NightBlogger

This machine will be developed in two formats. Researchers are developing a portable briefcase-sized version for the detection of this virus in field. The other form will be developed the size of a desktop computer for international border points, hospitals and GPs’ surgeries. This device works by scanning swabs containing saliva or a tissue sample from birds or animals, before identifying if it is infected with bird flu and if so which strain is present. More

F. William Engdahl
There is alarming evidence accumulated by serious scientific sources that the US Government is about to or already has ‘weaponized’ Avian Flu. If the reports are accurate, this could unleash a new pandemic on the planet that could be more devastating than the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic which killed an estimated 30 million people worldwide before it eventually died out. Pentagon and NIH experiments with remains in frozen state of the 1918 virus are the height of scientific folly. Is the United States about to unleash a new racially selective pandemic through the process of mandatory vaccination with an alleged vaccine “against” Avian Flu?

There is reason to believe that sections of the international pharmaceutical industry cartel are acting in concert with the US Government to develop a genetically modified H5N1 virus substance that could unleash a man-made pandemic, perhaps more deadly than the 1918 ‘Spanish Influenza’ pandemic claiming up to 30 million lives.

Rima E. Laibow, MD, head of the Natural Solutions Foundation, a citizen watchdog group monitoring the pharmaceutical industry states, “Our best intelligence estimate is that pandemic Avian Flu has already been created through genetic engineering in the United States, fusing the deadly genome of the 1918 Pandemic, misnamed the ‘Spanish Flu’, with the DNA of the innocuous H5N1 virus in a growth medium of human kidney cells, according to the National Institutes of Health and the vaccine’s manufacturer. Some virologists believe that this would insure that the man-made mutant virus recognizes human cells and knows how to invade them.”

If true, as Laibow points out, “A basic virological fact that the public has not been told is that it is impossible to make a vaccine against a virus that does not yet exist. Public relations efforts to the contrary, IF a vaccine is being made against the Avian Flu virus in its pandemic form, that means that the pandemic virus must already exist, period, end of discussion.” The genome of the 1918 pandemic, the so-called “Spanish Flu”, was recently intentionally resurrected by the United States government from a frozen corpse that died of the flu in 1918 in Alaska. Because of that resurrection, both the Avian Flu, and its “vaccine” are now a significant threat to public health. More

MEDAN, Indonesia (AFP) — Three people have died and 13 have been admitted to hospital with symptoms of bird flu in Indonesia, a nurse treating the patients said Wednesday. Officials and residents in Asahan district of North Sumatra province said villagers began showing symptoms of avian flu after a large number of chickens died suddenly last week. The nurse at Asahan district’s Kisaran hospital said three people had died after suffering bird flu-like symptoms in Air Batu village. “According to residents there, a number of chickens died suddenly last week followed by several pigeons. Days later, three people died with the same ailments,” the nurse, Mariana, told AFP. More

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Thirteen people from a village in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province have been hospitalized after suffering symptoms of bird flu, a media report said on Wednesday. Sinar Ginting, a spokesman for the Adam Malik hospital in North Sumatra’s capital Medan, was quoted by Kompas.com as saying that two patients from the group had been transferred to the hospital early on Wednesday morning. The other 11 from Air Batu village were being treated in a local hospital, he said. “They have bird flu symptoms such as fever and breathing difficulties,” Ginting was quoted as saying. Not all the patients were believed to have had contact with fowl, which is the most common way of contracting the virus, but Ginting said some chickens in the area had died suddenly and were found to have had the deadly H5N1 virus. More

HANOI, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) – Bird flu has stricken Vietnam’s central Quang Ngai province, raising the total number of affected localities in the country to three, according to a local veterinary agency on Tuesday. Late last month, bird flu killed 70 ducks and sickened 150 others raised by a household in the province’s Binh Son district, whose specimens have recently been tested positive to bird flu virus strain H5N1, the Department of Animal Health under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said, adding that the whole duck flock has been culled. Now, bird flu is hitting southern Dong Thap province, and Nghe An and Quang Ngai in the central region. Bird flu outbreaks in Vietnam, starting in December 2003, have killed and led to the forced culling of dozens of millions of fowls in the country.

Niger’s Ministry of Livestock is intensifying its bird surveillance along the 1,500-kilometre border with northern Nigeria after a recent resurgence of bird deaths. The Ministry of Livestock in Niger has ordered the killing of more than 20,000 birds suspected of carrying the virus since 2006. It has also paid about US$46,000 in compensation to farmers with sick birds to encourage them to hand over infected animals. Officials in the northern Nigeria states Kebbi, Kano and Katsina reported several thousand poultry deaths on 29 July. Birds have been sent to laboratories in Italy to determine if the H5N1 avian flu virus is responsible. Two years ago, a bird flu outbreak in Nigeria spread north to Niger. Niger’s Director of Animal Services, Dr. Maiga Zourkaleni, is preparing a team that will visit high-risk border areas Zinder, Maradi, Dosso and Tahoua. “We are working as hard as we can to prevent another cross-border infection,” he said. More

Five people have been quarantined with symptoms of bird flu in India, in what could turn out to be the country’s first human cases of the disease. The eastern state of West Bengal is currently undergoing its third outbreak of bird flu since 2006, and more than 100,000 birds have already died from the disease. In an attempt to contain the outbreak, the government has ordered two million ducks and chickens killed. According to the animal resources minister for West Bengal, Anisur Rahaman, the state is “determined to cull all poultry in the districts in three or four days, otherwise the state will face a disaster.” Five people experiencing clinical symptoms of bird flu, including cough, fever, muscle ache and sore throat, have been quarantined and are undergoing tests. Health officials are also analyzing blood samples from another 150 people who reported fever symptoms. More

Source: International Herald Tribune
An Indonesian factory worker has died of bird flu, bringing the death toll in the country worst hit by the virus to 112, a top health official said Sunday. The 19-year-old died last week in a hospital just west of the capital, Jakarta, Nyoman Kandun, the director general of communicable disease control at the Health Ministry, said by text message. He gave no more information. Indonesia has regularly recorded human deaths from bird flu since the virus began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003. Its toll of 112 accounts for nearly half the 240 recorded fatalities worldwide. Bird flu remains hard for people to catch, but health experts worry that the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily between humans, possibly triggering a pandemic that could kill millions. So far most human cases have been linked to contact with infected birds. Scientists have warned that Indonesia, which has millions of backyard chickens and poor medical facilities, is a potential hot spot for the start of a global pandemic.

In America the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say that the bird flu virus is changing and that it is developing strains and properties which could possibly increase the potential of it to infect humans from birds. They also said that it was also developing into a virus which could become more contagious between humans. The research was done on the Influenza A H7 virus types which are very contagious to birds but must not be mixed up with with the extremely deadly H5N1 bird flu virus. Nevertheless it is worth noting that if an H7 bird flu virus mutates it is likely that the H5N1 variant of the virus will also be able to follow suit. Dr. Jessica Belser who led the research project for the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention explained that it is perfectly normal for influenza viruses to constantly change and in view of the fact that there is the scare of a deadly bird flu outbreak is very important that they are watched extremely carefully at the moment. More

Source : National News Bureau, Public Relations Department of Thailand
Public Health authority of Pijit province, Doctor Prajak Wattanakul alongside the Contagious Disease Control Unit reported from the Sam Ngam district hospital yesterday that the team were called on to inspect 4 new patients who are suspected of having Avian Flu. The patients comprise of 2 young children ages 6 and 10 and two elderly women ages 62 and 70. Despite the patients being from different Tambon in the district, physicians found that all had come into contact with poultry before falling ill and all exhibited symptoms of coughing, fatigue, shortness of breath and other bird flu related conditions. Doctors have sent off samples of the patients to be analyzed, and are expecting results in 1-2 days. All 4 have been quarantined, as the chickens that they had contacted all experienced unexplained deaths in the past days.

(Bloomberg) — Nigeria, Africa’s most-populous nation, reported new outbreaks of bird flu in two of its northern states, the World Organization for Animal Health said. Both cases, confirmed to be the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, occurred in “backyard poultry” in Kano and Katsina states, the organization said a statement posted on its Web site on July 25. “Detailed investigation is ongoing, but information so far indicates the introduction of new species into existing flock as possible cause of the outbreak,” the organization said. More than 5,000 birds from the two farms, including chickens, ducks and guinea-fowls, have been destroyed to prevent further spread of the virus, it added. The H5N1 strain of bird flu has spread to more than 60 countries and has killed 243 people in 12 countries as of June 19, according to the World Health Organization’s Web site. Junaid Maina, head of the livestock in Nigeria’s Agriculture Ministry, didn’t answer calls to his mobile phone seeking coment.

(NaturalNews) China’s National Disease Authority has confirmed that a man whose 24-year-old son died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu is also infected with the disease, raising concerns about human transmission of the virus. H5N1 is a particularly virulent and lethal strain of the influenza virus that primarily infects domestic and wild birds. So far, it does not spread easily between birds and humans, but health officials fear that it could mutate into a form that is highly contagious from human to human. Given the intensely lethal nature of the disease, such a strain could easily lead to a global health crisis. Neither the infected man, identified only by his surname Lu, nor his son were known to have had contact with infected poultry. Health officials are carrying out an analysis on the DNA of the viruses that infected the two men to determine if they are the same strain, or whether the men contracted the virus from different sources. More

A worldwide outbreak of avian or ‘bird flu’ is still not excluded and health officials recognize that new drugs are needed since new strains of the virus appear everyday. Now, U.S. scientists are using supercomputers to find new drugs to fight the virus and to stay ahead of these mutations. And it is encouraging to learn that a team of UC San Diego scientists has isolated more than two dozen promising and novel compounds from which new ‘designer drugs’ might be developed to combat this disease. The 27 new identified compounds appeared to be equal or stronger inhibitors than currently available anti-flu drugs like Tamiflu. More

ARGONNE, Ill. (July 15, 2008) — Scientists and researchers have taken a big step closer to a cure for the most common strain of avian influenza, or “bird flu,” the potential pandemic that has claimed more than 200 lives and infected nearly 400 people in 14 countries since it was identified in 2003. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, in conjunction with scientists from China and Singapore, have crystallized and characterized the structure of one of the most important protein complexes of the H5N1 virus, the most common strain of bird flu.

All viruses, including H5N1, contain only a small number of proteins that govern all of the viruses’ functions. In H5N1, perhaps the most important of these proteins is RNA polymerase, which contains the instructions that allows the virus to copy itself along with all of its genetic material. The Argonne study focused on H5N1’s RNA polymerase protein, which contains three subunits: PA, PB1 and PB2. After performing X-ray crystallography on the protein crystals at Argonne’s Structural Biology Center 19ID beamline at the Advanced Photon Source, the researchers saw a surprising resemblance in the protein structure’s image. “When we mapped out the PA subunit, it looked very much like the head of a dragon,” said Argonne biophysicist Andrzej Joachimiak. “One domain looked like the dragon’s brains, and the other looked like its mouth.” More

NaturalNews — Some of the 19 people who have died from the avian flu in Egypt in the last two years were killed by a strain that shows moderate drug resistance, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced. Four people died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu in Egypt during the last week of December (2007?), bringing the country’s death toll from the disease to 19. This represents more than 40 percent of the 43 people who are known to have been infected by the disease. All four recent victims were women between the ages of 25 and 50, and all are believed to have had close contact with infected poultry. One of the women was a chicken seller, and the others were believed to keep domestic fowl in their homes. More

Source: Edinburghnews
THE spread of bird flu from Asia to eastern Europe and west Africa has increased the chance that the virus will mutate and cause a pandemic among humans, the United Nations’ expert on the disease has warned. Dr David Nabarro said there was no evidence yet of any change in the bird flu virus. He said: “Unfortunately, we cannot tell when the mutation might happen, or where it might happen, or how unpleasant the mutant virus will turn out to be. “Nevertheless, we must remain on high alert for the possibility of sustained human-to-human virus transmission and of a pandemic starting at any time.”

Nabarro said the arrival of bird flu in Nigeria should be “a strong wake-up call” to countries to ensure their veterinary services were on alert, and that health services quickly identified unexpected clusters of disease that could represent the start of a pandemic. “We have got bird flu now in south-east Asia, central Asia, eastern Europe, and west Africa,” he said. “Compared with eight months ago, this is a major extension of the avian influenza epidemic.” Nabarro said control measures had helped to contain the spread but bird flu was still expanding across the world, “putting at risk the health of people who are living intimately with poultry”.

Laboratory tests have shown a drug extracted from the medicinal herb St John’s Wort can be used to treat poultry infected with bird flu, a veterinary professor said. Field tests in Vietnam had also been satisfactory, he added. The results were released as World Health Organisation representatives prepared to meet officials in Beijing to discuss concerns about the mainland’s use of the human antiviral drug amantadine to suppress bird flu outbreaks. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said yesterday it was also seeking clarification from Beijing. Liang Jianping, of the Lanzhou Institute of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, said the compound hypercin had been found to be effective in treating and preventing bird flu. “We have found hypercin can kill 99.99 per cent of H5N1 and H9N2 virus in vitro within 10 minutes,” Professor Liang said. More

Although there are public H5N1 sequences from Purwakarta, the public sequences are from 2004 and are clade 2.1, which is the clade found throughout Indonesia (see phylogram). The number of public 2007 sequences from Indonesia is limited, and there are no public 2008 sequences, so the relationship between the strain described in the local media, and recent isolates cannot be independently confirmed. More

Authorities in Hong Kong, battling the worst outbreak of avian flu in five years, have ordered the slaughter of all live birds in the city’s markets and banned the sale of live poultry. “In our surveillance we were able to detect H5N1 in our environment,” said York Chow, Hong Kong’s Food and Health Secretary. “We are able to …very quickly show that in four of the markets, that they have very similar virus. And that’s the reason why we took very timely action to cull all the chicken and make sure the public is safe. More

She had the beautiful name of Istiqomah. Ten days before her death, her brother Ahmad Rizki died with similar symptoms, and when she died her older brother Alamsyah was under treatment for flu-like symptoms. (The outcome of his case is still unknown.) Istiqomah was at least the 109th Indonesian to die of bird flu. Normally, the World Health Organization would have officially confirmed her death. But Indonesia’s health minister is a woman named Siti Fadilah Supari, who has been playing politics with bird flu for over a year. Sometime in May, Dr. Supari stopped cooperating with WHO. In effect, she clamped down on news of a disease that has killed four out of every five Indonesians it’s infected.

Dr. Supari has been a problem for a long time. Last year she refused to share H5N1 virus samples with the rest of the world, claiming that foreign drug companies would use them to create flu vaccines that Indonesia couldn’t afford. WHO tried to negotiate with her, to no effect. More recently, she led a campaign to eject a U.S. Navy medical lab, NAMRU-2, from Indonesia. The lab is one of the most advanced in Southeast Asia, and has helped Indonesia track the advance of H5N1, but Dr. Supari wanted it out. More
Go here for more info on H5N1 Bird Flu

BIRD flu tests will be carried out today on seven swans found dead in a river near Caernarfon. The carcasses were discovered floating in the Seiont not far from the town’s historic castle. Locals alerted harbour master Richard Jones on Wednesday, and his team recovered three dead swans in the morning, followed by four more in the afternoon. Yesterday the team were back at the riverbank after residents reported another swan appeared to be ill. Mr Jones said he was initially advised by Defra that the government would not test for bird flu in cases involving less than 10 dead wild birds. He was advised to safely bag up the birds in black bin liners and throw them into a waste bin.

The above comments raise additional concerns regarding H5N1 surveillance. The lack of testing and reporting has been a concern for the past several years, and recently has received additional attention due to Indonesia’s comments on reducing reporting frequencies on human H5N1 infections. Although this announcement has received a great deal of attention, the under-reporting of H5N1 in birds and humans is widespread.

England has a surveillance program, but as noted above, the level of testing is a major concern. When H5N1 reports were widespread in western Europe in early 2006, England reported one H5N1 positive swan that washed up on the shores of Scotland. That isolate was closely related to H5N1 detected in Sweden, Denmark, and northern Germany, suggesting that the level of H5N1 in England was significantly higher than the one reported positive. Read More

Although Hong Kong has reported H5N1 in wild birds each year, there have been no H5N1 positive poultry reports in the past five years. The latest outbreak is of concern because the chickens are asymptomatic. It is unclear if the H5N1 shedding by asymptomatic chickens is due to partial immunity due to a poor match between the vaccine and H5N1, adaptive changes by the chickens, or changes by the virus.

However, one of the arguments against H5N1 poultry vaccinations is viral shedding by poultry that appear healthy. The silent spread of H5N1 can quickly lead to a much larger genetic reservoir, creating conditions for more rapid evolution. The asymptomatic infections also increase potential for an expanded geographical reach. More

All live poultry in Hong Kong’s street markets and shops is to be slaughtered after officials detected the dangerous H5N1 bird flu virus. Tests showed infected birds in four markets. Agriculture, fisheries and conservation director Cheung Siu-hing did not say how many birds would be killed. But she said the virus has not been detected in samples from local chicken farms and distribution centres.

Health workers killed 2,700 poultry in a market on Saturday after routine testing showed five chickens were infected with the virus. The government also temporarily banned supplies of all live poultry from mainland China and local farms. More
Go here for more info on H5N1 Bird Flu

Hong Kong officials Saturday banned all poultry imports from China and began killing thousands of chickens as bird flu was detected at a city market. All poultry in the city may be slaughtered in a repeat of the 1990 culls if cases are found in other markets in the former British colony, officials said.

The outbreak, the first in Hong Kong in recent years, was discovered at a livestock market in the city’s Shamshuipo district, the government said. The H5N1 bird flu virus was found on swabs on chicken faeces from the market in Po On Road which was Saturday declared an infected area and sealed off to the public. Workers in protective suits and masks began culling around 2,700 chickens in the market as tests were carried out on poultry at other markets in the city of 6.9 million to see if the outbreak had spread. More

MARK COLVIN: A worrying new research paper has been published in the United States. It proves that H5N1 bird flu, which has so far only killed people in its pure form is capable of combining with conventional human flu viruses. A mutated virus combining human flu and bird flu is the nightmare strain which scientists fear could create a worldwide pandemic. The research was conducted in a laboratory by the US Centers for Disease Control.

JEFF WATERS: The great bird flu pandemic of 1918 was caused by an avian influenza virus which spread from birds and then directly from human to human. And it’s a pure bird flu strain called H5N1 which has caused hundreds of deaths recently around the world.

But there were also pandemics in 1957 and ‘68 which were caused when a bird flu combined with a human form of influenza and then spread globally. Now scientists at the Centers for Disease Control in the United States have proven that the very deadly H5N1 virus can also mix with human flu. It’s only happened in the laboratory but it’s causing concern. Dr David Smith is a director if microbiology and infectious diseases at PathWest laboratories in Perth. More
Go here for more on H5N1 Bird Flu

…the high path H7 is H7N7, the same serotype that caused the massive outbreak in The Netherlands in 2003. 89 cullers and contacts were H7 PCR confirmed and the outbreak resulted in the only bird flu fatality that was not H5N1.

Follow-up testing for H7 antibodies identified over 1000 contacts, most of whom were asymptomatic. The majority of the PCR confirmed cases had conjunctivitis, although a few had influenza-like illness and a few had both conjunctivitis and influenza-like illness.

Recent reports on H7 isolates with increased binding affinity for human receptors or ferret to ferret transmission has increased concerns regarding the human-to-human transmission potential of H7 outbreaks. More
Go here for more info on Avian Bird Flu

ROBIN McDOWELL/AP
JAKARTA, Indonesia - A 15-year-old girl died of bird flu last month, becoming Indonesia’s 109th victim, but the government decided to keep the news quiet. It is part of a new policy aimed at improving the image of the nation hardest hit by the disease.

“How does it help us to announce these deaths?” Heath Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said Thursday, after confirming that the girl from southern Jakarta tested positive on May 13 and died one day later. “We want to focus now on positive steps and achievements made by the government in fighting bird flu.”

Indonesia’s decision could aggravate the World Health Organization, which waits to update its official tally of Indonesia’s bird flu deaths until after they are formally announced by the government. The toll on its Web site stood at 108 on Thursday — accounting for nearly half the 241 recorded fatalities worldwide. More

The past 24 hours have been a nightmare for the Court family, culminating yesterday with the slaughter of their flock of 25,000 hens. At the same time Defra announced laboratory results from dead chickens confirmed the outbreak of the highly contagious H7 strain of bird flu. He said: “The source of the disease is not yet known and Defra will continue to make further investigations to try to identify this.

All birds on the farm will be culled to try to help contain or eradicate the disease. “We would urge everyone within the Defra surveillance zone to remain vigilant and to maintain suitable bio-security measures on their farms. This has been a devastating 24 hours for us and we would ask that we are now left to come to terms with what has happened and make plans for the future.” A 10km surveillance zone was placed around the farm banning all bird movement to prevent the spread of the disease. More

There’s isn’t nearly enough Tamilflu (which has been linked with convulsions, delirium and Death) to vaccinate America’s population. Notice how the government is asking the private sector to fund vaccinations.

Maggie Fox
New U.S. government pandemic guidelines propose stockpiling millions more doses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu help protect people from infection, and recommend that each household store protective masks. For the first time they propose using the drugs Tamiflu and Relenza to prevent infection, and give guidelines to businesses that may want to buy the drugs in advance to treat or protect employees. They also spell out how many face masks — up to 100 for some commuters — Americans should have on hand.

The U.S. government now has 50 million courses of antiviral drugs, with 10 pills in each course in the case of Tamiflu. States can buy 31 million more courses under a federal contract that subsidizes the cost, for a total of 81 million courses.

The biggest pandemic threat now is from H5N1 avian influenza, which is entrenched in chickens and ducks in much of Asia and has broken out in parts of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Although rare in people, it has killed 241 out of 383 infected in 15 countries since 2003. More

Recombinomics Commentary 19:59
June 3, 2008

The Chief Veterinary Officer, Nigel Gibbens, has today confirmed Avian Influenza in chickens on premises near Banbury in Oxfordshire after preliminary tests were positive for the H7 strain.

The Health Protection Agency has advised that it is important to remember that H7 avian flu remains largely a disease of birds. The virus does not transmit easily to humans, as evidenced by the small number of confirmed infections worldwide to date. Almost all human H7 infections documented so far have been associated with close contact with dead or dying poultry. The risk to human health posed by H7 avian influenza viruses remains low. Nonetheless, the local Health Protection Unit will be identifying and following up those who may have had contact with the infected poultry and provide guidance and advice, and preventative medication as appropriate.

The above comments from DEFRA describe another H7 outbreak in England. Once again there was no warning provided by the wild bird surveillance program. There was an H7N2 in England almost exactly one year ago, and an H7N3 outbreak almost exactly two years ago.

H7 infections are easily transmitted to humans, and once again the DEFRA words of assurance highlight a lack of confirmed cases, which is largely dependent on an insensitive assay that fails to detect H7 in symptomatic and hospitalized patients.

Last year there were almost as many suspect human cases as avian cases. The suspect cases are almost certainly linked to H7N2 infections, because there is little seasonal flu at this time of the year in England. Last year H7 infections in the owners of the index farm were not confirmed.

The data was presented a year ago in Toronto. At the time most of the suspect cases were not aln confirmed, and although results were promised at the meeting, little new data was released and the number of confirmed H7N2 cases remained at four.

H7 infections are efficiently transmitted to humans, In the 2003 H7N7 outbreak, antibodies were detected in more than 1000 contacts, base on H7 antibodies. Most of the patients had mild or eye disease. Last year the H7N2 cases were more severe and respiratory, but most of the suspect cases were not confirmed.

Media reports are descibing H7N3 antibodies in culled poultry in northwet Arkansas.

The recent results with A/New York./107/2003(H7N2) has increased concerns over human H7 infections, DEFRA press releases notwithstanding.

WELSH farmers were on red alert last night after an outbreak of bird flu was discovered in Oxfordshire. The news comes just over a year since the outbreak in Conwy in which several people were struck down with flu symptoms. Yesterday Defra confirmed that chickens on a farm near Banbury had tested positive for the H7 strain of bird flu. All birds will be slaughtered as a precautionary measure after the case of avian flu was diagnosed by new chief veterinary officer Nigel Gibbens.

Testing is continuing to discover whether the strain is a highly pathogenic one. Defra said a temporary control zone with a two mile inner zone and a six mile outer zone had been established round the premises. In the inner zone, poultry must be housed and kept isolated from wild birds, and across the whole zone movement of birds and bird gatherings are banned. More

A HONG Kong research team has successfully tested a new drug combination that could help tackle the deadly bird flu virus in humans, scientists said in a paper due to be published tomorrow. The use of three drugs together dramatically increased the survival rate of mice who had been infected with the deadly H5N1 virus, the University of Hong Kong team said in a paper to be published a United States-based journal.

And the treatment could help improve the survival chances of people infected with the deadly virus if the success can be replicated in humans, the paper said. “Triple therapy offers some hope for surviving the devastating consequences associated with a pandemic influenza outbreak,” the 13-person team said in a paper to be released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. More

Tyson Foods Inc. says it destroyed the chickens Tuesday as a precautionary measure. The company made the discovery during routine pre-slaughter testing last Friday. According to the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission, the flock came from a farm near West Fork.

The birds were tested on the farm, so they were never brought to a Tyson plant. Tests showed the virus only existed in the bird’s blood, not the tissues. That means the chickens were exposed to the disease at some point, and were carrying the dead virus.

Tyson says this is not the same strain as the bird flu virus overseas. Although the birds pose no risk to human health, it’s USDA policy to eradicate the entire flock. “One of the things that everybody needs to realize is that this is a situation where the system is working perfectly. There is no chicken in the state of Arkansas or in the nation for that matter that is processed or even leaves the farm until it is blood tested,” says Jon Fitch, Executive Director of the Livestock and Poultry Commission. [Yeah, OK, sure. This is just the beginning and don’t think for a second there aren’t birds circulating in the US food chain with the H7N3 avian influenza flu strain.] Preliminary tests on the flock indicate the presence of antibodies for H7N3 avian influenza, however, there is no indication the birds currently have the virus. The 15,000 chickens involved show no signs of illness and the situation poses no risk to human health. More

BBCNews
Chickens on a farm in Oxfordshire have tested positive for the H7 strain of bird flu, Chief Veterinary Officer Nigel Gibbens has said. All birds on the premises, near Banbury, are to be slaughtered as a precautionary measure. Further tests are being carried out to see whether the strain is of high or low pathogenicity. A temporary control zone with a 3km (1.8-mile) inner zone and a 10km (6.2-mile) outer zone is being set up.

Go here for more info in the H7 Strain

Recombinomics Commentary 12:37
June 2, 2008

Hospital Dietetic detained 17 Sohag Sohag a company for investment “poultry” Alkuaml village were suspected of infected with bird flu after a very high temperature and throat congestion. Has been taking blood samples from patients and sent to central laboratories of the Ministry of Health in Cairo for analysis .. executed by the Directorate of Veterinary Medicine in conjunction with the Directorate of Agriculture to preserve the company’s 3500 draft chickens after tests proved that being infected with bird flu virus.

The above translation describes the hospitalization of 17 poultry employees in Sohag after they developed symptoms and poultry tested positive for H5N1. Although there is significant discordance between local media reports of suspect patients, and WHO confirmed patients, the clustering of 17 workers at one facility is unusual, as is the late date of the infections. Most suspect cases of H5N1 in Egypt are in the spring.

Although the number of confirmed cases in Egypt in the 2007/2008 has been lower than the prior two years, the cases have been more severe and linked to pneumonia, in contrast to the mild cases in the spring of 2007. More

An experiment mating H5N1 avian flu viruses and a strain of human flu in a laboratory produced a surprising number of hybrid viruses that were biologically fit, a new study reveals. And while none of the offspring viruses was as virulent as the original H5N1, about one in five were lethal to mice at low doses, showing they retained at least a portion of the power of their dangerous parent.

The work suggests that under the right circumstances - and no one is clear what all of those are - the two types of flu viruses could swap genes in a way that might allow the H5N1 virus to acquire the capacity to trigger a pandemic. That process is called reassortment. “This study is just showing exactly that: There is a risk this virus can successfully reassort with a human virus,” said Richard Webby, director of the World Health Organization’s collaborating centre for influenza research at St. Jude Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. “The problem is we don’t know at this stage whether there’s a benefit to these H5N1 viruses in doing that.” More

Photo Mel B.
AN FDA advisory panel has recommended stronger warnings on two influenza drugs after reviewing evidence linking them to neurological and psychiatric problems that have led to deaths in some cases.

The current warning on Roche Laboratories’ Tamiflu (generic name oseltamivir) urges close monitoring of flu patients, particularly children, for “increased risk of self injury and confusion shortly after taking Tamiflu.” The panel recommended that this warning be strengthened to say that “in some cases, these behaviors resulted in serious injuries, including death, in adult and pediatric patients.”

The label of Glaxo SmithKline’s Relenza (generic name zanamivir), the panel said, should be strengthened to mention “reports of hallucinations, delirium and abnormal behavior.” The panel said that both labels should mention that some flu patients not taking the drugs have also experienced such symptoms. More