The Coming Influenza Pandemic?

October 10 Flu Update

The EU has banned bird Turkish birds from importation due to bird flu.

Secretary Leavitt is on a four-nation Asian tour. He has some interesting things to say, including something along the lines of "don't think we're sending vaccine over here, we won't have enough for ourselves."

Here's another comment sure to raise ire in the flublogosphere.

"For all of us, the best defense is containment, to find it and find it soon and then work as an international community to contain it," he said. "That requires all of us to act in a way that is both transparent and cooperative."

His trip in the region, where 60 people reportedly have died of avian flu, began here in Thailand, where he said preparedness and cooperation were already at a high level. More than 40 million chickens and ducks have been killed in Thailand over the past two years and 12 human deaths have been confirmed.

Dr. Osterholm is back with another tour de force on MSNBC, where he states that stockpiling drugs gives a false sense of security.

Many governments around the world are stockpiling antiviral drugs and some companies are trying to speed up vaccine production but these measure give a false sense of security and will do little to counter a flu pandemic, an expert cautioned Monday.

Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert who has been studying the risk of pandemic flu for decades and is a U.S. government adviser, said governments should be preparing to cope with the pandemic instead of relying entirely on the hope of using vaccines and drugs to control it.

Italian livestock officials are looking for more bird flu support.

The Detroit Free Press gives its readers the ol' good news, bad news. No vaccine shortages this year, no help for bird flu.

Russia will kill near half a million birds in flu fight. While it seems they are making progress, it isn't easy to tell.

Indonesia back in the news. A 21 year old man has died, believed to be bird flu, and his 4 year old nephew is also believed to be infected. These are the first cases off the island of Java.

Recombinomics on this case.

CNN has an interview with Dr. Marc Siegel, who wrote, False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear. He thinks the whole fuss is a little overblown.

[he] said it's likely that such a pandemic could occur "over the next 50 years and maybe even over the next 10 or 20," but he said "it may very well not be this bug."

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Siegel said there are still many unanswered questions regarding whether this strain of bird flu could be a pandemic trigger. "If it does mutate or another one does, we don't know for sure what it will do," he said. "That's, you know, really speculation at this point."

On the Magical Flu Tour, cooperation is pledged.

VOA says WHO is watching closely to see if the flu leads to H2H.

South Korean article says plenty of rest, fluids, and washing your hands is key to fighting the bird flu.

Orlando TV on what a pandemic is.

WHO has a new situation update for Indonesia. Reports states the this is the fifth bird flu case in Indonesia with lab confirmation.

Interestingly, here's a second group of Asian scientists who say that it may be H7 or H9 that sparks the next pandemic.

In Britain, the Times is reporting that the government has stalled vital funding due to funding concerns.

A Czech Republic interview with a WHO spokesperson is here. Nothing new, but a good overview.

Local plans have been underway for some time on Cape Cod to fight the bird flu.

As the flu creeps toward Europe, Boston Globe has the story of the continent bracing itself for the onslaught.

CIDRAP on Turkey and Romania.

CIDRAP on "grim" US bird flu plan.

Effect Measure on what we really know in Turkey and Romania--the answer is, not as much as it seems.

Recombinomics has a rumor of a human case in Turkey....

and here that the flu investigators themselves are being monitored.

Recombinomics says wild birds have died in Bulgaria.

In the first news byte here, ProMed says that birds in Romania were negative for bird flu. Note the confusion angle in Effect Measure's link above.

ProMed on the sick 4 year old boy in Indonesia.

ProMed on the "clear but not present danger" of the bird flu.

Here's an interesting quote:

Some scientists suspect that if H5N1 has not caused a pandemic by now, then it will not, because it must be incapable of making the needed changes. But others say there is no way to tell what the virus will do as time goes on. And they point out that no one knows how long it took for the 1918 virus to develop the properties that led to a pandemic. Meanwhile, H5N1 seems to be finding its way into more and more species. Once known to infect chickens, ducks and the occasional person, the virus is now found in a wide range of birds, and it has infected cats. "It killed tigers at the Bangkok zoo, which is quite remarkable because flu is not traditionally a big problem for cats," Dr Pavia said. It has also infected pigs, which in the past have been a vehicle to carry viruses from birds to humans. "We should be worried but not panicked," Dr Pavia concluded.

H5N1 has the latest high-quality tome from Peter Sandman.

An H5N1 reader submitted his own notes from a Deutsche Bank conference on the economic dangers of the bird flu.

posted by Orange @ 10:27 PM