April 29 Flu Update
Very slow news period. Management (?) has been working to figure out how to handle the British outbreak of H7. We held a meeting of our editorial board (Ha, ha), and decided that while covering it at first was OK due to the possibility of two strains mixing, it isn't going to cause a pandemic, so it is not something we plan to spend a lot of time linking, too.Crofsblogs notes the same..."No news is bad news."
The minister for Health in Punjab is going to be very unpopular with local chicken farmers. He said while there was no bird flu there, people still shouldn't eat chicken.
An anti-flu conference is scheduled for Bangkok.
Monroe County, WI is making local preparations for the bird flu.
Louisiana is doing the same thing....however, given their hurricane experience, they have an odd perspective.
The health department has been working on bio-terrorism and infectious disease practices. It will conduct an exercise Aug. 23 in Brodhead, in conjunction with local law enforcement agencies and Monroe Clinic. The department will set up a fake clinic and call on the state's Interim Pharmaceutical Stockpile, a strategy to purchase, store and distribute pharmaceuticals to hospitals and local public health departments.
It's not like it's going to be a huge wave that's going to wash over us like Katrina, but you need to be alert and you need to be aware that there's a possibility."
A letter to the editor in Bangladesh urges the goverment to be proactive on the bird flu.
They are also preparing in Northwest Arkansas.
ProMed on England, and a report on birds from Germany.
Promed with a story on bird smuggling in Vietnam. It is clear that smuggling and migratory birds both play a role, and smuggling may have a larger effect than originally suspected. This is important, since (as mod notes below) it effects bird vaccination programs.
If the above report is correct -- and there is no reason to doubt it -- it is clear that Vietnam will have to consider a regular poultry vaccination policy to protect itself. Los Angeles (San Pedro) Harbour is one of the largest container traffic ports in the world. One must wonder how many containers have come through it in the past 12 months with hidden chicken parts. If they have, so far we have been fortunate, as have other Pacific-facing ports in the Americas.Effect Measure on Harvard developing a new way to synthesize Tamiflu.
posted by Orange @ 8:02 AM
2 Comments:
Thanks for info!
And thank you for reading, Alexander. Keep in touch.
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