims ranged between nine months and 18 years and were sent to the Sohag general hospital and the regional university hospital.
Blood samples were taken from the four and sent to be tested in the central labs of the ministry of health.
Just to remind everyone. Egypt did report fresh bird flu infections the 11/11/06. I’m certain this is where it is coming from.
NS1 – at 05:07 The Egyptian H5N1 now has a wider template to acquire mammallian transmissibility from seasonal strains.
Would a good poker analogy be that you now have 4 cards to an open ended straight and you are about to draw?
The information posted at 8:50 has now also shown up on RSOE Havaria including one of their excellent maps showing the location of Sohag.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=8449&cat=dis&lang=eng
Dennis C:
Yes, for everything you mentioned, plus Egypt still reporting dengue outbreaks. The samples as NS1 states indicated Egypt is the place to watch for now. Nepal had a news blackout placed, and I hope Egypt remains open. We will have to wait and see. The only reason I mention the dengue is because the symptoms are so close to influenza it’s easy to see where the two could mingle and flu be missed.
Leo7 – at 12:46
I was very curious about Nepal and just never came to a conclusion as to what was going on. But in Egypt I get that “oh no” feeling. We know that all the pieces are there including the more lethal Q strain. I thin we will know within 2 weeks if it has gotten started and within a month or so if it is taking off. If WHO is clever, they will watch this like a hawk (pun intended) and be ready to go phase 4 on shut off the country before the Hajj and the people scatter to Mecca and …
Dennis C:
I saw Nepal on a documentary and it was brutally beautiful. They people were so poor and the living way below what we sometimes can imagine here in the US. If there is a purgatory, that place gets my vote. I don’t believe for one second the Hajj will be stopped. It could be stage 6 and the people would travel despite public warnings. Other countries could stop their immigrants from going though. The UK has begun now to urge those going to Hajj to get vaccinated, so they are aware of a potentially big problem returning to trouble them. If WHO went to higher stage do you think countries will let them back in? Or tell them YOYO?
If memory serves me correctly, didn’t Nabarro mention a month or two ago, that he was particularly concerned about the general area in and around Egypt?
Leo7-
What vaccination are these people suppose to get before they leave the U.K.? Are they saying “get a flu shot?”
It is my understanding, that you can not enter another country without having the proper vaccinations. Maybe you can, I’m not sure. I went to Mexico without being vaccinated, so maybe you can.
What a relief to see some ‘wait and see’ commentary coming back into this thread .. I was beginning to think I was ‘under-reacting’!
I think that Egypt is a place that we will have to watch closely, just as we have done with Indonesia.
The official Egypt website does not mention anything about this - in fact gives the ‘all clear’ message - if there was concern at governmental level there, as they have legitimately shown in the past, their own website would be putting up cautionary messages - as they also did early this year.
My PPF has not increased, my ‘watch this closely’ has.
cottontop – at 15:39
What vaccination are these people suppose to get before they leave the U.K.? Are they saying “get a flu shot?”
[snip] Robert Booy, Honorary Professor of Child Health at Queen Mary, University of London , added:
“ Particularly in winter influenza is a major risk and although authorities in Saudi do not yet require evidence of immunisation, influenza is a serious risk to pilgrims and I would strongly urge those in an ‘at risk’ group to consider vaccination before they travel.”
COMMENT Flu vaccinations are in short supply here in the UK but supposedly the next batch will arrive in December.
Beehiver @ 15:30 - yes that was in the thread Goju started about the pandemic meeting he attended in NY where Nabarro spoke.
Flu vaccines in the US are in overplus and they’re encouraging more people to get them to keep up demand/manufacturing capacity.
I would like to remind people of something.
Say you have virus xxxxx in a chicken. Every time humanophile virus xxxxy occurs, it is selected against because it is in a chicken, and dies out. The titer of xxxxy in any chicken where it does exist may be too low to detect.
Virus xxxxx gets into a human. Now if xxxxy occurs, it has an advantage and may multiply in that person, and be picked up by sequence analysis.
However, if virus xxxxy doesn’t ever get from that person to another person, then it is a dead end. Even though its sequence is in the database, if it is extinct in the wild, it is not contributing to the ongoing threat. It has to arise separately, de novo, in someone else, all over again, for it to be contributing to viral evolution.
Sequence analysis has its place, but I think, especially given our imperfect understanding of exactly what genetic changes can work together to make a pandemic strain, we really need to watch viral behavior in the wild to determine when risk is rising. Watching the sequences by themselves is not an adequate/accurate/timely way to keep track of the real-world threat level.
Imho.
This cluster hasn’t been verified by additional sources, and additional cases are not yet found. For the moment it is a phantom cluster.
If it is not on ProMed, whoever found it in the Arabic press can submit it to the ProMed moderators with a link to the original article and a machine translation. You do not have to be a doc to do that, you just have to have a verifiable source/newspaper link. They can put it on the mailing list as a request for information, so folk in the region can comment or add information they may hear of it.
Oremus – at 11:52
I don’t really understand how poker works. No interest.
I think you are asking me if H5N1 is fractionally closer to PF51? And if the probability is higher now that mammalian traits may be acquired?
If those are the questions, the answers are respectively, yes probably and yes definitely.
As larger and more significant portions of the strings from H5N1 align with the strings from any of the other human seasonal influenza strains, the probability of genetic acquisition via recombination is higher according to our current understanding of Dr. Niman’s work.
I have been able to consistently verify his associations and personally find his work groundbreaking as to rules-based genetic acquisition of sub-segment strings from SNPs to longer homologies.
I cannot say that others in the field have been as consistently accurate or attuned to the sequence acquisitions that are of paramount importance.
This lack of focus and lack of rigour on the part of the conventional school may very well leave us in the same place as the mid-pandemic of 1918 when the researchers were working fervently and practically randomly in a search for solutions. No consistent and viable solutions were found, but many beakers, pipettes, flasks and petri dishes were employed to the task.
Activity occurred without valid heuristics then and is occurring quite possibly now. The prognosis then in 1920 is our current state of affairs now.
As we’ve seen from letting the sequences speak for themselves, polymorphisms may come singly with accumulatation or they may come in bursts with sometimes dramatic outcomes.
The long and short of it is, we don’t know yet. And we won’t know until the strain emerges. We operate post-facto until we apply more research funding to valid predictive heuristics.
Reactions are generally too little and too late.
Lisa the GP – at 18:48
Sequence analysis has its place, but I think, especially given our imperfect understanding of exactly what genetic changes can work together to make a pandemic strain, we really need to watch viral behavior in the wild to determine when risk is rising. Watching the sequences by themselves is not an adequate/accurate/timely way to keep track of the real-world threat level.
Can’t agree more.
Lisa,
You are precisely correct in that we must also watch the viral behaviour in the wild.
Please don’t discount the strength of our modern observational tools of genetics though.
Each additional set of spectacles that we can use gives us a more focused insight.
I think the genetics will be learned from this pandemic and useful/predictive for the next pandemic. If our technology doesn’t backslide.
Lisa the GP – at 19:10
I think the genetics will be learned from this pandemic and useful/predictive for the next pandemic. If our technology doesn’t backslide.
Agree again :-)
Pardon a brief journey into personality-land, just to be out on the table, I find myself bristling at NS1′s posts, detecting a note of ‘nimanista’ in them, a slant that seems to want to prove Dr. Niman right.
NS1, if you could change your tone a bit to just pursue *the truth*, whether it makes Niman right or wrong being immaterial, maybe I could stop feeling this way. I find myself wanting to skip your posts in their current form, or respond in a snarky way.
Please don’t view this as a troll but as a comment that I hope will help us avoid future friction.
NS1, Please don’t change anything about your posts. They are great just the way they are and very informative. Your tone has always been very polite and respectful.
Thank you.
since the dummies thread is closed, I have to ask here. what is “a troll?”
NS1, I am in complete agreement with you that arrogance about knowing where to look and discounting opinions that disagree with your paradigm of how things work is dangerous. There are too many unknowns here to imply that one technique should take precidence over another. This arrogance has manifested itself in the past on this site and yet it seems the lesson was not learned. I don’t understand why some feel it necessary to stick a barb in to prove a point. Maybe it’s a cultural thing and I just don’t get it but frankly it’s tiresome. This is not aimed at Lisa GP. Fine, you think you have the solution, then post your observations and have a great day but don’t insert yourself into a conversation for the sole sake of provocation. Good lord women, now is not the time to be running people off the site!! Try a little humble pie once in a while…might be good for your soul.
Looks like I spoke too soon. The only arrogance I detect is not from NS1.
NS1 - I learn volumes every time you post. I believe your tone is lovely!
Lisa the GP ¨C at 19:21
Thank you for your candor. I don’t mind at all if you bristle. Your perogative. I came here to
Gather and Solve.
Join me if you like. I won’t engage in any debates that are off-topic.
I believe that Dr. Niman is the closest. Because he is most novel, I want to be certain that everyone reading sees that I’ve investigated the observations first hand, am convinced and am investigating for further factual matter.
Transparency.
I can see your desire to instruct. Please examine why you are instructing me, so that you can more properly instruct me. If Niman is accurate as I believe, then his ideas are instructive to the conversation; hence, Niman’s ideas are true and useful to the conversation.
I remain unconcerned about exclusionary thinking that may be driven by a lack of in-depth preparation. Feel free to bypass these posts if they are overly compelling to you.
I value all instruction that brings a hint of humility, a smattering of content and a desire to solve. I will continue to undervalue exclusion due to under-preparation.
Opinions are great and form hypotheses frequently. Then we go to the preponderance of evidence . . .
That’s the beauty of observational science!
I value your critical thinking skills, Lisa.
Let’s all study more and bring less emotion and more forthright facts.
cottontop – at 19:30 A troll is someone intentionally trying to cause problems. Someone who just disrupts things for the fun of it, like someone who think bird flu is all hype coming here to heckle and make us angry. But sometimes the word “troll” is used loosely as a general insult between people who are mostly on the same side but disagree on some matters.
That’s how I’ve seen it used, anyway.
Lisa and A22,
The genetics that we are tracking at this very moment is highly instructive and a valuable database for today. A larger sample set being made public would likely allow a more robust ruleset to be developed and a higher accuracy in prediction.
I have no question or doubt about the issue.
Anytime you can use any set of symbols to describe any finite set of events, the observer has a wonderful opportunity to identify trends, investigate for causality and create predictive heuristics.
My work involves the largest sets of finite data collections anywhere on the the planet and frequently brings unusual light to completely undiscovered and unexpected patterns.
All because we described the events with symbols, stored them in bulk and then measured them in different containers.
Just like genetics.
DennisC will understand all of this blather.
Lisa,
You are welcome to communicate privately with me on these matters.
A list of threads that have interested me is included in the profile. Please review the Cytokinic Dysregulation threads if you’d like to see more unconventional thinking.
Gather and Solve.
You have to remember some people are looking at this through microscopes and others through stethescopes. Changes in sequences may appear in clusters. Two sides of the same issue.
gardner-
thanks for the translation.
Away for a few hours.
Be nice.
So, anyone interested in the cluster in Egypt?
I am.
If H5N1 goes pandemic at the current CFR, we will definitely see a regression in technology, to put it mildly.
SO, what’s going on now in Egypt? What is the update on the 4 patients?
So, anyone interested in the cluster in Egypt?
I am.
If H5N1 goes pandemic at the current CFR, we will definitely see a regression in technology, to put it mildly.
SO, what’s going on now in Egypt? What is the update on the 4 patients?
What’s wrong with Niman? I like him. What if it turns out that he’s correct?
Tink,
Very sore point at the Wiki. Many of the great minds have left due to infighting and lack of finesse between personalities.
We had many contributors in the past.
NS1 @ 20:04 Bravo! That was very well stated. It is refreshing to see someone who can’t be intimidated into conforming to other peoples views (and who responds in such a thoughtful, articulate and civil manner). The strength of this forum is its ability to bring disparate views together for review, discussion and debate. In essence we utilize the power of the group. We all know that the power of the group should always trump the power of one in areas of intellectual pursuit. But only if the group is prepared to allow all types of ideas and respects differences of opinion. If this forum ever surrenders to Groupthink (or to those who would force it into Groupthink) its value is lost. I apologize for the interruption. Now back to our show.
NS1 – at 23:36
And the one personalities with the most finesse are Niman and his disciples. If you believe that, you can also believe fortune tellers.
Snap,
Thanks for standing with me. So many times here, we’ve closed the door hard because of personalities when the content needed to be discussed. I’m not likely to continue this return visitation for very long based on the continued, emotion-based infighting that I’m already seeing again.
Unfortunate.
It is unfortunate. We are all on the same side, that of understanding and fighting this monster. We accomplish this best by the varied minds and sciences that come together at this site. As we lose some of these minds, we lose strength. Can’t we all just get along? At least until TSHTF and the wiki goes down???
anon-zzzzzzzzz,
Bait or just anger?
Examine if your comment was really necessary or even properly responsive? I noted no one at fault and no one as correct.
Your sarcasm is lost in this process. If you don’t like Niman, that’s up to you. If you were able to study his precepts without being dissuaded by all of the clutter, you may come to appreciate some of the viewpoints. Niman may be impatient, impulsive and sometimes outright rude and he’s certainly not recruiting or making disciples.
He is, to the best of his ability, trying to shine a light on the genetic acquisition process.
Please reserve your sarcasm for those who have negative intent or a history of undermining fresh thought.
NS1 – at 23:54 So many times here, we’ve closed the door hard because of personalities when the content needed to be discussed. I’m not likely to continue this return visitation for very long based on the continued, emotion-based infighting that I’m already seeing again.
NS1, I, for one, hope you stick around. Your posts are most valued. You are correct that there is a fair amount of emotion and projection that infuses the posts of some of the more vociferous wikians. Aside from being extremely aggravating, it tends to blur the focus on the matter at hand. But please, there are many here who appreciate the information and guidance you post. Just don’t waste your valuable time and energy responding to the obvious bait that some choose to lay.
Lisa the GP, You know what makes me bristle? When, on a night when accessing wiki pages was almost impossible (last night or the night before) you actually were able to access a page and then chose to post something such as (and I paraphrase only slightly), “The slow loading of the forum acts as a deterent to those who are able to provide interpretation of blah, blah, blah.” What motivates something like that? You clearly have the brains to make constructive contributions and to help people. There were people specifically seeking input on that particular thread, and instead of contributing constructively you opt to post that? Your posts are so rich sometimes and so contemptible at others. Your comment to NS1 above was indeed troll-like. If you want to snipe at NS1, take it outside. Otherwise, please keep the “personality-land” comments off the thread and stick to topic so the rest of us can benefit from the fullness of both your’s and NS1′s contributions.
NS1 – at 23:54
I have only been reading FW on and off for a very few months. I am the layest of laymen and cannot for the life of me understand much of the technical stuff. So I read as much as I can and understand what I able to grasp.
I deeply appreciate every informed comment, whether over my head or no. I would be saddened to see anyone quit commenting on FW because of emotional backbiting from others.
I hope you can just skip over such comments and continue your input. Think of the lurkers.
Edna,
Even when I stopped posting here, I enjoyed visiting to read your analyses. The wiki has gathered an entirely new group of workers since the early wave was banished. I’m very happy to have shared being a part of such a fine group of people working for answers.
The matters at hand may become acute soon or continue fermenting for another year. We don’t know.
What we do know from this experiment is that should we all be required to depend on one another that each of us has some growing to do.
Where do you get your geo-political expertise?
NS1, nice handle! ;)
I do hope you will resist the urge to defend yourself on this (or any other) forum. There are many out here, besides myself, I am sure, who think that is not necessary, as is evidenced by some of the other posts here. I think you are doing an outstanding job, and I hope you know how much it is appreciated.
I am in agreement with you about Niman, incidentally. I think he is a brilliant unsung hero, albeit an unconventional one! LOL
NS1, I am also That’s Just Ducky, by the way.
NS1, please don’t leave again.
I like Dr. Niman’s enthusiasm. He loves what he does. How rare is that? He’s accessible. He offers a view into a world that most of us would have no chance of entering much less understanding. He helps us to make sense of what is happening. I think his work is important.
Now, can we PLEASE get back to observing the Egypt situation!
As asked about 2 hours ago, has anyone got any new information on the suspected cases - all I can find on news threads is mention of the outbreak in birds - which we already knew about earlier this week.
Anyone specifically monitoring the news sources there?
Anything new?
Edna Mode – at 00:23
I do so agree with you, on your entire post. I, for one, simply choose not to respond to communication that offends my sensibilities, be it in verbal, written or visual form. This has long served me well.
BeWell-
Please always ask if you don’t understand a topic and you need to understand it.
Some thoughts on the present state of the wiki:
Cacophony is disingenuous.
Ever arrived early to a voice performance and heard the choir in warm-ups . . . sounds like madness, but if you are able to stay for the performance when everyone disciplines themselves to sing their part, such beauty emerges.
I’d hoped that returning here would draw some others past the warm-ups and upstagings and onto the main performance.
We have the most important audience that any servant could ever have . . . honest and decent people who are learning about this H5N1 for the first time and want to protect their families. They don’t have much time to devote to unraveling the questions, so they’ve come for some clear-cut, no-spin answers.
I’m not so sure that the wiki is fully up to task at the moment because some of our content providers may not be willing to examine their own personalities? I am much less than impressed and enthusiastic now that I see the constancy of cacophony.
Perhaps we’ll come to understand that this is not a playground, a simulation or just an exercise of conscience. Only then can we place our feet on firm ground and together push against this scourge, H5N1, our common enemy.
Gather and Solve
Feel Great, Think Well, Do Right.
NS1 – at 00:16
I merely set the record straight. I didn’t think it was fair to blame the forum for Niman’s banning here. You shouldn’t expect people to sit there, doing nothing, and to accept the distortion of history of this forum. We have peace, in the months of his departure, without bring up the personalities. Ask the mods if they want to beat a dead horse, or resurrect it.
UTR/TJD,
I need more variants. Maybe I’ll recombine with another gene segment and try to evade the wiki snip team.
AnnieB,
Unfortunately, there is no new available at the moment.
NS1…….I have great respect for you. I hopow you will stay.
NS1 – at 00:56
LOL! ;)
Anon-zzzzz,
NS1, maybe we should trade handles!
(Okay, time to be quiet and back to lurk mode.)
Perhaps we’ll just do anagrams for a few days?
Then they’d just snip at you though.
I do appreciate the sentiment.
I just want as much information as possible. I have an open mind and heart and want to learn as much as possible. Everyone is responsible for their own learning curve…let the posters post,judge for yourself, come to your own conclusions..discuss the topic and leave personalitys out of it so I can keep learning. I like science and want to learn more!
NS1 – at 23:36
Tink,
Very sore point at the Wiki. Many of the great minds have left due to infighting and lack of finesse between personalities.
We had many contributors in the past.
Clearly you were angry with an outburst. And after I posted, you didn’t like my point. You are angry enough to have to change my handle. It may be late, I may be tired, but I am not zzzzz yet. But that’s OK, just copy my handle next time, please.
I have no interest in debating your pseudo science or religion or politics, including those threads on your profile. I came to this thread to look for news, and factual information. I don’t want to make the thread longer than it is. I do have to respond to your questions though.
I hate commercial breaks. Can we please just watch the news?
Lisa GP: Your analysis of the meaning of the new changes in H5N1 sequences, in relation to the new cluster in Egypt, seem to be in your analogy: “Virus xxxxx gets into a human. Now if xxxxy occurs, it has an advantage and may multiply in that person, and be picked up by sequence analysis.”
“However, if virus xxxxy doesn’t ever get from that person to another person, then it is a dead end. Even though its sequence is in the database, if it is extinct in the wild, it is not contributing to the ongoing threat. It has to areise separately, de novo, in someone else, all over again, for it to be contributing to viral evolution.”
I question your last sentence. This seems to ignore the fact that the sequences that make this virus able to transmit more easily H2H have occured in more than one case already - thus not the dead end you hypothesize - and recombinative analyses showing where these changes came from have been carefully tracked phylogenetically. There is no indication that they appear once, vanish and then “arise separately, de novo, in someone else.” It appears rather that a sequence of changes has occured. Also, IMHO, it seems to me that simple laws of probablility would favor recombination over a chance repeat mutation. Also I am not sure why you feel that it is so erroneous for some of us to express particular concern over the new Egyptian cases. Certain changes have occured in the virus which make the situation significantly different from the Indonesian cluster, thus it would seem only responsible to register a higher level of watchfulness. Most of us are, after all, here primarily to alert each other and gain some understanding and advance warning. Few are actually actively engaged in research regarding this virus. Those that are, I think, deserve the utmost respect, and their opinions - while possibly imperfect - are certainly way more valid than mine.
For example:
NSI’s analysis: “The latest Egyption case - A/Egypt/12374-NAMRU3/2006(H5N1) also shows a five aa identity in the Receptor Binding Domain of the HA to a seasonal Influenza B strain.
In other words, the Egyptian H5N1 and the Seasonal Influenza B share HA 226:230 = QSGRI.
The Egyptian H5N1 now has a wider template to acquire mammallian transmissibility from seasonal strains. “
And Niman’s commentary: Clusters in Egypt are cause for concern. The HA from a recent fatality had M230I, which matches all three seasonal flu’s (Influenza A H3N2 and H1N1 as well as Influenza B. The change creates five consecutive amino acids (QSGRI) that match the receptor binding domain of infleunza B, raising ocnerns of increased human-to-human transmission.
I’ve seen this kind of infighting of personalities on CE Fluclinic, FT and before here.
Dumb… just plain dumb guys.
This thread is about Egypt. Nabbarro said Egypt worried him back in Sept. It worries me too…. as does Indonesia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. I think the only place that doesnt bother me is Antarctica…. and maybe the Moon.
So enough babble. Anyone wanna talk Egypt? Home of the Tenth Plague?
Anon-YYZ,
You achieved the name change from me because the type of unfounded comments you’re making are tiresome (zzzzz) and deleterious. Not anger, only definitive amusement on my part.
I am saddened by the departure of so many. At the same time, I can see very little progress on the original problems. I made no comment on causality or placement of responsibility. If you wish to debate, please answer the statements that I posted at 01:01.
Your snips at my profile are noted.
What are your interests? Are you able to stick to the point or is this wiki a place for you to make anonymous unkind remarks?
Hey, all you learned ones. There are many of us here who are depending on you all for help in saving our families from what’s coming. Many lives depened on this. We need your expertise. How about cooling the sniping and ignore what may be personally annoying for the greater good?
We all have egos but now is the time to leave the egos at the door and focus on saving lives. What do you say?
Brock, ‘We all have egos but now is the time to leave the egos at the door and focus on saving lives. What do you say?’
Excellent plan
AnnieB, Goju, Brock and MaMa,
You are right. We should just move on. I think we are all waiting for more news from Egypt. Never before has humankind been so uncertain above its future.
Thanks Anon-yyz
I have just done another quick tour around english based news sites and cannot find anything further on the Egypt situation.
Do we have an interpreter in our midst who can give better (clearer) translations than we get via machines? I am happy to do some searching and get machine translations but first I need to know the key phrases in the local languages to search against - anyone with any ideas?
Azerbaijan and Djibouti are also areas of concern. The sequences in those places are very similar to the Egyptian sequences.
I’ll echo AnnieB’s Thanks ANON-YYZ. We’re all in this together after all, we need to stay focused and support each other.
AnnieB, I found nothing on the English sites either. As for a translator, we used to have a poster named ‘Meb’ who was from Egypt and who may be able to translate. I have no idea if he/she is still with us.
I’ll poke around and see what I can find in terms of translation service in the AM- it’s late here and I’m toast:-)
Maybe someone here knows someone who has Arabic?
AnnieB – at 01:58
Best bet may be to find university students who speak the language. Medical or nursing would clearly be best. The students could be in Middle East or western country. Perhaps Pakistan. Talk to students association.
Example: http://www.aucegypt.edu/
Thanks folks - will keep looking - I note some of the local papers are in french so might try my limited skills there ..
OK here ya go… dont think this has been posted yet - forgive me if i am wrong
Bird flu in Egypt
http://www.hindu.com/2006/11/18/stories/2006111803301500.htm
CAIRO: Egypt reported on Thursday a bird flu-stricken area in the north where domestic birds tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, the official MENA news agency reported. The area is located 65 km north of Cairo. The veterinary teams were culling all birds in the region, sanitising the area and examining people who had come into contact with the infected poultry, it said. Nobody had so far shown any symptoms. This is the second infected area reported in Egypt in a week. — Xinhua
MIH: Good points. News from Djibouti is weak so it’s hard to followup there, at least to me. Egypt will be weeks in the news making department so no need to check and re-check more than twice every twelve hours.
NS1-Gather and Solve is a good motto.
Cottontop: I have been to several third world countries and some European ones. Vaccinations were only recommended for the third world countries, and they never checked them. Recommended, not required—and that’s coming from the US side not the third (case you decide to go see the Great Wall one day or walk the Silk Road route).
I find the mixture of millions of pilgrims for Hajj and a deadly virus with the increased ability to welcome additional mammalian sequences a matter of serious concern even if Niman’s recombination theories were drunken bar talk by postgrad biology students. However they got into the virus, they seem to have arrived. Does anyone have a good idea, either way, of Egypt’s transparency? Are they seriously revealing the real extent of human cases, or do they have practices (by carelessness or design) that would be likely to conceal or miss additional cases?
Transparency is a hope. We have some sequences now and that’s great.
We were very concerned about Hajj last year as well.
Fiddlerdave – at 04:14
Are they seriously revealing the real extent of human cases, or do they have practices (by carelessness or design) that would be likely to conceal or miss additional cases?
I was reading testimonies from the UK House of Lord’s hearing on pandemic flu last night, and came across this remark from Klaus Stohr on whether countries are forthcoming in their disclosures “fully 80% of places in these countries are only reachable by four-wheel drive vehicles.” It shows how little we can expect of getting accurate news from most places, unfortunately.
A22,
As you’ve mentioned,even given the best of intentions, many countries have very little ability to surveil and report these illnesses.
NS1 – at 06:05
Yes, also read the remarks of the US Ambassador to the next African avian flu summit on today’s news thread and my next post on what happened at the last summit: they forgot to mention preventing human infections. It was all about dividing up aid for poultry farmers (read big commercial interests, aka politicians and their buddies)
17 Nov 2006 http://tinyurl.com/ya9spv
Bird Flu Danger Renewed With The Onset Of Migration Season
With the onset of migration season this winter, officials fear that there may be an increase in cases of avian flu virus H5N1 in Egypt and in other parts of the world.
Egyptian Health Ministry has urged on taking the necessary precautions well in advance on account of this new surge. The strain of bird flu virus might be even more deadly among fowl and humans in Egypt, where human death toll of 7 has already been reported since March 2006.
Sayyid al-Abbasi Egyptian health ministry official said that Egypt might be hit harder compared to other countries, as it is the major migratory route for birds.
New bird flu locations like Luxor and the area of Najaa Al-Abyada were recently discovered where birds in the vicinity were being culled - Egypt’s official news agency MENA reported. More than 30 million birds especially from poultries have been culled under government supervision ever since the detection of the first bird flu case.
While a winter ban on birds have been imposed soon after the virus was first detected, health ministry spokesperson, Abdel Rahman fears that the ban would lead in people concealing the birds instead of quelling them. Training health and social workers and raising public awareness across the country might be considered as alternate measures–he added.
Going to Borders to get an Arabic-to-English dictionary. This is frustrating not to be able to translate anything. Question, (dumb question really. Do the Egyptians speak the same Arabic as in Iraq, Saudi Arabia? I know it’s Coptic, but my sure if it’s the same. Basically, don’t know squat. I have aquired a French-to-English dictionary thanks to Daughter. I really don’t know how much help these dictionaries will be, but isn’t it worth a shot?
cottontop – at 10:09
yep, the Arabic spoken in Egypt is basically the same as elsewhere. And Coptic is actually a separate language, descended from the ancient Egyptian language. It’s the liturgical language for the Coptic Orthodox Church, but it’s not spoken as an everyday language. Rather like Latin with the Roman Catholic Church, perhaps?
I tried to post last night, seems it got “lost”. If the latest Egyptian virus was typed by NAMARU 3, the CDC would already know of this change in the virus, would they not?
And if the virus picks up “areas of identity near the HA” with influenza B, would a PCR be positive for influenza B and not H5N1? (ie, what is detected on a rapid test, is it key segments of HA?)
I woke up in a bit of a sweat yesterday over Thailand’s July simultaneous outbreak of H5N1 and Flu B. They had thousands quarantined, thousands in the hospital and many on respiratory support. What king of Flu B is THAT?
Grace RN – at 08:28 — If it can’t be confirmed by other sources, then i find any single report suspicious.
The original report came from the Egyptian newspaper, “Al Wafd”, which is one of the major newspapers in Egypt. It is the only Egyptian newspaper (that I’ve found) that carries any appreciable amount of bf news. They have had the best coverage (i.e. most details) on most of the Egyptian cases so far.
A note, however — the BBC describes “Al Wafd” as an opposition paper and, as the voice of the Al-Wafd party which certainly does not support the current government, the paper does put something of a sensationalist spin on the bf news. Their opposition position probably also accounts for the amount of coverage they give bf:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/country_profiles/737642.stm
Where I’m going with this is….perhaps the “form vs. function” debate has already been answered in reality. The new polymorphisms have already translated into very big infection numbers.
But because I am a lowly HCW, all I can do is sweat, and hope someone that knows more than I can answer.
cottontop – at 10:09 — Going to Borders to get an Arabic-to-English dictionary. This is frustrating not to be able to translate anything….
The best online machine-translator I’ve found is at http://www.sakhr.com/ The site is an Egyptian one, so one gets quite good translations from stories in the Egyptian papers (if you use it for another Arabic-speaking country — Iraq, for instance — some of the local lingo doesn’t seem to translate very well).
On the other hand, the easiest online Arabic machine-translator I’ve found (you can just pop in a URL and translate whole pages) is on Google at http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en It’s pretty rough around the edges, though.
Here’s a comparison of the two translators of the story about the new 4 suspected cases >>
Google-translated from Arabic:
Wrote Sanaa and Hisham Mustafa Excerpts: Detained University Hospital three children and became a factor on suspicion of injury epidemic of avian influenza are Faten Ahmed Shawki and her sister Mannar and ÔíãÇÁ neighbor, Mohammed Mustafa, Mr. »« worker injured children and group pneumonia and a sharp decline in the heart and lost all awareness was withdrawn from the infected samples to be sent to labs Center Yeh Ministry of Health. The working group is charged with following up the bird flu moving to the houses of the injured and withdrawal of samples from birds to be sent to the Animal Research Institute forum.
- vs. -
Sakhr.com
The university hospital in Suhaj detained 3 children and a factor for the suspicion of their injury by the bird flu epidemic and they are Faten Ahmed Shawqi, its sister Manar and Shaimaa and their neighbour Mohamed Al Sayed “a worker” the child and the worker was injured by a pneumonia and a sharp descent in the heart and lost the awareness - drawing samples took place from the injured to be seen the center in the Ministry of Health. And the work group responsible for the follow-up of bird flu has moved to the injured houses And drawing samples from the birds is for their sending to a research institute the animal in Doqqi.
BTW - I check for bf news everday in Al Wafd (and other places). If I find anything, I’ll try to post it here on FW. I have done before, but I stopped because … well, you know … the site is a little sloooow (and I am a little impatient). :p
Cottontop 10:09 Not to discourage you from attempting to use an Arabic-English dictionary, but Arabic is IMHO a howling son-of-a-pup to learn. Vastly different alphbet, no vowels (usually), widely varying scripts, great difficulty in transliterating many Arabic sounds, it reads from right to left, and, to top it off, the “Arabic numerals” are not what we call “Arabic numerals”. I have Arabic dictionaries, but without knowledge of the grammar and ability to decipher the various scripts, I would attempt to use them only if I had no other recourse.
Jody, I will be checking this thread frequently to see how the experts weigh in. NS1?
It seems pretty clear that the Egyptian cluster(s?) could POTENTIALLY be very dangerous, but that is not the same thing as being dangerous. Aside from waiting to see if more people get sick, is there any other way to monitor the situation? And does anyone have an opinion about the ability and willingness of the Egyptian press to cover this? With a tourist industry and a fairly authoritarian government, I imagine we might not get all the news that is fit to print. But I do not really know the situation in Egypt. Does anyone on FW?
Theresa42- Gary-
I hear ya. Grateful for the input. These dictionaries are expensive, well on my budge, and I needed to know if ya thought it would be worthwhile. Sakhr.com is much better. Thanks to both of you.
I just found an article in the Turkish press which verifies at least that 4 suspected cases were found—so we have another press source that 4 are being investigated (see the new forum for the rather uninformative article). The new article adds no new information other than that its existence confirms that these 4 people are not phantoms. Article contains no additional info about whether what they have is H5N1 or not.
Lisa the GP – at 14:06
do you have the link? or was it paper.
For those interested in such things…here is the link to the Egyptian Bird Flu site (in English.) Nothing yet on it about the four suspect cases but will keep checking to see if and when it has updated news. Looks like they do a good job of keeping it up to date.
Is the new forum open then for all? If so may I have the link? thanks!
Question for you geo-politicians out there: Which countries in the surrounding region of known present or prior outbreaks (China, SE Asia, Egypt, Indonesia,etc.)are not particularly tourist or US govt aid dependent? Now that I have the google translator available, I want to try newspapers that are least likely to suppress news of H5N1 cases in the region due to political or economic pressures.
Question Is the sample Niman referred to, the one with the change in polymorhism, a sample of the 39 year old woman who died on Oct 6th or the more recent case, I think 24 year old woman who died on October 30th ??
Can someone send me an article in Arabic or tell me where I can go . I would like to try this site I have for translating to English. Thanks
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/10220603/H5N1_M230I.html
M230I Alteration Near H5N1 Receptor Binding Doman in Egypt Recombinomics Commentary October 22, 2006
On October 11 the WHO update confirmed an H5N1 infection in a patient (39F) in the Gharbiya governorate in the Nile Delta. Today the sequence of the HA gene from that patient was released, A/Egypt/12374-NAMRU3/2006(H5N1). The rapid release of this sequence by the US Naval Medical Research Unit in Cairo is to be commended. It was deposited at GenBank on October 13, 2006 and released shortly thereafter
Libby-try the Egyptian Ministry of Health site…I would guess the link to bird flu is next to the picture of the chicken. http://www.mohp.gov.eg/
The blood samples of the four suspect cases were sent to the labs of the Ministry of Health, so it may be that the results would be posted here first. Just an idea…
I have not got a clue about the science of this..I am more concerned about the caring, medical side BUT one thing stands out in this recent cluster for me and that is the 9 month old baby. The others were older and with a “worker”(also suspectedly infected) who from what I have read in a few articles was culling birds. I can understand others watching or running around but a baby. Why was it in direct contact with birds? I have a sinking feeling about this and I normally don’t have sinking feelings without science,proof or full information. Could this be h2h? Think I might sign myself into the nearest psych hospital..:-)
Libby in Atlanta.. Go to Al Jazeera (arabic) translate and then compare your site translation with their English site.
Shaz, Do you have a link for the “worker” being a culler?
worrywart, The has only been one recent confirmed H5N1 case in Egypt (and the H5N1 had the change above):
31 October 2006
The Ministry of Health in Egypt has confirmed the country’s seventh death from H5N1 avian influenza. The 39-year-old woman, whose infection was confirmed on 11 October, died on 30 October.
RBD..Yep, but give me a few minutes. I didn’t save the links, so will look at all the media sources I read. Info is scarce on this cluster.
Shaz – at 16:09 Nine month old babies tend to crawl and go on all fours everywhere. If they had the birds inside the huose, a baby could have had the disease, too. Besides, children in that age put almost everything in their mouth :)
Thinlina, If the four are positive, the H5N1 transmission is efficient.
RBD - If transmission is efficient in this cluster given the latest sequencing info, has the starting gun fired?
All,
Please watch the news and back channels for rising numbers and larger clusters. That signal, with dying HCW, will tell us more than any speculation we can do until we have more sequences.
Those in the US,
Please watch for school closings. We are seeing them frequently now and in most cases, the causative agent is not being disclosed. Influenza A only needs a 10 minute test. I don’t believe that H5N1 is in the schools because the death rate is zero as far as I can tell at this minute. We may be looking at a very strong seasonal influenza that has acquired some additional pathogenicity traits from H5N1? Pure speculation.
Away for several hours.
Keep calm. Develop physical community and prepare for longer term supply lines.
Gather and Solve.
RBD-thanks for your answer. I confused the confirmed case with a suspect case, sorry !
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=151824
another confirmation
“Cairo - Four Egyptians were admitted to hospital Thursday in the southern governorate of Sohag on suspicion of contracting the bird flu virus, according to newspaper reports Friday.”
suspicion… lets get a look at the sequences… do they match the woman from last month? That would be trouble.
There have been two stories, the original Egyptian report, followed by an English language report in at least three news sources. All English language reports were variations on the above story - 4 suspect cases admitted to the same hospital on Thursday.
Goju, If any of the four are H5N1 positive (or if the “worker” was a culler), there would be trouble.
Trouble is they have the strain with the changes in the receptor binding sites
Goju, Although the M230I was in the Qinghai strain for the first time and is in all human strains (influenza B, H1N1, H3N2), it has been seen in other H5N1’s as well as H3N8 in birds, dogs,and horses and H7N7 in humans, horses, seals, and birds, so it is probably flying around Egypt and is in birds as well as the first H5N1 case for this season in Egypt.
Goju, When US NAMRU released the sequence on October 13, two days after confirmation, that was the equivalent of “Houston, we have a problem.”
RBD – at 17:30 If the four are positive, the H5N1 transmission is efficient.
This is obviously a sweeping statement to make with profound implications. Can you please spell out for me (and others, most likely) on what basis you are making this statement? Not trying to be a putz. Trying to understand the logic behind your statement. Thanks.
Egypt has not had any reported large clusters previously, even though the prior infections involved the Qinghai strain. Now they appear to have four people (three siblings and a neighbor) entering the same hospital on the same day. That alone is close to a record for H5N1 and is a record for Qinghai H5N1.
The cluster, coupled with two human changes (PB2 E627K and HA M230I), is a loud alarm bell.
Question 1
If these countries have culled millions of poultry, why will the “bird flu” not go away? Culling the birds is not helping. Egypt, for example, stopped in infection back in Feb., and it was looking good until the October infection of a woman, and BF has taken off again. If you remove millions of birds that are infected, how is coming back to infect even more birds?
Question 2
Are there repeat infections in the same area as the birds, that have been culled?
NS1 – at 17:42
All,
Please watch the news and back channels for rising numbers and larger clusters. That signal, with dying HCW, will tell us more than any speculation we can do until we have more sequences.
Yep. Epidemiological signal is going to be the earliest and most important signal you will get for any outbreak. The molecular signal is for confirmation, much later, or sometimes even not at all.
cottontop, Wild birds have wings
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/11170602/H5N1_Teal_Egypt.html
H5N1 Wild Bird Sequences in Egypt Recombinomics Commentary November 17, 2006
HA sequences from H5 isolated from wild birds in Egypt have been released. Although Egypt reported H5N1 to the OIE in February of this year, the two new sequence indicate H5N1 was isolated in a teal in December, 2005. The HA sequence from that isolate, A/teal/Egypt/14051-NAMRU3/2005, is the Qinghai strain, with the common HA cleavage site, GERRRKKR. It has a polymorphism found in a subset of Qinghai isolates, which is found in the first isolate from Turkey, as well as poultry isolates in Egypt, and human isolates in Egypt and Djibouti (see list here), including the most recent confirmed case, which has M230I, a polymorphism adjacent to the receptor binding domain that is found in all three human influenza strains, serotypes H1N1 and H3N2 for influenza A, as well as influenza B……
cottontop – at 18:59
Question 1
If these countries have culled millions of poultry, why will the “bird flu” not go away? Culling the birds is not helping. Egypt, for example, stopped in infection back in Feb., and it was looking good until the October infection of a woman, and BF has taken off again. If you remove millions of birds that are infected, how is coming back to infect even more birds?
It is a gigantic operation to try to use culling to eliminate the source of infection. Really you can only do it if the problem is concentrated in big cities with the infrastructure, the authority, the manpower, the money to compensate the businesses affected, on top of everything else. Then you have to disinfect the markets and farms. That’s what it took for Hong Kong to eliminate the 1997 strain. And that’s one of the riches cities in the world. We can’t expect that for the vast majority of countries.
Question 2
Are there repeat infections in the same area as the birds, that have been culled?
I would imagine yes.
RBD – at 18:57
Egypt has not had any reported large clusters previously
Yes, but it has been steadily having ‘sporadic’ cases for quite some time. Which means that the virus is endemic in a lot of places, IMO, and sooner or later we will begin to see clusters, just like other countries.
Goju – at 18:20
The most straightforward expectation is that they will be very similar. 9 of 10 from the first set were practically identical. The different one had the lastest reported changes, but the others are also of distinct concern.
We won’t likely have the sequences for months if they are even published.
Mary in Hawaii at 15:15: You can find tourism receipts at www.world-tourism.org. (Click on “Facts and Figures” and then again on “tourism indicators.”) In general, I would expect Turkey to report on Egypt and Singapore or China on Indonesia. Vietnam normally reports its cases. I am not sure how Thailand is with the military coup, but that may not be in the front line now. The biggest question is China and MAYBE Hong Kong will report some of that. Nepal has closed down and maybe stuff leaks out to India? I agree with NS1 (and LisaGP, anon_22 and others) that when we see lots of cases including health care workers, we should become very worried. The hadj starts around Christmas this year and is an opportunity for any flu being carried to mix and then spread far and wide, and thus is something else to watch - though news coverage in Saudi Arabia is pretty controlled I think.
NS1, The sequence for the latest confirmed case was deposited two weeks BEFORE she died.
She was confirmed October 11 and the sequence was deposited October 13 (she died October 30).
Can anyone tell me, did the 3 siblings and the neighbor have any contact or are they in the area of where the women died earlier this month?
RBD,
Are we thinking the same thing?
I really want to see the very latest version of the virus expressed in each patient so that we can measure the high-water mark of the potential accumulation of recombinant areas. They are giving us only the very earliest or first strains isolated. Obviously, viral proteins are not likely to be expressed up to the last day if the symptomatic period before death is protracted. Isolation on a daily basis should be done in order to watch for NA:H274Y and / or E119V for quasi-species during treatment.
NAMRU is doing a much better job than the others in releasing the sequences. I’d like to see Jeremy return though.
Although the final stage virus may not be the actual sequence that is transmitted due to low count, having these sequences will show us the potential change in one host.
RBD,
Please contact me via the address in my NS1 profile and tell me some about your background and interests. I appreciate your analyses.
I have some questions in my mind concerning Sudan. If my memory serves me correctly, it was reported (or rumoured) that Sudan had numerous cases of bird flu in poultry some months ago. Am I remembering correctly? With the political situation there I would think conditions would have been ripe for some time for H5N1 to do its thing unobserved, then move down the Nile into Egypt. If this is the case, there could potentially be clusters in Sudan we nor anyone else have heard about. Any thoughts about this scenario?
From the other day >>
New bird flu-infected area reported in northern Egypt UPDATED: 08:38, November 17, 2006
Egypt reported on Thursday a new bird flu-striken area in the north of the country where domestic birds were tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, the official MENA news agency reported.
The area is located in Manshyat Sultan district in al-Menofiya governorate, 65 km north of Cairo, the report said….
http://english.people.com.cn/200611/17/eng20061117_322406.html
From today (seems there were 7 suspected cases hospitalized in connection with the outbreak in al-Menofiya governorate, but the gov’t reports that they have all tested neg…) >>
Machine-translated from Arabic:
A health / Egypt / an influenza / an injury
A statement .. The discovery of a new positive site to the bird flu in north of Cairo
Cairo - 18–11 ( an universe ) - A government statement mentioned today that the discovery of a positive site took place for the injury by the bird flu disease in Monoufia Governate (in the north of the capital Cairo) to house birds.
And the statement confirmed that the laboratory examination pointed out to that the human conditions the suspect in their injury by the bird flu disease has been reserved in the hospitals and she is 7 case only and it was proved that they are not injured by the bird flu disease and their examination results that a passivity came.
However, for the sites of the injured birds, the statement pointed out that a difference from the Ministry of Health, the veterinary services and the police stands now with the execution of all of the present birds in them, cleansing the aviculture places and the examination of contacts confirming that there is no symptoms on any of the contacts to these birds.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.aspx?Language=ar&DSNO=923512
anon – at 19:42 — Can anyone tell me, did the 3 siblings and the neighbor have any contact or are they in the area of where the women died earlier this month?
Presumably they didn’t have any contact. The woman who died on Oct 30, Hanan Aboul Magd, was from Al-Gharbiyah governorate in northern Egypt (in the delta area) while these latest 4 suspects are from Suhaj (or Sohag) in the south.
Al-Gharbiyah >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gharbiyah_Governorate
Okieman – at 20:59 — I have some questions in my mind concerning Sudan. If my memory serves me correctly, it was reported (or rumoured) that Sudan had numerous cases of bird flu in poultry some months ago. Am I remembering correctly?
Yes. There were confirmed outbreaks of bf in poultry in Sudan both in March and September of this year. In March, the outbreaks were centered around the capital which is quite far to the north toward Egypt — in Sept the outbreaks were in the south of the country closer to Uganda.
INFOMASS – at 19:22 Thank you, you’ve given me alot to work with.
As an aside, it occured to me today that perhaps the Govt’s of major industrialized nations like the US, Canada, Japan, UK etc (as well as the countries to whom we outsource our jobs) are putting off alerting the public to the need to stock up in preparation for a potential pandemic until after the holiday spending spree…wouldn’t want people to buy canned beef instead of diamond earrings, now would we? Prediction? Ok…they’ll raise the alert to phase 4 - and/or advise the general public to start preparations to SIP - on January 3rd. (Jan 1st being just a little too obvious.)
If some groceries are any indication your theory may be right. The point of purchase aisles are set with survival foods — including 10 bags on rice on very tall pallets. With an additional one per person at 12.99. This seems quite unusual — it is as if the delivery lines are getting set up for mass sale/distribution. And, maybe after the holiday season — after the PSA’s sink in and the holiday dinners/toasts/gifts are shared among near and dear. Just a thought …
Argyll.
NS1, I have taken note of the new variants, at least the recombination with the receptor binding domain gene segment. I enthusiastically applaud you.
I now see a few other variants that I had originally missed. Quite interesting.
UTR,
Sending you a file to run thru ClustalW for a better view of all the Egyptian human sequences.
UTR, Info sent with instructions. Away for an hour.
NS1 Will you be posting that information for the rest of us to see?
UTR. Another change in the region
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/03150601/H5N1_Iraq_Sequences.html
Human H5N1 Iraq Sequence Includes N186S
Recombinomics Commentary March 15, 2006
HA sequences from Iraq have been released (A/human/Iraq/207-NAMRU3/2006(H5N1), A/domestic goose/Iraq/812/2006(H5N1), A/domestic cat/Iraq/820/2006(H5N1) by the US Naval Medical Research Unit in Cairo. As expected, all three have the HA cleavage site GERRRKKR, which is the signature sequence of the Qinghai strain of H5N1 bird flu. All three sequences are wild type at position 227 (serine)……..
The most intriguing change however is the change that is only in the human sequence, A609G, which creates N186S. This change could alter the affinity of receptor binding domain, which includes position 190, for human receptors. Donor sequences for this change were not identified in a search of the Los Alamos flu database, highlighting the need for a more complete database and release of the sequestered sequences.
The human sequence from Iraq is the first Qinghai related human sequence made public……..
Sorry about that. Need more coffee. ;-) mouse has a mind of it’s own this morning.
NS1 and RDB
Just getting my coffee. Will do and return. :)
Yes, NS1 and RDB, very worrying indeed.
Yes, the Middle East is heating up
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/11190601/H5N1_RBD_Middle_East.html
Qinghai H5N1 Receptor Binding Domain Changes In Middle East Recombinomics Commentary November 19, 2006
Moreover, two of these changes, lysine at position 182 and arginine at position 192, were present in the HAs of clade-2 H5N1 viruses isolated from two individuals in Azerbaijan and one individual in Iraq, but not in any of the more than 600 avian isolates examined.
The above comments indicate that two of the changes that increase receptor binding are found in additional human H5N1 Qinghai isolates in the Middle East, The changes above, which correspond to positions 186 and196 in the H3 numbering, are in addition to S227N and M230I, which have also been detected in Qinghai isolates in Turkey and/or Egypt.
Previously, attention had been focused on positions 226 and 228 which had become Q226S and G228L in human H3N2. However, Q226 and G228 were in initial H2N2 human isolates in 1957 at the beginning of that pandemic, and Q226 and G228 are in current influenza B, and they are in virtually all influenza B sequences, which include isolates from 1940 through 2006. Moreover, the recent H5N1 from Egypt has M230I, which is in all three current serotypes, H3N2, H1N1 and influenza B. M230I in influenza B creates a five amino acid stretch of identity between H5N1 and influenza B (QSGRI). Moreover, influenza B has N186K, which as indicated above is also in Qinghai isolates in Azerbaijan and Iraq……
K from Mi – at 06:58
The info was only an output file confirming and making more visual Dr. Niman’s findings. All that is in my file has already been discussed aptly by Dr. Niman on his commentaries.
Please, everyone, realise that what Dr. Niman is telling you is much more important than the Nature article. He has connected the RBD acquisitions to the Influenza B string and other H5N1 sequence acquisitions to additional seasonal influenza strains including previous seasonal pandemics.
Waiting for analysis from Dr. Niman on additional polymorphism in the Iraq human sequence.
In layman’s terms could the above impact seasonal influenza B strain?
Thanks,
Argyll.
Argyll – at 22:33
H5N1, which has been comparatively difficult for humans to catch up until now, is mixing with influenza B, which is easier to catch. This mixture ends up to be a nasty combination of the two. The virulence of H5N1, and the ease of transmissibility of influenza B.
I believe what this means, and, NS1, please correct me if I am wrong, is that, for one thing, we probably have some pretty nasty influenza B going around down in some of the southern portion of the United States right now. Well, I would imagine in other areas of the world as well.
Or maybe I should say that there is at least that possibility.
UTR is analysing the situation well.
Consider this. Something I have been wondering about for months now. When health officials say that a flavor (for want of the knowledge of the proper term - strain? clade?) of H5N1 has died out, how do they know that? How do you prove a negative?
NS1 and Under The Radar at 23:52. The way I understand Niman’s theories is that we would have to have two viruses circulating in the same host, one avian with serine in position 223, {making it able to form a 2,3 linkage to a cell which in birds is usually in the digestive tract and in humans is only common far down in the respiratory tract} and the other a mammalian virus with asparagine in position 223, thus able to form a 2,6 linkage, which in humans is common in the upper respiratory tract. Next the avian flu virus and the human flu virus must both be able to infect the same single cell and once inside - during the RNA replication stage - switch sections of their genes, so that the avian flu virus acquires the genetic code for asparagine in the 223 position, and the human virus acquires the code for serine in the 223 position. This would give the avian flu virus the ability to infect the upper respiratory tract of humans without losing any of the other parts of its genetic make-up that cause it to be so lethal. Right so far?
This presupposes that the host cell of the human (or other mammalian host) has receptors for both 2,3 and 2,6 linkages on a single cell. Is this true? Are there simply more 2,3 sites in the lower respiratory tract and more 2,6 sites in the upper tract, and that is why the avian virus with its 2,3 linkage usually only infects the lower respiratory tract of humans?
As for Under the Radar’s concern, unless there was a recombination event in which the avian influenza virus also switched a section of its gene that was responsible for the severity of the illness with the human one, it doesn’t seem like this recombination would make the new human flu virus (influenza B, for example)any more virulent. As a matter of fact, it seems like it would be less infectious, due to it now having a linkage site that is too low in the respiratory tract to easily get to or get out of.
On the other hand, mutation by substitution at the 223 site seems to me also a distinct possibility, since the genetic code for Asparagine (AAU or AAC) is only one nucleotide different from codes for Serine (AGU or AGC.) A simple error in transcription as the virus begins copying its genetic material inside the host cell could easily cause the changes.
Most likely both recombination and substitution play a part. All of this is purely conjecture and thinking out loud on my part, but would appreciate any feedback and corrections on my line of thinking from those with more expertise.
How long do you think we will have wait on news from Egypt? I thought someone developed a rapid test for H5N1?
Under the Radar,
Thanks very much. Could this be why the CDC is following the outbreaks of influenza B closely — NC and now possibly Atlanta?
Argyll.
How do we know that the CDC is following the Influenza B in NC more closely than any other seasonal flu outbreak?
Grace RN,
Here is a link that discusses the CDC and their coverage of the NC outbreak.
http://www.ajc.com/health/content/health/stories/2006/11/11/1111meshflu.html
Hope you find this helpful,
Argyll.
Argyll – at 09:05
Many thanks; interesting……..
Mary in Hawaii – at 02:47
Yes! Exactly right! You have explained it so very well! This is part of what Dr. Niman was saying in his commentaries on November 15 and November 19. There is absolutely nothing in your post that needs correction. One would think that you were a virologist!
I wasn’t sure about the possible change in the virulence of influenza B with these changes, but your description of it clarifies it in my mind, and, of course, that is absolutely true. It would probably make the human influenza virus, influenza B, in this case, less virulent, for the reason you state. Thank you for that clarification.
It seems that we are helping each other here! Maybe together we can decipher Dr. Niman’s commentaries so we laypeople can make sense of it! lol
I had missed the possibility that mutation by substitution in the 223 position could be the cause of the change. Of course. RNA (expressed by either the A or the U in the genetic code, I forget which, as it is evident that you know) is very clumsy in its replication. It often makes mistakes, which, as you obviously know, actually accounts for mutation. So yes, I see that you are right, the changes here are probably due to both recombination and substitution.
Ruth – at 07:35 Yes, BD Diagnostics produces a two step rapid influenza test. http://tinyurl.com/uae6c
Delawhere, so that was developed a year ago. Wouldn’t it be nice if the tests were sent to the countries that need it. If it’s going to take 5+ days to confirm a diagnosis, in the beginning of a pandemic, we would be on the next group of infections. I hope we hear soon. It’s so important.
NS1 – at 20:24
Did you receive the analysis from Dr. Niman on the additional polymorphism in the Iraq human sequence? I am dying to hear what it is.
Ruth – at 11:00
Amen to that.
Under The Radar – at 10:45 LOL…I’m a MS science teacher (worked for 2 years as a lab tech in a virus research lab though). Just lots of practice at explaining things. Anyway, it has become evident to me as I read items on this thread and others that there is a lot of severe outbreaks of flu and other illnesses going on this year. Perhaps it is because we are now like deer sniffing the wind for danger, and this is just an average run of the mill year for communicable diseases? Or is it something else? …would like an epidemiologist to weigh in on this aspect. I wonder if it has anything to do with global climate change and/or the depletion of the protective ozone layer which is adversely affecting our immune systems, and/or making viruses and other parasitic microorganisms more mutagenic.
Mary in Hawaii - at 11:08 - I’ve been asking that for nearly 6 months now.
Mary in Hawaii and Commmonground
Well, as to the exact cause of all the severe outbreaks of diseases this year, I am sure that we would be able to read about that in Dr. Niman’s commentaries if only we had all the sequences that are necessary for the analyses to determine that! lol I have a feeling that it is not just run of the mill, but I just don’t know. Maybe there is someone here who could give a more informed opinion.
You may be right about the possible causes of mutations. I makes sense to me that it could be, but I am sure I would not have the expertise to weigh in on that discussion.
NS1 and UTR: in UTR’s post above and in NS1′s affirmation, are you saying the influenza B severity in NC and Atlanta is a result of intermingling of H5N1 with normal seasonal flu? If so, would that not be a pandemic condition? Or, are you saying, the severity of the influenza B this year [so far!] is due to its innate ability to morph from higher to lower pathogenicity within its own sphere? Thanks!
And on that same line of thinking Dinkers, in my limited ability to comprehend all of this, I was wondering, if it is a intermingling of H5N1 with normal seasonal flu, that would make it not as lethal. That might be a good thing?
Mary in Hawaii – at 11:08
Perhaps it is because we are now like deer sniffing the wind for danger, and this is just an average run of the mill year for communicable diseases? Or is it something else? …would like an epidemiologist to weigh in on this aspect.
I like your balanced view of things. We need epidemiologist to weigh in. We are over-weighted in arm-chair virology already. May I suggest you bring this up in the Current Threat Assessment thread?
As far as Egypt is concerned, we are all watching the news on this thread. There hasn’t been much news for the last 24 hours, though there has been a lot of bumping of the thread. We run the risk of over hyping this without scientific evidence and too much conjecture. This has caused bad dreams for some of us, IMO unnecessarily. Some times, a pet theory can become a solution looking for a problem. We need to be careful not to fall into the trap of witch hunting, and go crazy. We need to preserve our well being until the ‘real one’ arrives. No one can predict exactly how and when it’s going to happen, and the ones who make new predictions every week often turn out to be wrong.
Dinkers – at 11:25
Well, I don’t know, but I would assume that is what the CDC went there to find out.
ANON-YYZ – at 12:58 As far as Egypt is concerned, we are all watching the news on this thread. There hasn’t been much news for the last 24 hours, though there has been a lot of bumping of the thread. We run the risk of over hyping this without scientific evidence and too much conjecture. This has caused bad dreams for some of us, IMO unnecessarily. Some times, a pet theory can become a solution looking for a problem. We need to be careful not to fall into the trap of witch hunting, and go crazy. We need to preserve our well being until the ‘real one’ arrives. No one can predict exactly how and when it’s going to happen, and the ones who make new predictions every week often turn out to be wrong.
Anon-XYZ, I agree with you completely. The one point I question is whether you are implying that the lack of news indicates there is “no story.” If that is what you are saying, I have to disagree vehemently. Contrary to conventional wisdom that no news is good news, a dearth of reporting from an area with reported suspected cluster(s) could well indicate a media clamp down. Not saying it always does. Just saying it could.
Bump – at 13:28
No, I am not saying no news is good news. I am saying no news is no news. We should be concerned, but not overly concerned and look for answers when there aren’t any. As a prepper, I would like to know too. Some times we just have to wait a little bit. Say within a few days or a week, we will hear something or nothing. We can then review our threat level. We don’t need to put this under the microscope 24 hours a day. We have to get some rest.
I think this may have been addressed before somewhere, but in light of these really excellent analysis of the current outbreaks (in the southern U.S.) being a “mixture,” for lack of a better word - would the current Flu Vaccine have any protection to what is being experienced in N.C. and other places? Thanks
also anon for this - at 13:55 - We don’t have any conclusive evidence the flu down south is a mixture. Nothing to point in that direction.
ANON-YYZ – at 13:50 No, I am not saying no news is good news. I am saying no news is no news. We should be concerned, but not overly concerned and look for answers when there aren’t any. As a prepper, I would like to know too. Some times we just have to wait a little bit. Say within a few days or a week, we will hear something or nothing. We can then review our threat level. We don’t need to put this under the microscope 24 hours a day. We have to get some rest.
Sage advice indeed. (BTW, Bump was me. Sorry about that.)
NS1, I have been thinking about Dinkers post:
<<Dinkers ¨C at 11:25 NS1 and UTR: in UTR¡¯s post above and in NS1¡äs affirmation, are you saying the influenza B severity in NC and Atlanta is a result of intermingling of H5N1 with normal seasonal flu? If so, would that not be a pandemic condition? Or, are you saying, the severity of the influenza B this year [so far!] is due to its innate ability to morph from higher to lower pathogenicity within its own sphere? Thanks!>>
It seems to me that we will probably not hear from the CDC if it is a result of H5N1 intermingling with normal seasonal flu.
Of the two choices below, I believe that the first one would be true, that H5N1 has intermingled with the normal seasonal flu and that is what is causing whole school districts to close. The flu that is going around down there is pretty bad, from what I hear, much worse than usual. It certainly has not morphed from higher to lower pathogenicity, it is of a higher pathogenicity than normal seasonal flu.
I just read that President Bush has just called the situation in Indonesia a “Grave Threat”. This seems like strong language to me. Up until now, I have heard him call it a serious threat.
I also just read over on CE that the CDC has put out an advisory to another (more?) consulates for stocking up on 2 weeks of food and water.
Then there is that DoD Influenza Pandemic Preparation and Response Health Policy Guidance document that’s discussed on CE and here on FW in another thread. Here are the salient points, posted by Lenore:
DOD will run the show INSIDE CONUS and not HHS. DOD will help cull US poultry.- Domestic Animal and Wildlife Emergency Response teams.(Domestic Animals? Will they be culling pets?) DOD Veterinarian Medical Assistant Teams DOD Mortuary ‘OPERATIONAL’ Teams- Will they supercede locals? DOD will utilize MILITARY task forces under executive order DOD Emergancy Support Functions for Public Health include- Transportation Comms Public Works Fire Fighting Emergency Managment MASS CARE and HOUSING Resource Support Community CONTAINMENT Quarantine- Containment Facilities??? Enforcement of Quarantines Mass Immunization Areas-will these be mandatory?? All public and media inquiries must be cleared by Fed Joint Info centers (JIS) Every Hospital will run under NIMS agreements- National Incident Management Systems- all info coming out of hospitals must go through a Public Information Officer from the JIS.
We have the fact that H5N1 has acquired the necessary changes for enhanced ability to bind to human receptors, which are found in influenza B, as well as in previous pandemic sequences in 1957 and 1968, but this was not mentioned in the Nature paper, only that it could be.
Now we just find out that we have human H5N1 in Sudan since September?
Then there¡¯s the fact that isolation of sequences is still being done in chicken eggs, which produces false negatives in matching¡
Much of this I have been gathering from Dr. Niman¡¯s Commentaries. It seems that you have contact with Dr. Niman. You mentioned in a post above that you were waiting from him on some analysis on another polymorphism from Iraq. Have you heard what the polymorphism is? Would you mind asking him if he could weigh in on this?
He seems to be about the only person who seems to have a handle on exactly what is going on here. He seems to be making the same important points in the past few of his Commentaries, but I find I am becoming too overwhelmed with trying to understand it all.
There are so many very troubling bits of information from the past couple of days, so many, in fact, that I am afraid this post would be very much longer if I were able to sort them all out in my mind and document them here. I have a very bad feeling about it, but I just don¡¯t know if I am misunderstanding what I am seeing or not.
The bottom line is, I know that the flu in the southern US could be the result of recombining and substituting genetic material between H5N1 and human influenzas, giving it the transmissibility of human influenza, but with a lower virulence than H5N1, but I don¡¯t know if we should just assume that is true, since I am sure we will not be told by the CDC until the President declares a state of emergency and the DoD plans go into effect. This is what I am leaning towards, that it is a combination of H5N1 and human seasonal flu, but I really feel I to have an expert like Dr. Niman weigh in on it, because I am not an expert. Do you agree that this would be a good idea, NS1? You certainly know more about it than I do! What do you think?
I just saw this on another flu board! Here is a snippet:
ATLANTA — Chikungunya, a severe and sometimes deadly infectious disease that has devastated the islands of the Indian Ocean, has arrived in the United States.
Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota and at least a half-dozen other states have reported cases of travelers returning from visits to Asia and East Africa sick with the mosquito-borne virus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Chikungunya can cause fever, nausea, crippling joint pain and even neurological damage.
I haven’t read the whole article yet, or other threads on FW to see what other info we have, but this is very bad news, and is substantial evidence that we may have a pandemic situation. And I thought I was concerned when I wrote the above post.
so, back to my question that was shot down by Commonground - does this year’s vaccination for flu offer any protection against whatEVER is going on in the southern U.S.??
The trivalent seasonal flu vaccine has influenza A (H1N1 and H3N2) and influenza B
Dear “Also anon for this”, The seasonal flu virus has only three antigens as stated above by RBD. Two influenza A and one influenza B, chosen last January to protect people for this fall. Unfortunately the influenza virus, being an RNA virus, can change rapidly and the seasonal flu vaccine may not be beneficial. So “will this year’s vaccine protect you”, maybe - maybe not… depends on what virus is circulating at the time.
also anon for this – at 18:17
I hope you weren’t feeling ignored. :)
I found this on MENA (MiddleEastNews Agency). I am unable to open up the entire headline (can’t log in), even after I registered on their site. Is anyone up and running and able to open news articles on this site? I think it says that BF has been discovered in the city of Alexandria, but just not sure. Here are the links: (when you get there, it will be in Arabic, go to top of page and you will see the “English.” Dated 11–20–06:
166 20/11/2006 20:33 GMT
Egypt / Bird Flu Bird flu detected in Alex.
Postes on the news thread (along with a nifty map)
Klatu – at 20:14
New bird flu infection in poultry reported in northern Egypt
08:21, November 21, 2006
Source: Xinhua
Some household poultry in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria have been tested positive for the H5N1 virus, a government statement said Monday. The Egyptian Ministry of Health sent teams to cull the infected domestic fowls along with veterinary services and Alexandria police, Egypt’s official news agency MENA quoted the Health ministry statement as saying.
The medical tests of people who have been in direct contact with the infected poultry are ongoing in the Egyptian Ministry of Health, the statement added.
It also said that there were two suspected human bird flu cases from Cairo and Giza, west of Cairo, admitted to hospitals but tested negative. Earlier in November, bird flu cases in poultry were reported in the northern Egyptian governorate of al-Menofiya and the southern city of Luxor.
Egypt found the first bird flu case in dead poultry on Feb. 17, and then the virus spread to 20 of the country’s 26 governorates. So far seven people have died of the fatal virus in the country.
-excerpt
Let’s assume, that the NC flu strain has nothing to do with H5N1. It is simply a “nasty” flu. Folks, THAT’S why so many doctors recommend a flu shot. Maybe it will help, maybe it won’t, but even “normal” flu can be very nasty. It’s best to use every medical tool at our disposal.
I think everyone is a bit jumpy.
UTR @ 16:58 Why does it seem that even in his absence, Niman and his ideas pop up in every discussion? I do not believe he is the only one who knows what’s going on - for that matter, either no one knows what’s going on, or many people know.
I hardly think this is the proper place to request Niman’s input, either.
I’ll go with Patch’s “jumpy” — we’ve had so many false alarms. Lots of dengue fever, lots of chikungunya, some Indonesian cow snoring disease (no, I’m not kidding on that one), Japanese encephalitis in Nepal — any one of those could be H5N1 in drag, but they could also be just what locals label them — what has really changed is our individual awareness of the rest of the world.
I don’t like these new cases cropping up in Egypt — or the continued drum beat in Indonesia, but I’m not seeing “flame on” yet — I really got worried with the Karo cluster and that was months ago. Nothing to do but keep the eyeballs peeled, educate and prep.
I thought that I read several times that B viruses were more stable than A viruses and didn’t mutate as rapidly. Aren’t they usually milder than A viruses? Just wondering!
Have any pandemics been caused by a B virus?
Clawdia, The owners of FW appear to agree with you, since they have banned Niman from posting.
Mom11 – at 00:30
I thought that I read several times that B viruses were more stable than A viruses and didn’t mutate as rapidly. Aren’t they usually milder than A viruses? Just wondering!
Have any pandemics been caused by a B virus?
No, and I haven’t come across any science indicating that they ‘recombine’ with influenza A viruses either.
RBD – at 00:40
Clawdia, The owners of FW appear to agree with you, since they have banned Niman from posting.
Nope, we agree with what we believe to be correct, and we agree that people should be free to speculate, as long as they indicated clearly that those were speculations and not proven science.
Hi Anon_22!
I hope you are well. Thanks!
Mom11 – at 00:45
Hi Anon_22!
I hope you are well. Thanks!
I am, although constantly jetlagged. I hope you are better too.
Off topic for this thread - but please read - and don’t shoot the messenger!
From UTR’s post at 17:51 about chikungunya virus arriving in the U.S. The subtitle, & third page of the article (http://tinyurl.com/y8jqzx)have these sadly telling comments.
“Scientists say West Nile threat pales by comparison”…
“Because of chikungunya’s human-to-human transmission — Parola reports at least one case of a nurse becoming infected after taking a blood sample from a patient — Calisher is not hopeful that the disease will ever be eradicated.
“If you could ever stamp out the last human case, that might be the end of it,” he said, “but that’s not possible. … We’ve been lucky so far. There really haven’t been many serious infectious epidemics in the United States. But as far as chik is concerned, I think it’s a crapshoot.”
No wonder it’s been spreading surprisingly fast. It appears we get to add this virus to the list of those transmitted by blood exchange. And now I wonder about saliva as well. [late night sigh]
“UTR @ 16:58 Why does it seem that even in his absence, Niman and his ideas pop up in every discussion? I do not believe he is the only one who knows what’s going on - for that matter, either no one knows what’s going on, or many people know” CLAWDIA “I hardly think this is the proper place to request Niman’s input, either.”
I don’t believe he is the only who knows what is going either. However, he is sharing his obervations of what is going on, which I appreciate. And I would be not be surprised if many others know what is going on. But Dr. Niman is the main one sharing immediate observations with ME.
I can appreciate his communication style may be one that FW may wish to not have in it. However, I find it to be a sad commentary that people find the presence of his ideas objectionable. So far, the main argument I have seen against his ideas is that “they are not proven” yet. I find it interesting that the proof for his ideas is made very difficult by keeping secret what is very arguably public knowledge [sequences] by people who have a vested interest in their own “proven” ideas, which by the presence of numerous variations if H5N1 now circulating, to be very poor predictors of the virus’s changes. By what my uneducated take mutation seems to be wrong (slow) about a level of magnitude in time frame.
Anyway, that’s fine. Sorry to offend you with the thoughts these misguided scientific people who talk about what they are doing. Bye.
Fiddlerdave – at 01:40
So far, the main argument I have seen against his ideas is that they are not proven yet. I find it interesting that the proof for his ideas is made very difficult by keeping secret what is very arguably public knowledge [sequences] by people who have a vested interest in their own proven ideas, which by the presence of numerous variations if H5N1 now circulating, to be very poor predictors of the virus’s changes.
You may notice a paper recently published in Nature by a Japanese scientist (virologist I think) which even Dr. Niman commented. Dr. Niman could have done the same or similar work using same or similar sequences and proved a portion of his theory instead of commenting on it. Many scientists do not have access to all sequences either, but they pursue and publish peer reviewed papers, using what sequences are available. Dr. Niman has not published any scientific paper or tested his theory in any lab even though he should have access to some sequences (as far as I know, and correct me if I am wrong). However, he evangelizes his unproven ideas as facts and/or accepted scientific theory to lay persons on flu boards, and quite often sensationalizes his ‘predictions’. If you read what he and his followers write, you would think pandemic is going to be here next week. This happens almost every time there is an outbreak some where. I find him alarmist. This thread has been a good example of such dynamics of Niman marketing. There is more commercial than content.
You are entitled to your opinion. My take is that he knows that he can’t prove his theory, even in a small way, with scientific rigor, with sequences that are available. That’s why no scientific publication. I said it before, and I will say it again. His methods are more like astrology than astronomy. Use it to predict the future at your own peril.
I do find his translation of foreign language news useful, but not the insistence without rigorous proof that all accepted theories are wrong, recombination is prevalent, explains all natural phenomena, and can predict what happens next. No other scientist, to my knowledge, claims that it is even possible to predict what the virus will do precisely next. In any other discipline, if there is even a slim chance of a pioneer being right, you expect more scientist compete to prove the same new theory. Not so with recombinomics theory. If he is so right, he should prove it. However, if you raise this question, he would insist the rest of the world needs to prove they are right - a classic deflection.
Like many, I am hungry for information and advice, but only if it’s credible, reviewed by many scientists, repeatable etc.
I will even listen to speculation, but it needs to be stated as such, and not promoted as the ultimate truth, or evangelized like a religion.
Anon-YYZ
There you go again mis-representing someone who is unable to defend himself due to a banning?
Noble indeed.
If you would do your homework, you’d find that Niman is accurate in his discussions. If you allow the scientific rigour of reading the information and seeing the alignments, then you may also be able to see the possibility that his interpretation is correct.
Regardless of the proof of Niman’s interpretation (rules-based, sub-gene-segment genetic acquistion), his work in tracking the potential donors of genetic material to H5N1 and the relationships between the polymorphisms is utterly astounding to me. This individual man, while fighting dozens of naysayers online and being ignored by his academic peers, generates more expert output than many fully staffed, government-funded labs.
Pretty impressive to me.
But that’s just me using scientific rigour to measure accuracy.
Try it for yourself just this one time:
Anon-YYZ,
Feel free to use your normal methods whilst I’m away for the next 12 hours.
I’ll either read the quips with amusement tomorrow . . .
or you could surprise me . . .
and go study.
Gather and Solve.
NS1 – at 04:21 I like Niman’s work too, he is a thinker and way ahead of the crowd, particularly the government funded crowd. I have analyzed his work and come to the conclusion that he has made some sense out of the nonsense of random mutation—besides, few things in life are truly random if one believes in an ordered universe.
It is obvious to me that H5N1 is picking the human immune lock at its leisure and comfort. When it appears to the parochial, pedantic thinkers as though the school of fish have turned in one swoosh and the pandemic has begun, most of us following this with an open, rational mind will be relieved that the sword of Damocles has finally fallen. One more turn to the right, click, and then one turn to the left, click, and the vault is open.
NS1 – at 04:21,
There you go again mis-representing someone who is unable to defend himself due to a banning?
First of all, please do not take this into another personality debate. What is being written here now is no different from when he was around to ‘defend’ himself.
If you would do your homework, you’d find that Niman is accurate in his discussions. If you allow the scientific rigour of reading the information and seeing the alignments, then you may also be able to see the possibility that his interpretation is correct.
Second, please do not assume that other people have not ‘done their homework’ just because they disagree with your conclusions.
In the early stages of my participation at Flu Wiki and other flu boards, I subscribed to his assertions and believed he had something good to offer. I got excited about them and read everything he wrote.
However, the more I looked into his work, the less credibility there was for me. So I arrived at a different conclusion than yours, which is that he has some interesting theories to propose, there are too many gaps in his theory to accord them the same level of credibility as other scientific work, and the fact that he does not mark out the limits of certainty in his work, particularly when communicating to laymen is, at best, not the action of a responsible scientific person. At worst, it is misleading the public.
Furthermore, his inability to prove his theory is not contingent on availability of sequences. The validity or not of his theory that recombination is a major mechanism of change in influenza A can be proven by existing information on all the influenza sequences in the public database. Especially with the rapidly expanding database from the various centers doing whole sequence analysis, such as the NIH, the results which are immediately deposited with GenBank.
You can have your conclusions, just accept that other people have done as much or more homework as you have, and do not agree with yours.
anon_22,
The examples of recombination were presented at a meeting on vaccines, that included H5N1. Several slides are linked here:
http://www.recombinomics.com/presentations.html
These are public sequences and recombination is clearly identified in the slides from the meeting.
Have you found any of this information to be false or to not be examples of recombination?
Attempts to discredit Dr. Niman and his work appear to have been ongoing for some time. The results speak for themselves. Professional jealousy perhaps?
Let’s keep this thread about Egypt. If you like Dr. Niman’s work great, if you don’t, don’t. We are each free to accept or not accept any info that is written here or anywhere else. Now back to the middle east. Thanks
UPDATED: 08:21, November 21, 2006
People’s Daily
“Some household poultry in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria have been tested positive for the H5N1 virus, a government statement said Monday.
The Egyptian Ministry of Health sent teams to cull the infected domestic fowls along with veterinary services and Alexandria police, Egypt’s official news agency MENA quoted the Health ministry statement as saying.
The medical tests of people who have been in direct contact with the infected poultry are ongoing in the Egyptian Ministry of Health, the statement added.
It also said that there were two suspected human bird flu cases from Cairo and Giza, west of Cairo, admitted to hospitals but tested negative.
Earlier in November, bird flu cases in poultry were reported in the northern Egyptian governorate of al-Menofiya and the southern city of Luxor.”
RBD – at 07:01
I did not see any slides on that link. Perhaps if you can find them, you can start a thread to discuss them. Let’s keep the content of this thread to Egypt, and not stray too far.
Homesteader – at 07:06
Attempts to discredit Dr. Niman and his work appear to have been ongoing for some time. The results speak for themselves. Professional jealousy perhaps?
No, the results do not speak for themselves, not for me, and not for every single virologist that I have read or spoken to. Nor every journal paper that I have looked up on the subject.
But the point that I’m making is that people can legitimately draw different conclusions from examining the same information, irrespective of who is proposing the theories. It’s called a difference of opinion, which is not personal, and nothing to do with discrediting any person.
For example, there are disagreements or uncertainties as to whether aquatic birds are natural reservoirs of flu viruses, or whether there is enough evidence to support the notion that pigs as intermediate hosts is a significant mechanism for producing a pandemic virus, or whether the latest Fujian strain in China should be classified as a new strain. Scientists who stand on opposing sides of these debates can and do maintain amicable working relationships with each other. Its called professionalism.
I have seen great scientists like Osterhaus have such heated arguments with each other over a scientific point that if you didn’t know any better, you’d think they were mortal enemies, but 5 minutes later, they would be laughing and joking with each other, friendships intact.
As Ruth said If you like Dr. Niman’s work great, if you don’t, don’t. We are each free to accept or not accept any info that is written here or anywhere else. Now back to the middle east.
Yes, Back to the Middle East, please.
you guys certainly know how to turn an important thread into a bunch of crap… ie: niman bye bye (leaves crying FOUL FOUL FOUL)
When and why was Niman banned? I remember when I first started coming to this site over a year ago I was shocked to see how rudely he was treated (especially by Melanie). It got so uncomfortable to observe that I stayed away for a long time. Since I’ve been back I’ve discovered he’s been banned. What did I miss?
Whats going on in Egypt?Hard to tell from this hyjacked thread…..
Malachi – at 09:13 — Whats going on in Egypt? Hard to tell from this hyjacked thread…..
Haven’t heard much outta Egypt in the last few days from either the gov’t or the Egyptian press.
I keep an eye on (daily checks) Al Wafd — the only Egyptian newspaper I’ve found that has reportedly substantially on bf: http://www.alwafd.org/v2/News/index.php
The Egyptian government’s bf site in English is here: http://birdflu.sis.gov.eg/html/flu0101.htm
…but they haven’t mentioned the poss cluster in Sohaj at all.
The Kuwaiti News Agency also often reports on bf news outta Egypt: http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/default.aspx?Language=ar
For searching purposes, bird flu in Arabic is: ÇäÝáæäÒÇ ÇáØíæÑ
And, there’s a beta Arabic-English machine-translator on Google — it’s a bit rough, but it does the job: http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
I dunno why sometimes non-English scripts don’t post well here. ??
Anyway — to see bf in Arabic, go here:
http://www.fluwikie2.com/pmwiki.php?n=Forum.InternationalBirdFluWordList
anon-22, The links to the slides are in the middle of the linked page. They are hard to miss
http://www.recombinomics.com/presentations.html
H5N1 Hong Kong PB2 Recombinant (slide 11) H5N1 Hong Kong PB1 Recombinant (slide 12) H5N1 Hong Kong PA Recombinants (slide 13) H5N1 Hong Kong NP Recombinant (slide 14) H9N2 Korea NA Recombinants (slide 15) Canadian Swine PB2 Recombination (slide 23) Canadian Swine PA Recombination (slide 24) Canadian Swine PB1 Haplotypes (slide 26)
Here is slide 23 (PB2 recombination)
http://www.recombinomics.com/phylo/Canadian_Swine_PB2.html
Here is slide 24 (PA recombination)
RBD – at 10:21
I went automatically to the summit link! LOL.
In the interest of keeping this thread on track, can you start a different thread to discuss this?
And, for ease of discussion, tell us your understanding or interpretation of the issues, so we can stay focussed, thanks!
That Egyption govt site now says all tests negative, but they don’t enumerate.
Egypt
Some household poultry in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria have been tested positive for the H5N1 virus, a government statement said Monday. The Egyptian Ministry of Health sent teams to cull the infected domestic fowls along with veterinary services and Alexandria police, Egypt’s official news agency MENA quoted the Health ministry statement as saying. The medical tests of people who have been in direct contact with the infected poultry are ongoing in the Egyptian Ministry of Health, the statement added. It also said that there were two suspected human bird flu cases from Cairo and Giza, west of Cairo, admitted to hospitals but tested negative.
Nova – at 09:11 When and why was Niman banned? I remember when I first started coming to this site over a year ago I was shocked to see how rudely he was treated (especially by Melanie). It got so uncomfortable to observe that I stayed away for a long time. Since I’ve been back I’ve discovered he’s been banned. What did I miss?
This is not on-topic for the thread. If you would like to start a thread to talk about this, please do. This thread is to follow developments of a possible cluster in Egypt.
anonymous, A cache of the link you provided indicates the statement on no current human cases was made on or before November 12.
The four suspect cases listed in the first post on this thread were admitted 3–4 days AFTER that statement.
So we are still waiting on those test results.. It shouldn’t take that long. The wiki world is waiting.
Well, also keep in mind that throughout the months of trying to track cases in various parts of the world, there have been many “suspected” cases that “we” have been waiting to hear the results of, and nothing is ever said about them again. They simply “disappear”. It will be disappointing, but this could very well be what happens in these four suspected cases in Egypt. We can only hope that the reason nothing is reported is that the tests are negative.
Clawdia – at 00:03
Sorry, Clawdia, I guess it’s just because I have been studying his commentaries lately, and the sequence data he posts, trying to understand all this, and they really make a lot of sense to me. I’m That’s Just Ducky! over on CE, by the way! lol Don’t ask me why I have two handles.
Snowhound1, Since two of the four were unconscious, and they form a tight cluster, it is harder for them to just go away.
anonymous – at 10:45 — That Egyption govt site now says all tests negative, but they don’t enumerate.
http://birdflu.sis.gov.eg/html/flu0102211.htm
This report was posted on the Egyptian government’s website on Nov 2 — pre-dating the 4 suspected cases from Sohag, as RBD suggests. If you go to their Press Release main page, you’ll see the Nov 2nd date (it’s the one at the top): http://birdflu.sis.gov.eg/html/flu0101.htm
Snowhound1 – at 15:35 — Well, also keep in mind that throughout the months of trying to track cases in various parts of the world, there have been many “suspected” cases that “we” have been waiting to hear the results of, and nothing is ever said about them again. They simply “disappear”. It will be disappointing, but this could very well be what happens in these four suspected cases in Egypt. We can only hope that the reason nothing is reported is that the tests are negative.
Well put, Snowhound! To put things in perspective — there were at least 150–200 suspected cases back in March at the height of the outbreak in Egypt — and we pretty much didn’t hear anything about most of them. I suppose we just must presume they all tested neg. ??
I would guess, too, that there’s been at least a hundred or more suspected cases since then — we just rarely hear about them. The Egyptian gov’t pretty much only mentions positives (occasionally they mention poultry workers who tested neg — but they never say if these people had symptoms or were just tested ‘cause they were working with/culling H5N1 pos chickens) — we rely on the papers (mostly “Al Wafd”) for any hints about others.
I don’t believ the Egyptian Government maintains a free press. After all, they have a Tourist industry to protect.
I am going to open a new thread for you as this one has got a little long …
Copying last few posts to new thread as well.