Vaccines and Drugs Will Not Be Enought To Stop Flu Pandemic

Vaccines and drugs will not be enough to slow or prevent a pandemic of influenza, according to a U.S. government report released on Tuesday.

The report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office confirms what most experts have been stressing for years — that the pharmaceutical industry cannot be relied on alone to protect the world from bird flu.

The GAO, the investigational arm of Congress, reached its own conclusion independently.

“The use of antivirals and vaccines to forestall the onset of a pandemic would likely be constrained by their uncertain effectiveness and limited availability,” the GAO report reads.

Health experts almost universally agree that a global epidemic — a pandemic — of influenza is inevitable and even overdue. Flu is always circulating but, every few decades, a completely new strain emerges and makes millions sicker than usual.

One prime suspect is the H5N1 strain of avian influenza. It is entrenched in poultry across much of Asia, the Middle East and Africa, pops up regularly in Europe and has forced the slaughter of hundreds of millions of birds.

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Bird Flu Still a Simmering Biological Bomb

For many years, Donald G. McNeil has been covering the grim toll wrought by infectious diseases in developing countries, and the global threat some pathogens pose in our increasingly interconnected world. In Science Times this week, he provides a valuable update on the H5N1 virus behind recent outbreaks of avian flu.

While out of the headlines, it remains a simmering threat that, experts say, needs far more attention than it is getting. He took some time to explore the issue with me for Dot Earth readers. Please feel free to post any additional questions you may have, or comments, and I’ll forward them to him.

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Ukraine Hit By New Bird Flu Outbreak

The Ukrainian government has confirmed a new outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in poultry in the Crimean peninsula.

The virus was found in dead chickens from a battery farm in the village of Rivne, a spokesman for the emergency situations ministry, Volodymyr Ivanov, told AFP.

More than 150 birds at the farm had died from bird flu earlier in the week, the ministry said, with Ivanov adding that the village had been cordoned off.

Crimea’s first outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which is deadly if contracted by humans, occurred in December 2005.

On that occasion the virus was eliminated after the authorities swept through farmsteads on the peninsula destroying tens of thousands of domestic birds kept for food by local residents.

H5N1 has claimed more than 200 human lives around the world, mostly in Asia. In Ukraine there have been no human casualties,

Scientists worry that the virus could mutate into a form directly transmissible between humans and cause a devastating pandemic.

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ACLU Questions U.S. Pandemic Response Plans

U.S. policy in preparing for a potential bird flu pandemic is veering dangerously toward a heavy-handed law-enforcement approach, the American Civil Liberties Union said on Monday.

The group, which advocates for individuals’ legal rights based on the U.S. Constitution, said federal government pandemic plans were confusing and could emphasize a police and military approach to outbreaks of disease, instead of a more sensible public health approach.

“Rather than focusing on well-established measures for protecting the lives and health of Americans, policymakers have recently embraced an approach that views public health policy through the prism of national security and law enforcement,” the ACLU report reads.

But the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) said the group had misunderstood the government’s approach and said current plans already incorporate many of the ACLU’s recommendations.

Infectious disease experts agree that a pandemic of some sort of influenza is inevitable, and most worries focus on H5N1 avian influenza. Although it mainly attacks birds, the virus has infected 349 people since 2003 and killed 216 of them.

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India: Bird Flu Spread Alarming

India’s third outbreak of avian flu among poultry is the worst it has faced, the World Health Organization said. The chief minister of West Bengal State, which is trying to cull 400,000 birds, called the virus’s spread “alarming.”

Uncooperative villagers, angry at being offered only 75 cents a chicken by the government, have been selling off their flocks and throwing dead birds into waterways, increasing the risk. New outbreaks were also reported this week in Iran and Ukraine.

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India Sounds Bird Flu Alert After Chicken Deaths

Preliminary results of tests taken after thousands of backyard poultry died in eastern India over the past 10 days showed they were infected with bird flu, but it was unclear if it was the H5N1 virus, officials said.

More than 10,000 birds died in Margram village of Birbhum district in West Bengal state.

“The preliminary tests showed the birds have died from bird flu, but we still dont know whether it is the deadly H5N1 strain,” Sunil Kumar Bhowmik, chief medical officer of Birbhum, told Reuters.

“We will quarantine people if we find anybody sick and intensify culling tomorrow morning until we get the confirmation in a few days,” Bhowmik said.

Thousands of birds in India were culled in 2006 following three separate outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 virus in the western state of Maharastra.

Neighbouring Bangladesh is still reeling under bird flu with around 21 of the countrys 64 districts affected by the deadly virus.

Experts fear the H5N1 virus might mutate or combine with the highly contagious seasonal influenza virus and spark a pandemic that could kill millions of people.

Bird flu has killed more than 210 people in 12 countries since 2003, the World Health Organisation says.

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France Raises Bird Flu Risk From Weak To Moderate

France has raised its bird-flu risk alert to ‘moderate’ from ‘weak’, the Agriculture ministry said.

The decision was taken following the discovery Thursday of a highly contagious strain of the bird flu virus (H5N1) in three dead swans in a nature reserve in Dorset, in the southwest of England, the ministry said.

The French warning system has six levels: negligible 1, negligible 2, weak, moderate, high and very high, the ministry said.

The main impact of the decision to lift the warning is to forbid gatherings of birds and poultry in localities considered particularly at risk.

Birds and poultry in these localities must be kept out of all direct or indirect contact with wild birds, or are subject to alternative measures after an evaluation by a veterinarian.

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Vomiting Bug Norovirus Nears Pandemic Level At Nearly 3 Million

Almost three million people have been affected by the norovirus stomach bug so far this winter, figures suggest.

Surveillance from the Health Protection Agency shows cases in England and Wales are double those seen last year.

Doctors advise people to stay at home for 48 hours after symptoms have gone to cut the risk of the bug spreading.

The HPA said the norovirus season began unusually early. For every one of the 1,922 reported cases, it is estimated another 1,500 have been unreported.

These cases will have been in people who did not visit the doctor.

This equates to around 2.8 million people affected so far this winter and the virus is still circulating.

Norovirus – also known as winter vomiting disease – is the most common cause of infectious gastroenteritis in the UK.

Hospitals have been affected by outbreaks with many wards around the country having to close to new admissions to prevent the spread of the illness.

Easily spread

Onset is very sudden with vomiting and diarrhoea.

Some people may also feel feverish.

Illness can occur at any age because immunity to it is not long-lasting.

It is not normally dangerous but the very young and very old are most at risk of complications from dehydration.

The HPA said they had expected a higher number of recorded cases as methods used for detecting norovirus in the laboratory had improved.

But they advised people to practise good hygiene including hand washing and disinfecting contaminated surfaces if anyone has become ill.

Food preparation should also be avoided until 48 hours after symptoms have disappeared.

There is no specific treatment for norovirus other than letting the illness run its course but it is important to drink plenty of fluids to prevent dehydration, especially in the very young or elderly.

Professor Steve Field, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said the advice issued last week on staying at home if you become ill and not rushing back to work was helping to slow the spread of the illness.

“Anecdotally the pressure seems to be coming off – were delighted that people are following the advice and taking the pressure off the health service.”

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Deadly Strain of Bird Flu Found At Childrens Petting Zoo In Israel

A deadly strain of the bird flu virus has infected chickens in northern Israel, local daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported on its website on Thursday.

According to the report, the virus was found at a kindergarten petting zoo in the northern Israeli city of Binyamina, more than ten kilometers south to the city of Haifa.

The report said 18 of the 25 chickens in the petting zoo were found dead earlier Thursday morning.

The Haifa District Physician Prof. Shmuel Rishpon confirmed that the chickens were infected by the H5N1 bird flue virus.

Rishpon was quoted as saying that “The kindergarten staff has been given preventive medicines and as far as we know, none of the children or their parents came in contact with the birds.”

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Fourth Woman Dies of Bird Flu in Egypt

A woman died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in northern Egypt on Monday, the country’s fourth fatality from the virus in less than a week, the World Health Organisation said.

John Jabbour, an Egypt-based official with the WHO, said this and all other recent cases were believed to have been caused by exposure to sick or dead back-yard birds.

Source

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