October 27 Flu Update--test results on sick Chinese girl are in
The Chinese girl reported sick yesterday does not have bird flu, according to authorities, although tests are unconfirmed.Furthermore, a French tourist just returned from Thailand also tested negative.
Europe has a vaccine....for H7N1.
Taking a page from Thailand's playbook, Indonesia is sending citizen volunteers looking for bird flu.
The government in the Philippines is taking further bird flu protection steps.
The UN warns that Africa is next, as birds migrate. Still, people in Africa don't treat their birds like people in Asia do.
"You don't have export poultry industries in Africa near the scale of what you see in Asia," Morrison said. South Africa is the main exception, he added.
The US has issued a $62.5M contract to Chiron for making a flu vaccine. Many have asked how you can make a vaccine when the strain isn't identified. Here is the answer, from the article.
The vaccine will be a "pre-pandemic" formulation that Chiron and other companies have been working on for more than a year now, Chiron said. Doctors and health officials hope it will be useful as a "priming dose" that would help jumpstart an immune response to be fine-tuned by a second vaccine.
GSK has its own approach, announcing a promising adjuvant program.
Meanwhile, in Canada, vaccine negotiations are bogged down.
Helen Branswell covers this story as well.
Indonesia is looking into whether cats are spreading bird flu. This is because they can't figure out how some people got sick.
Indonesia's human bird flu outbreak is puzzling experts because several victims do not work or live around poultry, prompting an investigation into whether other animal hosts, perhaps cats, are to blame for the disease's spread.
Indonesia has also confirmed that it has shown interest in Hungary's vaccine program.
The EU has some more flu meetings.
From Malta, recognition of serious flu threat.
Editorial says generic drugs the only answer to bird flu.
The Netherlands has made its UN flu donation.
CBC story on virus experts who think Canada doesn't have as much Tamiflu stored up as it thinks it does.
India is prepared to suspend patent laws under "severe emergency" clause.
Vietnam more or less says it would do the same thing.
Its not just governments--companies are scrounging for Tamiflu also.
CIDRAP on Roche suspending Tamiflu sales.
Effect Measure on the Democrat's frustrating and disingenuous response to the bird flu.
Effect Measure on the "Ghosts of 1976." I agree with this post entirely--the Swine flu situation is the elephant in the room in all of the nation's bird flu preperations, and it is why, in my opinion, we will not be able to do any mass vaccination until the threat is present.
The dead mallard in Sweden was H5N3. ProMed reports.
ProMed has a story which talks about the mass concern in Europe--and that the birds, while not a good thing, don't mean human disease will follow right away.
posted by Orange @ 10:39 PM
1 Comments:
sorry...
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