The Agonist - Bird Flu

Indonesia defends move to block virus sample sharing

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:52:20 -0700

Hong Kong | July 16

Reuters -
Indonesian officials say they have refused to share bird flu virus samples with the World Health Organisation because scientists and laboratories repeatedly violated U.N. guidelines on sample sharing.

In an article published in the latest issue of The Annals, Academy of Medicine, Singapore, Indonesian scientists and officials, including Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari, said the current system of sample sharing was unfair and perpetuated the "inequities of the global system".

They said the last straw came when Indonesian officials learnt at the end of 2006 that an Australian company was developing a vaccine against the H5N1 bird flu virus using a strain of the virus from Indonesia.

The officials said it was a clear violation of World Health Organization (WHO) rules that a pharmaceutical company would even have access to viruses that were shared with WHO-affiliated laboratories.

Hong Kong begins mass bird cull as H5N1 spreads

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:28:58 -0700

Hong Kong | June 11

Reuters - Hong Kong ordered a mass cull of all poultry on Wednesday in a bid to stop the spread of the H5N1 virus between birds in hundreds of markets scattered across the territory.

Officials last week found the bird flu virus at a poultry stall in one of the city's many so-called wet markets and ordered the culling of 2,700 birds over the week.

Government officials said on Wednesday the virus had since spread among the island's poultry population and mass cullings were now necessary as a precaution.

Other officials estimated there were 3,500 live birds at roughly 470 stores, stalls or markets across Hong Kong as of Tuesday evening.

Indonesia sees cultural divide on bird flu sharing

Wed, 07 May 2008 03:02:27 -0700

Olivia Rondonuwu & Ed Davies | Jakarta | May 7

Reuters - Indonesia is trying to defend the interests of poorer nations by refusing to share bird flu samples with the West and is locked in a cultural misunderstanding over the issue, Jakarta's health minister said on Wednesday.

Siti Fadillah Supari also said in an interview that a U.S. naval medical lab based in Indonesia for research into tropical diseases was barely benefiting its host country and was not being transparent in its operations.

"Poor countries sent the virus to the WHO (World Health Organisation) on behalf of humanity. But it was commercialised by the WHO," Supari said in her offices in central Jakarta.

Officials in Indonesia, the country with the highest number of human bird flu victims, have said they want to ensure equal access to any vaccines that are made against bird flu.

But U.S. Health Secretary Michael Leavitt said last month after visiting Jakarta that Indonesia also wanted payments.

Dead ducks, live ducks and bird flu [updated]

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:45:28 -0700

Category: Bird flu • Birds • Surveillance • biology
Posted on: March 28, 2008 6:07 AM, by revere
Effect Measure

Hard on the heels of my semi-facetious prediction that bird flu would return to Germany because Germany had declared itself bird flu free, the Swiss announced an infected wild duck on the shores of Lake Sempach. Since this duck didn't have a passport on him I am sure he never strayed over the nearby border with Germany. We don't know what kind of duck this was [see update, below], a question that is of surprising interest in light of a new paper.

Study finds key factors behind bird flu outbreaks

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:55:53 -0700

Will Dunham | Washington | March 26

Reuters - Ducks, people and rice paddies are the primary forces driving outbreaks of avian influenza in Thailand and Vietnam, and the number of chickens is less pivotal, scientists said on Wednesday.

U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization experts and others looked at three waves of H5N1 bird flu in Thailand and Vietnam in 2004 and 2005. The virus has killed 236 people in 12 countries since 2003.

They used computer modeling to study how various factors were involved in the spread of the virus, including the numbers of ducks, geese and chickens, human population size, rice cultivation and local geography.

Even though Thailand and Vietnam addressed the outbreaks in different ways, the researchers found that the numbers of ducks and people, and the extent of rice cultivation were the most important contributing factors underpinning the outbreaks.

Gene study suggests China source of H5N1 virus

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:16:32 -0700

Washington | March 18

Reuters -

Southern China may have been the source for much of the spread of the H5N1 avian flu virus, researchers suggested on Tuesday.

A genetic analysis of the virus shows that strains that showed up in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia in 2002 and 2003 closely resemble a strain from poultry markets in China's Yunnan Province, the flu experts found.

Two viruses found in poultry in China's Hunan province in 2002 and 2003 were most closely related to viruses from Indonesia, they reported in the Journal of Virology.

"These results suggest a direct transmission link for H5N1 viruses between Yunnan and Vietnam and also between Hunan and Indonesia during 2002 and 2003," wrote the researchers, who included Guan Yi of the University of Hong Kong and Robert Webster of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

"Poultry trade may be responsible for virus introduction to Vietnam, while the transmission route from Hunan to Indonesia remains unclear," they wrote.

** FACTBOX-WHO figures for bird flu cases in humans
** Vietnam military to test bird flu vaccine on humans
** Bird flu in Indonesia could mutate into human form: UN agency

US dismisses bird flu claims

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:18:15 -0800

Mark Forbe | Jakarta | February 21

SMH - THE United States has rejected the Indonesian Health Minister's claims that it is using bird flu samples to produce biological weapons and World Health Organisation officials have condemned allegations of conspiring to profit from bird flu vaccines. The Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is understood to have ordered the minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, to recall copies of her book on avian influenza, which alleges the US and the WHO are conspiring against developing countries by seizing control of bird flu samples.

WHO officials said they were dismayed by some of the claims and urged Dr Supari to do more to control bird flu's spread and end her refusal to share virus samples - which is hampering attempts to find a cure.

At a news conference yesterday Dr Yudhoyono said Indonesia was willing to resume sharing bird flu virus samples if a fair and equitable agreement was reached.

Hunters Enlisted In Bird Flu Fight

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 02:21:54 -0800

Kate Spinner | Sarasota | Dec 28

Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Duck hunters, including those prowling the Everglades this winter, are helping scientists nationwide guard against a bird flu pandemic.

Before taking home their ducks, hunters in much of Florida offer them to wildlife inspectors so the birds can be checked for influenza.

The research is intended to help understand how bird flu spreads, so that dangerous flu strains can be swiftly found and eradicated.

"The main objective is early detection or prevention," said Thomas DeLiberto, national wildlife disease coordinator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "It's a way to get a heads-up on a potential problem."

Scientists are focusing on ducks because the birds can harbor and spread influenza viruses without showing any signs of illness.

Saudi Arabia culls 3.5 million birds over deadly flu

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:49:16 -0800

Riyadh | Nov 21

AFP - Saudi Arabia's agriculture ministry said on Wednesday that more than 3.5 million birds have been culled or are in the process of being destroyed following an outbreak of bird flu.

"More than 3.5 million birds have been or are being culled since the first infection (with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu) was detected" on November 12, said a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

The ministry said new cases of bird flu had been detected in farms west and south of Riyadh.

Prepping for a pandemic: fight or flight?

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 04:44:04 -0800

Effect Measure

Posted on: November 11, 2007 4:15 PM, by revere

Time to return to a theme we have sounded on numerous occasions in the past three years. In a recent post we called for a renewed investment in our public health and social service infrastructure as the best strategy. The object is to harden local communities and make them more resilient to all kinds of shocks, not just a pandemic. We should have added, however, that this means local preparation can't be too local: only looking after ourselves and our families. Of course families should prepare, to the best of their ability, and having some reasonable stockpile will stand them in good stead whether it is a pandemic, a flood, a hurricane or a blizzard. But the more important point is that making a community more resilient requires structures that allow us to help each other, not just protect ourselves.

New bird flu strain dangerous to humans

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:23:04 -0700

London | October 7

UPI - A new strain of the bird flu virus spreading around the world is more infectious to humans, a study lead by a U.S. researcher has found.

Led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the new study found the H5N1 virus has apparently mutated into a new strain that increases the risk of a human pandemic due to its increased level of communicability, The Independent said Saturday.

Kawaoka said the new strain does not represent a fully pandemic strain of the virus, but warned the mutated virus has been found in both Europe and Africa.

"The viruses circulating in Europe and Africa all have this mutation," the doctor said. "So they are the ones that are closer to human-like flu."

Bird flu virus can pass mother to child - study

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:10:41 -0700

Maggie Fox | Washington | September 27

Reuters - The H5N1 bird flu virus can pass through a pregnant woman's placenta to infect the fetus, researchers reported on Thursday.

They also found evidence of what doctors had long suspected -- that the virus not only affects the lungs, but passes throughout the body into the gastrointestinal tract, the brain, liver and blood cells.

"The work helps us to understand H5N1's high fatality rate, as well as serving as model for global collaboration in the field of emerging infectious diseases," said Dr. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University in New York, who directed the study.

Lipkin and a team at Peking University in Beijing studied tissue taken from two people killed by H5N1 in China -- a 24-year-old pregnant woman and a 35-year-old man.

Singappore scientists create device to detect H5N1

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 11:16:18 -0700

Tan Ee Lyn | Hong Kong | September 23

Reuters - Researchers in Singapore have created a handheld device that can detect the H5N1 bird flu virus from throat swab samples in under 30 minutes, raising hopes it will lead to rapid detection and containment of the virus.

Conventional laboratory tests take around 4 hours, and require machines to first isolate and amplify the virus before it is tested.

Writing in the latest issue of Nature Medicine, the scientists said the new device would allow decentralised testing of the H5N1 virus, especially in countries that lack basic public health resources.

H5N1, a disease found mostly in birds, is endemic in many parts of Asia and experts have warned for years that it could spark a pandemic, killing millions of people, if it learns to jump from person to person.

Study confirms 2006 human-human spread of bird flu

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:32:04 -0700

Washington | August 28

Reuters - A mathematical analysis has confirmed that H5N1 avian influenza spread from person to person in Indonesia in April, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

They said they had developed a tool to run quick tests on disease outbreaks to see if dangerous epidemics or pandemics may be developing.

Health officials around the world agree that a pandemic of influenza is overdue, and they are most worried by the H5N1 strain of avian influenza that has been spreading through flocks from Asia to Africa.

It rarely passes to humans, but since 2003 it has infected 322 people and killed 195 of them.

Clinical management of human infection with avian influenza A (H5N1) virus

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:07:44 -0700

August 15

WHO - The present advice is applicable for the current situation with sporadic A(H5N1) virus human infection. As more data become available or if the disease patterns change, this advice will be modified as appropriate