The Coming Influenza Pandemic?

Friday, May 23, 2008

May 22 Flu Update

A toddler in Bangladesh has bird flu, the country's first case. He is said to have recovered, and lived near no poultry, but in the slums.

CIDRAP on the Bangladesh case.

Albany GA had a bird flu seminar.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

May 21 Flu Update

Indian officials optimistically believe they are "mopping up" bird flu in Darjeeling.

Here (search for "flu") we get the encouraging news that bird flu has allowed Israeli and Palestinian officials to cooperate.

Indonesia is now requiring that people get permission before they take their animals to travel.

A Minnesota Regional Medical Office has held a bird flu summit.

South Koreans are urged to fight flu by washing their hands.

In Japan, firefighters are doing pandemic drills.

Flu Primer for Shelbyville, TN

PETA blames filthy farms for bird flu.

Alumni magazine looks at graduate who is working on bird flu. Look for the name Eric Blum.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

May 20 Flu Update

Good thing there is no fish flu....South Koreans are turning to seafood in the bird flu scare

Good flu primer for Tennessee audience.

Continuing flu education is urged in Kenya.

WHO DG Dr. Chan ranks bird flu right up there with climate change and the food shortage.

Article urges Malaysian readers not to be desensitized to bird flu

Bird flu planning is also underway in the Philippines.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

May 19 Flu Update

More on drug resistance in the flu. Excellent story, and really kind of chilling. This virus is very agile.

Birds in Siberia have bird flu antibodies.

State officials in Colorado are making plans for business continuity in a pandemic.

Experts welcome Indonesia's latest pledge to share data--CIDRAP reports.

CIDRAP also has the news of the prepandemic vaccine in Europe.

Expert says natural viruses like flu are more dangerous than bioterror.

More on business impact of agri-disease in South Korea.

Monday, May 19, 2008

May 18 Flu Update

For the second time, South Korea has mobilized troops to help in the culling of poultry.

More on ongoing culling in South Korea.

Chicken restaurants are suffering serious problems from bird flu scare in South Korea.

Quang Nam in Vietnam says it is bird flu free.

Helen Branswell on EU approval of H5N1 pre-pandemic vaccine--Prepandrix!

Usual high quality post from Revere on the mantra that all human cases have bird exposure....they don't, and we may be missing H2H because we are so quick to explain away infections. Note this...

This case is mysterious in other ways, too. It was originally reported that the teenage girl's 15 year old brother was also a bird flu victim, but the story now goes that the brother died of typhoid fever 10 days before his sister. Had it been bird flu this would have been looked on as a likely person to person transmission. It seems a bit convenient -- but still possible, I suppose -- that the brother died of another fatal infectious disease within exactly one incubation period of his sister. Since it sounds like the brother died before the diagnosis of bird flu was suspected and the diagnosis is based on an unnamed blood test rather than PCR you have to wonder. Of even more interest is the report that a family member of the two, a 24 year old, is being treated at another hospital with bird flu like symptoms.

Don't know we have heard much from Nepal, but this report says its neighboring states are nervous.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

May 17 Flu Update

Now India is putting conditions on how it will share flu viruses.

The Netherlands and France are about to get permission to vaccinate poultry flocks, and the EU is approving it.

Human volunteers in Vietnam have gotten their second dose of flu vaccine.

If you travel away from the United Arab Emirates, don't try to bring eggs back.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

May 16 Flu Update

More on the new outbreaks in India. Commence Culling.

South Korea claims that the strain of bird flu it had has never caused a human infection.

CIDRAP on the lack of a worldwide vaccine stockpile, one year after WHO called for it.

This report says the US is going to study the blood of flu victims in Vietnam.

People in Nepal are urged to be alert about bird flu.

Political pressure in Pakistan on the slow progress of Ag programs, including bird flu....

and calls in India for the resignation of the ag minister.

Pakistani poultry producers also want subsidy for bird vaccine they have to import.

BBC on the revelation that more than one anti-viral is needed in any national stockpile. Seems like I saw this on the blogosphere some time ago....

Hey, and GSK thinks its prudent to stockpile the drug it makes.

Dr. Osterholm delivers a speech in Minnesota with a consistent message--imagine the chaos during a pandemic.

The Indonesian financial sector will have an emergency drill.

The Coming Influenza Pandemic?

Is a global influenza pandemic on the way that could kill millions of people? Are we going to relive the horror of 1918? If it happens, are we even remotely prepared to save ourselves? Scientists from around the world are concerned...since 2004 our site has tracked news of influenza from around the world.

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FluWiki online.
Wikipedia on Influenza
CDC Flu Page
WHO Flu Page
CDC Avian Influenza
New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell on the search for the flu in permafrost
New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell on Flu as our most deadly contagion
The Planning and Politics behind the flu from Greenhammer
Preparing for the Next Pandemic
Michael T. Osterholm, Ph.D., M.P.H.
New England Journal of Medicine, May 5, 2005
Is there anything we can do to avoid this course? The answer is a qualified yes that depends on how everyone, from world leaders to local elected officials, decides to respond. We need bold and timely leadership at the highest levels of the governments in the developed world; these governments must recognize the economic, security, and health threats posed by the next influenza pandemic and invest accordingly. The resources needed must be considered in the light of the eventual costs of failing to invest in such an effort. The loss of human life even in a mild pandemic will be devastating, and the cost of a world economy in shambles for several years can only be imagined.
ABC Primetime, September 2005
"Right now in human beings, it kills 55 percent of the people it infects," says Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow on global health policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. "That makes it the most lethal flu we know of that has ever been on planet Earth affecting human beings."
Dr. Robert Webster
Society just can't accept the idea that 50 percent of the population could die. And I think we have to face that possibility," Webster said. "I'm sorry if I'm making people a little frightened, but I feel it's my role.
Dr. Robert Fedson
"There is nothing in Darwinian evolution that says that our DNA has to survive compared to say the DNA of an earthworm. I mean Darwinian evolution is completely indifferent to which DNA happens to persist. We are not necessarily unique as a species as far as evolution is concerned and we can disappear like other species have already disappeared."