If Pandemic Flu Strikes Who Gets A Shot

Pandemic flu strikes the United States, killing hundreds. It doesnt respond to seasonal flu shots, so the drug manufacturers concoct a new vaccine for the bug.

It takes time to produce enough shots for everyone. So supply is limited, and the question hangs: Who gets vaccinated first?

Children? Pregnant women? The nurses, firefighters, police officers on the front lines of the response?

A hundred Henderson County residents considered that question Saturday, weighing in on the federal governments plan to distribute pandemic influenza vaccines.

The government tapped only four communities in the nation for the survey. Henderson County is the smallest on the list. Yet, organizers say residents here asked some of the toughest questions, in what was the last of the input sessions for the general public.

“This is a very engaged, a very intelligent and a very interested group,” said Dr. Ben Schwartz of the Centers for Disease Control.

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Outbreak Of Lethal Bird Flu Confirmed In Britain

Veterinary authorities confirmed an outbreak of the potentially lethal Asian strain of bird flu in eastern England on Tuesday, in a new blow to the British farming industry.

More than 6,000 poultry were ordered to be slaughtered at the site in Suffolk, where an exclusion zone was imposed on Monday after a suspected outbreak was found.

“I can now confirm that the strain of avian influenza found in the infected premises is the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 strain,” said deputy chief veterinary officer Fred Landeg.

“It is of the Asian lineage. It is closely related to strains of the highly pathogenic avian influenza found this summer in the Czech Republic and in Germany,” he added.

On Monday, officials ordered the slaughter of poultry at the farm, which houses free-range turkeys, ducks and geese, while the Food Standards Agency reassured consumers that poultry meat and eggs were still safe to eat, so long as they were cooked properly.

The cull involves some 5,000 turkeys, more than 1,000 ducks and 500 geese. About 100 turkeys were found dead on Sunday, and overnight between Sunday and Monday a further 80 birds died.

Ducks and geese were not displaying symptoms, Landeg added.

Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, told parliament Tuesday that officials were doing their “darnedest” to ensure the disease did not spread, and said the anti-viral drug Tamiflu had been given to all those who were involved in the poultry cull.

A three-kilometre 1.8-mile radius protection zone and a 10-kilometre surveillance zone has been imposed around the farm in the county of Suffolk, where there was an outbreak of H5N1 in February.

Further restrictions are in place in a wider area as a “precautionary measure” as well as a ban on poultry movements, bird fairs and pigeon racing.

Landeg said the operation to contain the latest outbreak would be tough. The similarities between the British and European strains suggested the turkeys could have caught the virus from a wild bird through contact on a farm lake.

But he said all potential sources of the virus would be investigated.

The new bird flu cases are the latest blow to hit the British farming industry, after the first foot-and-mouth disease cases in six years were found in August and the countrys first ever cases of bluetongue disease in cattle.

Ireland immediately imposed a ban on the import of British birds for gatherings and shows.

Irish Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan said a simultaneous ban was being introduced in British-ruled Northern Ireland as a precautionary all-island approach to the threat of the introduction of bird flu.

In the February bird flu outbreak some 159,000 turkeys were killed as a precaution at a plant near Holton in Suffolk, prompting some countries to impose import bans on British poultry.

An official report said it was most likely the virus reached the flock via imported turkey meat from Hungary.

Britains first case of H5N1 was detected in a dead swan in eastern Scotland in April 2006.

The H5N1 strain first emerged in Asia in 2003, and has caused some 205 deaths in humans, with Indonesia and Vietnam among the worst hit countries, according to World Health Organisation figures.

Scientists fear that H5N1 will eventually mutate into a form that is much more easily transmissible between humans, triggering a global pandemic.

The original source is thought to have been wild migratory birds.

H5N1 has mainly affected Asia and some parts of Africa, but the Food and Agricultural Organisation warned last month that the virus could be transmitted to poultry in Europe by ducks and domestic geese seemingly in good health.

Besides Indonesia and Vietnam, deaths have been recorded in Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Iraq, Laos, Nigeria, Thailand and Turkey.

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Four Ways To Prepare For A Flu Pandemic

Its been almost 40 years since the last flu pandemic swept through the world, killing 34,000 people in the United States and 700,000 worldwide. Disease trackers fear that we are due for another epidemic outbreak – most likely one caused by an avian flu.

While theres no reason to believe that such a pandemic is imminent, there are steps that everyone can take to prepare before disaster strikes. Judy Moon, immunization program manager for Visiting Nurse Service Inc., offers the following pointers.

“Just be aware that it is a possibility,” Moon says. “We dont want to scare anybody.”

Four Ways To Prepare For A Flu Pandemic