NightBlogger

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”.

Mark Henderson
The H5N1 strain of bird flu that has killed 241 people is not the only one that could trigger a pandemic, according to research in America. A few H7 strains of the flu virus have started to evolve some of the traits they would need to infect people easily, scientists have discovered.

The H5N1 strain has been regarded as the most deadly strain since it appeared in Asia in 2003. Although it has a death rate of more than 60 per cent, it has not yet acquired the ability to move from person to person, which would be a prerequisite for a pandemic.

The H7 family of flu viruses also primarily affects birds. A deadly version of the H7N7 strain hit poultry in the Netherlands in 2003, and a less severe form, H7N2, broke out in the UK last year. Between 2002 and 2004 several outbreaks of H7N3 and H7N2 have been reported. In each of these incidents a few human cases of infection have been reported. One vet died during the Dutch outbreak and about 80 people suffered conjunctivitis, an eye infection that is not life-threatening. More

Photo Ford

Infowars
The world’s top medical experts agree that the globe is on the brink of the next pandemic. The World Health Organization is encouraging all government municipalities to build a plan in response to the inevitable. Arizona State University answered the call and starting writing a plan in 2006.

While most test exercises involve decision-makers seated around a conference table who are verbally given likely scenarios to discuss, this exercise was highly technical, involving artificial newscasts, electronic maps, charts, graphs and up-to-the-minute data compilation. Often the data was inadequate – but that was part of the design, since decision-makers often have to manage situations with little to no data available at the time.
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Photo Woodley

The H5N1 avian flu virus has infected flocks in much of Asia, Africa and parts of Europe. Experts fear it could mutate into a form that passes easily from person to person, sparking an influenza pandemic that could kill millions. “The risk of a pandemic remains and is probably expanding,” said Dr. Supamit Chunsuttiwat, a disease control expert at Thailand’s health ministry who is chairing the four-day meeting. Supamit noted the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus persisted on three continents and had caused human cases in Indonesia, Egypt and China this year.
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