Martin Enserink | Amsterdam | Apr 27

Science Mag - The Dutch government has given virologist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus MC an export license for his controversial H5N1 transmissibility study, allowing Fouchier to send a revised manuscript of his paper to Science.

The license "is in my inbox," says Fouchier. "Now we can move on."

The decision by Henk Bleker, minister for agriculture and foreign trade, was announced this afternoon in a press release (Dutch) posted on the ministry's Web site. It comes 4 days after a closed meeting in The Hague, where government officials discussed the risks and benefits of the research with an international group of scientists and security experts.

** Secret Briefing Helped Sway H5N1 Flu Papers Decision
** Scientists have engineered a deadly bird flu virus, but are there dangers in publishing their research?

Julie Steenhuysen | Chicago | Sept 2

Reuters - Two U.S. children were infected with flu viruses that originated in pigs in the past two months, and an analysis of both viruses showed they had picked up genetic material from the 2009 pandemic influenza A H1N1 virus, government researchers said on Friday.

They issued a warning to health workers to watch out for suspect viruses because those that cross between species can be especially virulent.

In both children, one from Indiana and one from Pennsylvania, an analysis of the viruses showed they contained a gene of the 2009 pandemic flu virus, according to a report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Flu viruses that jump from one species to another are a concern because they can swap genes and form an entirely new virus, making them harder to protect against.

"Pandemic viruses get started when they reassort and they emerge as a new virus. That is why we have to keep close watch on new influenza viruses as they emerge," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

"They are constantly changing, and that is why we have to have really good surveillance systems in place to detect them when they do emerge," he said.

So far, this new virus does not appear to be able to easily pass from human to human, but Skinner said the CDC is still investigating.

Rome | August 29

AP - The United Nations warned Monday of a possible resurgence of the deadly bird flu virus, saying wild bird migrations had brought it back to previously virus-free countries and that a mutant strain was spreading in Asia.

A mutant strain of H5N1, which can apparently sidestep defenses of existing vaccines, is spreading in China and Vietnam, Tthe U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement Monday. It urged greater surveillance to ensure that any outbreaks are contained.

Kagoshima | January 26

Kyodo - Chickens at a poultry farm in Izumi, Kagoshima Prefecture, tested positive for bird flu in a preliminary examination, the prefecture said Tuesday, following outbreaks of a highly lethal strain of avian influenza in Miyazaki Prefecture.

The Kagoshima farm raises some 8,600 chickens for eggs. There are around 160 poultry farms within a 10-km radius of the farm, accounting for some 5.25 million birds.

Steve Connor | Cambridge, England | January 14

The Independent - Scientists have developed a way of curbing the spread of avian flu with the help of genetically modified chickens that do not spread the virus.

The chickens have an extra piece of DNA inserted into their genomes which produces a "decoy" molecule that blocks the replication of the influenza virus and prevents transmission to the rest of the flock.

Denis Campbell | Jan 6

The Guardian - Last winter's swine flu vaccine stock used in attempt to beat shortages but ministers are slow to act, says Labour

GPs have begun giving patients doses of last year's swine flu vaccine to try to overcome the shortage of seasonal flu vaccines, as the death count from this winter's outbreak rises to 50 people.

The Department of Health approved the move today, and Labour claimed that that was further evidence of ministers being "slow to act at every stage" as the threat posed by flu escalated.

Coming a week after it was forced to reinstate a national advertising campaign on good hygiene, it is the second unexpected step the department has taken to try to lessen the serious harm being caused by swine flu.

The government is releasing 12.7m doses of the Pandemrix swine flu vaccine, left over from the 2009-10period, when an outbreak killed almost 500 people.

"I'm writing to GPs to tell them that they can start using H1N1 vaccine on clinical need," said Dame Sally Davies, the interim chief medical officer for England.

John Healey, the shadow health secretary, said: "This is a sensible step, but once again late in the day from a government that has been slow to act at every stage of this flu crisis. And coming the day after calls for vaccine suppliers to scour Europe for stocks, this will add to public confusion about what treatment is available and where."

December 24

BBC - Northern hemisphere countries are being told by health experts to brace themselves for flu outbreaks.

There has been a well-publicised surge of cases in the UK during December with swine flu appearing to be the dominant of the three strains circulating.

But the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control warned much of the rest of Europe was also beginning to see increases too.

Philip Pullella | Vatican City | Nov 20

Reuters - * Papal words mark significant change in Vatican attitude
* He says condoms still "banalise" sexuality
* Condoms "not a moral solution" but could stem infection

The use of condoms to stop the spread of AIDS may be justified in certain cases, Pope Benedict says in a new book that could herald the start of sea change in the Vatican's attitude to condoms.

In excerpts published in the Vatican newspaper on Saturday ahead of the book's publication next week, the pope cites the example of the use of condoms by prostitutes as "a first step towards moralisation" even though condoms are "not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection".

While some Roman Catholic leaders have spoken in the past about the limited use of condoms in specific cases to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS as a lesser of two evils, this is the first time the pope has mentioned the possibility himself in public.

The Vatican newspaper unexpectedly published significant excerpts from the book on Saturday night, days before extracts were initially due to be made public.

** Pope, church leaders call for guaranteed health care for all people

Hong Kong | Nov 19

AFP - Hong Kong has confirmed its first case of bird flu in humans in seven years, with a 59-year-old woman in a serious condition after a visit to mainland China, health officials said Thursday.

The government has raised Hong Kong's bird flu alert to "serious", meaning there is a "high risk" of contracting the potentially fatal disease, a spokesman for the Department of Health told AFP.

Hong Kong recorded its last case of bird flu in humans in 2003, and had the world's first major outbreak among humans in 1997, when six people died of a then-unknown mutation of the virus. Millions of poultry were culled.

The 59-year-old woman tested positive for Influenza A (H5), a variant of avian influenza, after she was first diagnosed with pneumonia, health officials said. She is now listed in a serious condition in hospital.

Officials are working to determine whether she contracted the virus in Hong Kong or elsewhere, and are monitoring people who have been in contact with her.

The city's health chief York Chow said Wednesday that there was no sign so far of human-to-human transmission in the case.

"I think we have to first concentrate on the source of infection from the poultry as origin," he said.

"But we will be concentrating on people who were in contact with her when she showed symptoms and also when she was in Hong Kong.

"The chances of her catching it is most likely on the mainland, but you cannot rule out... Hong Kong," he added.

Stephen Adams | August 10

The Telegraph - Dr Margaret Chan, director general of WHO, said on Tuesday that the 2009 H1N1 virus had "largely run its course", 14 months after pandemic status was declared.

She said: "Globally, the levels and patterns of H1N1 transmission now being seen differ significantly from what was observed during the pandemic.

Bucharest | Jan 9

Reuters - Thousands of Romanians queued outside a Bucharest hospital to take anti-flu shots on Saturday, spurred into action by the death of a television actor.

"A star had to die to make Romanians identify themselves with the victim and realise that they are at risk if not immunised," Adrian Streinu-Cercel, the hospital director told private television station Realitatea TV. Toni Tecuceanu, 37, well known for playing satiric parts in television shows, died on Tuesday following lung complications after contacting the H1N1 flu virus.

"This is a sort of hysteria," psychologist Florin Tudose said.

Romania, which has recorded 6,061 cases of infection and 82 deaths, began a mass vaccination campaign last year but less than one percent of the 22 million population has been immunised, in large part because people are reluctant and because of poor infrastructure.

Thomas H Maugh II | December 8

LA Times blog - A major controversy about the efficacy of the antiviral agent Tamiflu in treating influenza has erupted in the online version of BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal. A team from the prestigious Cochrane Review says that its analysis of published data about clinical trials of the drug, known generically as oseltamivir, shows that the drug is able to reduce the course of an influenza infection by a day but that they are unable to conclude that the drug is effective at reducing complications and hospitalizations caused by flu because they do not have access to key data from eight clinical trials sponsored by the drug's manufacturer, Roche Laboratories Inc.

Dutch News Nederlands 12/10 The government has announced a string of measures to combat Q fever, a sheep and goat disease which has killed six people in the Netherlands.

All infected sheep and goats on farms where animals have been vaccinated are to be slaughtered, as are all pregnant goats and sheep on other farms where Q fever is identified.

Ministers announced the measures at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, following mounting pressure from animal health experts to take action. The cull will begin 'as soon as possible', farm minister Gerda Verburg said. She could not say how many animals are involved but farming organisation LTO estimated between 15,000 and 20,000 wil be killed, mainly goats.

Paris | Nov 27

AFP - Swine flu virus mutations are spreading in Europe, French health officials said Friday as the World Health Organisation reported a leap in deaths from the disease by more than 1,000 in a week.

Two patients who were infected by a mutation that was also recently detected in Norway have died in France, the government's Health Surveillance Institute (InVS) said in a statement. "This mutation could increase the ability of the virus to affect the respiratory tracts and, in particular, the lung tissue," said a statement from "For one of these patients, this mutation was accompanied by another mutation known to confer resistance to oseltamivir," it added, referring to the main drug being used to treat swine flu, under the brand name Tamiflu.

Local H1N1 doesn't kill everybody but looks very bad:

'We have carried out post mortems on two victims and found their lungs are as black as charcoal. They look like they have been burned. It's terrifying.'

Geneva | November 6

Reuters - H1N1 swine flu is on the rise in China and Japan after triggering an unusually early start to the winter influenza season in Europe, Central Asia and North America, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

According to the U.N. agency's latest official toll, which is thought to underestimate the total spread of the virus, at least 6,071 people worldwide have died as a result of an H1N1 infection since its discovery earlier this year in Mexico and the United States.

Some 359 deaths were recorded in the past week, which saw a big outbreak in Ukraine as well as ongoing spread of the virus across the northern hemisphere.

The death toll in Ukraine is rapidly rising. In a country of 45 million people more than 60 people have died in a week because of some respiratory illness which could be mutated swine flu. Worse still, the epidemic area covers only a small fraction of Ukraine.

No Ukrainian laboratory is capable of testing for the presence of swine flu

If the banking crisis and the bailout wasn't enough to piss you off, watch this.

That just about sums up the Agricultural Industrial Complex's effort to take over the Ohio Constitution on Tuesday, so they can self-regulate, because, you know, it worked out so well on Wall Street and with Enron (to name 2 of, oh, a trillion examples)...

In any case, Facebook group here. Video below. Happy Monday all!

October 31

AFP - The United States released Friday its entire stock of children's Tamiflu antivirals, a top health official said, as the pediatric swine flu toll spiked well above the annual toll for kids from seasonal flu.

"Up until now, there have been 114 laboratory-confirmed deaths among children," the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Thomas Frieden, told a press conference, referring to swine flu.

The highest pediatric death toll from seasonal flu in the past three years was 88.

Along with the spike in child (A)H1N1 flu deaths, the US has seen "more hospitalizations in people under the age of 65 than in most entire flu seasons," Frieden said.

On November 3rd, there will be a Constitutional Amendment on the ballot in Ohio. This is no ordinary ballot initiative. Its very existence and marketing has been bought and paid for--to the tune of millions of dollars-- by national and international agri-business corporations and their front groups, such as Pioneer Hi-Bred International (owned by DuPont and grantee of 100K to the effort),the National Pork Producers Council (113K), and the United Egg Producers (200K!).

(You can join the anti-Issue 2 Facebook Group and help us stop this underhanded effort)

Michael D. Shear | Washington | October 24

WaPo - President Obama Saturday declared the H1N1 flu a national emergency, clearing the way for legal waivers to allow hospitals and doctors offices to better handle a surge of new patients.

The proclamation will grant Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius the power to authorize the waivers as individual medical facilities request them, officials said.

It says that Obama does "hereby find and proclaim that, given that the rapid increase in illness across the Nation may overburden health care resources and that the temporary waiver of certain standard Federal requirements may be warranted in order to enable U.S. health care facilities to implement emergency operations plans, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic in the United States constitutes a national emergency."

White House officials played down the dramatic-sounding language, saying the president's action was not prompted by a new assessment of the dangers posed to the public by the flu.

related articles here

Swine flu virus in Norway seems to kill 10 times more than in Australia.

In Germany, politicians receive a safer vaccine than ordinary citizens.

Two people died in Sweden after receiving their vaccine dose.

Chicago | Oct 17

AFP - Pigs in the state of Minnesota may have become infected with swine flu, officials said on Friday, citing preliminary tests taken at a state fair.

If the initial results are confirmed it would be the first case of the pandemic virus detected in US hogs.

"We currently are testing the Minnesota samples to determine if this is 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement.

"I want to remind people that they cannot get this flu from eating pork or pork products."

The pigs sampled at the fair showed no sign of illness and were apparently healthy, the agriculture department said.

However an outbreak of swine flu occurred in a group of children housed in a dormitory at the fair around the same time the tests were conducted from August 26 through September 1.

"Information available at this time would suggest the children were not sickened by contact with the fair pigs," the agriculture department said.

Final test results are expected in a few days.

Steve Sternberg | Oct 10

USA TODAY - Swine flu is believed to have killed 19 children the week ending Oct. 3, bringing the number of pediatric deaths to 76 since the pandemic began in April, health officials reported Friday.

Sixteen of the children were confirmed to have H1N1 flu; three were believed to have died of the disease. Over the past three flu seasons, total pediatric deaths ranged from 46 to 88, says Anne Schuchat, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

"We've already had 76 children die and it's only October," Schuchat says. Flu season usually runs from December through May.

SWINE FLU CENTRAL: Latest news, videos, CDC tracking on interactive U.S. map