Wednesday, August 03, 2005

August 3 Flu Update

WaPo is rapidly picking up the bird flu story. This is on the spread to a new area of Siberia.

Here's the TASS story on the same topic.

Russia is having war games, and this report says its soliders are going to get flu shots (??) for bird flu. Check the well photo-shopped image out in this story.

Russia is looking at a $1B tab for the bird flu to farmers alone.

The cull is on in Siberia.

CIDRAP with a story on the cull.

There's a new case of human bird flu in Vietnam.

Recombinomics on the new case. He reminds us that there are two H5N1 in Vietnam--a milder version in the north, where this case is, and a more deadly version in the south, and discusses the implications of this genetic variability running around.


The HHS Secretary says they may use the US Postal Service to deliver flu meds (Tamiflu, I guess) to homes during a pandemic.

(Two thoughts. First, if the mail carriers get the flu, we're in real trouble. And, if they think I'm taking an injection from my mail carrier, they have another thing coming.)

The Rutgers College of Nursing is during an infectious disease seminar in October. Keynote speaker will be Gina Kolata of the New York Times, who wrote an outstanding flu book I read last December.

The EU Communications Commission is working on a green paper on pandemic preparedness.

Recombinomics looks ath the situation in China, which is, for lack of a better phrase, a bacterial and viral cluster-f**k. Niman combines on-the-ground, unconfirmed reports with other media accounts in this commentary.

Recombinomics cites a machine translation here showing bird flu in Tyumen, a heavy poultry district in Russia.

Wikipedia on Tyumen, which is in Siberia

Recombinomics on the spread of the flu toward Europe.

More Recombinomics and the spread to Asia.

Recombinomics notes that the isolate heading to Europe is not resistant to Amantadine and Rimantadine, which could increase demand for these drugs.

Recombinomics has a machine translation which points to four new human cases in Kazhakstan.

Recombinomics has this boxun report about villages being razed in China based on the riots reported last week due to quarantines. Unconfirmed, but not implausible.

The above translation of a boxun report suggest that three villages were razed in response to unrest linked to a forced bird flu quarantine in Yushu in northwestern Qinghai in China. China has imposed news blackouts and arrested reporters in the past, so verifiable news from the area is difficult to obtain.
Croflogs identified this, based on Declan Butler on Connotea, which is a Singapore news site on bird flu.

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