October 7 Flu Update
It is interesting...the bird flu is getting a great deal of MSM coverage in the US now.The news today is led by reports from the Washington meeting Thursday. Here, Bloomberg says the US (Sec. Leavitt) asked for guarantees of surveillance from Asian countries. Thailand asked, in return, for guarantees of no economic harm.
Reuters covers the meeting as well.
Effect Measure has his usually trenchant perspective.
There are reports of wild bird flu in Romania.
Recombinomics on Romania, Part I.
Recombinomics on Romania, Part II. Including a quarantine of a village.
CIDRAP says there's another human case in Indonesia.
President Bush also held a meeting with drug makers on Friday to help talk about vaccine plans. Nobody took any questions, and there doesn't appear to be much news.
NYT article in IHT says that the forgotton drugs like peramivir are being sent back into trials to try and see if they can get into the flu gravytrain.
VOA says Taiwan is going to monitor travellers to try and prevent bird flu transmission.
VOA says the news from Russia yesterday is that the commercial bird farm flu is the first at a farm.
South Korea has estimated bird flu would kill 70,000 in Seoul alone.
More on preperations from India.
An editorial from South Korea says that they have an obligation to use their bird flu expertise to help those in other parts of Asia.
Washington Post article on what "could have been done" to prevent bird flu, contrasts US bird farming practices and those in Asia, and looks at effect of bird density on viral incubation.
A WHO official is warning Asian countries that bird flu could hit soon--within the next few days.
San Jose Mercury News on scientists racing virus to create vaccine.
Tamiflu-mania has Roche warning people not to buy drug over Internet for fear of counterfeit.
Flu Q&A from the Charlotte Observer.
From the Vanderbilt student paper, a professor comments on Bush flu plans.
A pharmacy in Indonesia is looking for permission to sell Tamiflu retail.
This is interesting. I know some of you have said that you have gotten Tamiflu from your Docs...here, docs in Charlotte are telling patients they can't have Tamiflu "in case" the bird flu comes along.
El Paso paper has a health official with local comment on the bird flu.
CIDRAP on flu in the political spotlight.
Effect Measure on the hypocrisy of the Bush administration demanding transparency, when it refuses to share CDC sequence data.
Effect Measure has a little commentary on another blog post that displays some shock that the Bush administration will admit the flu virus evolves.
Effect Measure on an on-message President Bush, with a tounge-in-cheek vision of what the President might actually say to vaccine makers.
Effect Measure has the assumptions built into US pandemic planning. Its anybody's guess, though Revere thinks the mortality assumptions could be low.
Recombinomics on a possible wild bird flu outbreak in the Philippines.
posted by Orange @ 9:43 AM
1 Comments:
I don't understand the Tamiflu issue: At this point we should be throwing IP concerns out of the window: Roche should be forced to license their Tamiflu recipe to any and all governments and other drug companies so that Tamiflu production can be greatly boosted. With a crisis like this at hand some of Roche's profits can be sacrificed for the greater good. Also, prescription requirements for Tamiflu should be dropped. By the time you get a prescription it could be way too late.
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