Tuesday, June 20, 2006

June 20 Flu Update

WHO confirms an Indonesian teenager died of bird flu last week, taking national death toll to 39 (case originally reported a couple of days ago).

CIDRAP on the Indonesian case.

ProMed on the Indonesian case, with a mod call for sequences from the cluster.

An expert flu consultation will begin in Indonesia tomorrow (or, given time differences, now, focusing partly on the cluster. WHO official report.


Effect Measure cites the environment people are faced with in Indonesia. Volcanoes, earthquakes, even tetanus is getting the better of the country. So, how can it tackle the bird flu?

Conflicting reports. Some reports say Canadian gosling was LPAI, while others say test was inconclusive.

ProMed on the LPAI side of the ledger.

Recombinomics draws attention to the organ damage in the Canadian birds.

Zambia is testing for bird flu after dead chickens were discovered.

The Department of Veterans Affairs says that during a pandemic it might have to close 120 military cemeteries.

The Ohio State University is preparing for The Arrival of the Bird Flu Pandemic.

In Arkansas, (appropriately, the "Rice and Duck Capital,") bird flu warnings are issued, if incorrectly (not the warning that weak immune systems will fall first).

Small attendance but large amounts of common sense surround bird flu meeting in Greene County, IN.

USAID is leveraging private public dollars to help fight flu in Vietnam.

A Federal audit says the USDA does not have a good plan for fighting bird flu, and that too much reliance might be placed on the states.

The Institute of Medicine says that the US is underprepared for major disasters, including bird flu. (via CIDRAP).

The Macon GA Telegraph is doing a three-part bird flu series. In this part, it talks about how care might be rationed in the worst days of a pandemic.

We have a significant population in this country who believe emergency health care is a right, not a privilege," said Andrea Sellers, a critical-care nurse educator and emergency planner at Coliseum Medical Center in Macon. "I'm sure that patients we cannot help we'll simply make comfortable. As nurses, that's hard for us to do because we've been taught our whole career to cure."

Part I of the Macon series.

Part II of the Macon series.

Westerly, RI is preparing for the bird flu.

Oregon is participating in the surveillance efforts among wild birds.

Article from India says that the St. Jude internasal flu vaccine is akin to striking a gold mine.

There has been lots of talk lately about stockpiling a mismatched flu vaccine, on the theory that even a little protection in the transmission chain would save lives. Effect Measure doesn't discount the idea, but raises a couple of problems, including production capacity and timing.

ProMed reports on a feline case in Indonesia.

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