June 22 Flu Update
CIDRAP reports that H5N1 is confirmed in Togo.CIDRAP also reports from its conference that H5N1 is becoming increasingly drug resistant. (This could be the most significant fact to emerge in months.
Viruses recovered from domestic birds in Cambodia, a clade 1 country, became 6 to 7 times less sensitive to oseltamivir between 2004 and 2005, as measured by lab tests. And 2005 isolates from Indonesia, the country where the clade 2 grouping arose before spreading west as far as Europe, were 25 to 30 times less sensitive to oseltamivir than any of the clade 1 viruses collected in 2004.ProMed has this story as well. Here is what the company says.
"As all H5N1 clades retain sensitivity to it, zanamivir should also
form part of any pandemic stockpile," said McKimm-Breschkin, who was
a member of a team of scientists that discovered the drug.
AP Medical story on re-emergence of bird flu in Vietnam. I have my doubts about how much having your guard up really helps, but hey, he works for WHO.
"It's always been lingering and loitering, but now it's striking and we don't know why," said Peter Cordingley, spokesman for the World Health Organization's Western Pacific region. "I think the first lead that we might follow is, have people begun to drop their guard?"
2 of 18 Vietnemese provinces are bird flu free.
Indonesia says it will have a human vaccine ready by July.
The minister said clinical trials should wrap up soon and the vaccine, which is being jointly developed with a unit of U.S. firm Baxter International Inc., should be ready for use as soon as July.
Revere with a post that I find in total common sense. Viruses are natural. They are not property.
ProMed reports on Czech outbreak, with an interesting document--it appears to be a British assessment of whether meat from the farms reached the UK. And they don't seem sure the answer is no.
posted by Orange @ 9:44 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home