November 10 Flu Update
China says it had 10 flu outbreaks that killed 47,000 birds. So, that's transparent.China Friday announced that it would share flu sequences with researchers--but did not release any from this year.
CIDRAP on this story, noting that the Chinese are miffed that researchers have been "misusing" Chinese samples and not giving ample credit.
Recombinomics on why the hoarding of the virus sequences should be stopped.
Revere on a Chinese National heading WHO. Will it help or hurt efforts for the Chinese to be more open---will they not want to embarrass someone from their own nation?
India says it is bird flu free.
CBS News with a story on animal diseases that threaten humans--including bird flu.
Pandemic planning has progressed in Milford, MA.
Mick Fulton of Michigan State University travels the world fighting disease, including a trip to Rwanda to fight bird flu.
posted by Orange @ 9:05 AM
1 Comments:
Orange;
Effective Measure and CIDRAP continue to spotlight the extreme diffficulties in getting China to share samples of their influenza virus, and Beijing at least sent 20 samples from 2004 and 2005. What, no 2006 samples ? Surprise ! The worlds largest communist nation with 1.3B people are not forthright ? I really had to chuckle at Henk Bekedam's naive comment (WHO's representative to China) that, "instead of battling it out in the media, scientists from the Chinese government, Hong Kong and elsewhere should sit down and study the details... this is an opportunity to sit down and share actual data...".
Hey Henk, 'bro - I don't think this approach is really gonna work to resolve the transparency issue. China is run by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCCPC), the Polical Bureau, the Central Military Commission, and the Central Discipline Inspection Commission. The communist philosophy has always been, "what's mine is mine, and what's yours is negotiable". Unless these Chinese scientists have already lived a happy and productive life, and they want their lives abruptly cut short (as in death wish or suicidal), there is no way they are going to cooperate and share data, unless approved to do so by their central government. And that ain't happening until the WHO understands what the Chinese government really wants in return.
We'll get the 2006 China influenza samples in 2007, at the earliest.
Wulfgang
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