June 14 Flu Update
There is a new bird flu death in Indonesia. He is said to have slaughtered sick chickens and ate them.Bird flu breaks out in Central Vietnam.
Ag Minister in Vietnam is ordering bird flu shots for ALL poultry in the country.
Malaysian official says chickens did not die of H5N1.
Helen Branswell on vaccine makers offering vaccine to WHO.
Revere notes that as countries promise vaccine to Indonesia, they don't address the key problem...there is no surge capacity to produce vaccine for anyone.
US and Vietnam have an initiative to fight pandemic influenza.
OIE report from Myanmar.
HHS takes community input on pandemic prep. (CIDRAP)
Greg Dworkin, MD, who took part in the leadership summit and is one of 13 experts who have led the blog discussions, told reporters he lauds the HHS for offering such an open live and online forum. The sometimes heated blog postings over the past weeks show there are many interested people who want good information from a federal source on individual and family preparedness, said Dworkin, founding editor of the FluWiki Web site and chief of pediatric pulmonology at Danbury Hospital in Danbury, Conn.
Vical has grant to develop DNA-based vaccine. (IMO, long-term these new approaches have a lot of potential).
A World Bank meeting was held in Africa to discuss bird flu.
posted by Orange @ 9:41 PM
1 Comments:
Orange;
A couple of comments about your articles today …
First, it appears that the spread of bird flu poultry infections in Vietnam is borderline raging. It has now officially spread to 19 of their 64 provinces, and their Ag Minister has ordered inoculation of all poultry… good luck. Most importantly, China is hunkering down – it now has uncontrolled infestation on its border with two of its neighbors: Vietnam and Burma. You have to wonder, who exactly is infesting who, in this situation (payback is a killer, as the saying goes).
Revere as usual hits the nail on the head with his article about solving the pandemic vaccine surge problem, it’s “too little, too late”. There just isn’t enough time for manufacturer’s to fulfill the full pledges to create a large enough viable pandemic stockpile for third world countries, to have any major impact to halt a pandemic. Like I stated yesterday, these countries are the epicenters of the problem – let them be the human guinea pigs with the pre-pandemic vaccines (that is, unless you are inclined to volunteer to be among the first to be pricked with an experimental vaccine, Orange). Not me, I want to see what happens to them first.
And back to HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt and his “1960 style approach” Leadership Forum, which is: talk to “leaders of business, healthcare, faith and civic communities” about pandemic preparation and planning – to get the message to the masses.
Note to HHS: if you want to get the urgent and important message out, use the mass media, radio, TV and the internet.
Second note to HHS: citizens do not normally make life changing decisions or take action (like pandemic preparation), based on comments from third parties, like pastors, mayors or work supervisors. They just don’t do this, like during the 1960’s.
One needs to ask the critical question here: if the HHS Leadership Forum in Washington DC, was so important, why wasn’t it broadcasted on the national TV news networks ? Pandemic planning will always be considered the epidemic version “Y2K” and “Swine flu”, until the HHS, CDC agency heads and the President himself, get in front a TV camera to 300 million people and urge preparation. If they are unwilling to do this, then the threat is nothing but speculation and should be put into the global warming hopper.
Heck, Oprah just did one televised program on TV last year, and look at the coverage and results she got….at lot more than this Leadership Forum.
Wulfgang
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