In Vietnam, a Gateway for Bird Flu

washingtonpost.com

In Vietnam, a Gateway for Bird Flu
Ignoring Chicken Import Ban, Smugglers Bring Virus Over Border From China

By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 30, 2006; A23

DONG DANG, Vietnam -- The smugglers first appeared on the distant ridgeline and then, like ants, streamed down a dirt track carved from the lush, sculpted mountains that separate Vietnam from China. As the figures grew closer, their stooped posture became visible, backs heaving under bamboo cages crammed with live chickens.

On the road below, two young men identified by local officials as lookouts buzzed past on red dirt bikes, slowing down to check out a reporter and his government escorts who had stopped to watch. One man produced a two-way radio and started speaking urgently. Though his words were inaudible to the visitors, within moments the figures on the hillside melted into the brush.

These traffickers haul more than 1,000 contraband chickens a day into Lang Son, one of six Vietnamese provinces along the Chinese border, flouting a chicken import ban. In doing so, heath experts say, they have also repeatedly smuggled the highly lethal bird flu virus from its source in southern China into Vietnam, where the disease has taken a devastating toll on farm birds and killed at least 42 people since 2003.

As bird flu continues to spread across the Eastern Hemisphere, international health experts warn that illegal trade in poultry, poultry products and other birds is often the primary cause.

"Both between and within countries, commerce is an incredibly important factor," said Juan Lubroth, chief of infectious animal disease for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. "We try to press with governments that it has to be controlled or managed better. But like trafficking in humans, weapons and drugs, with poultry it's not any easier."

The virus has already ravaged farm birds and wildfowl in more than 50 countries. At least 230 human cases have been recorded, and more than half have been fatal. Health officials fear that a new form of the virus that can jump easily from person to person will develop, bringing on a global epidemic among humans.

Vietnamese veterinary officials disclosed in April that they had found bird flu in a sample taken from smuggled chickens confiscated in Lang Son during a bust on the border. Days later, officials in the remote, neighboring province of Cao Bang reported the virus in poultry samples taken from three farms on the Chinese border after dozens of chickens had started dying and smuggling was suspected. These two episodes were the first official cases of bird flu in Vietnam since December.

In May 2005, researchers had already found evidence that smuggling was bringing in the bug: They isolated a strain of the H5N1 virus that was new to Vietnam but similar to one common in Guangxi, just over the mountains from Lang Son.

Lang Son's jagged border with China runs for about 150 miles through angular, misty mountains with craggy cliffs that seem drawn from a stylized painting. The highest peak, which lends its name, Mau Son, to the local rice wine, rises nearly 4,500 feet. For centuries, the extended families straddling this border have navigated treacherous footpaths to run goods from one side to the other, in recent years including electronics, DVDs, exotic wildlife and all nature of clothes and shoes.

The bootleg poultry business turned lucrative two years ago after Vietnam started slaughtering about 50 million chickens to contain its bird flu epidemic. The resulting shortage of chicken meat, a prime source of protein for the Vietnamese, sent prices soaring on their side of the border.

Much of this trade takes place at night. But in the broad daylight of a recent afternoon, more than a dozen smugglers were descending a steep, dark earthen track outside the border village of Dong Dang. Even after the motorbike lookouts apparently sounded the alarm, more traffickers appeared over the ridge from China. Others were spotted walking down another, narrower path largely concealed by trees about 100 yards away.

The local officials warned that the smugglers could turn violent, attacking outsiders with stones or firearms. According to Vietnamese press reports, chicken smugglers in Lang Son have battled soldiers trying to intercept them. In one instance, five soldiers were injured by stones, and their car was destroyed.

Do Van Duoc, director of animal health in Lang Son, explained that the huge difference in prices on opposite sides of the border makes for a flourishing business despite the ban on poultry imports from China. Prices fluctuate, but on average, chicken that sells for 30 cents per pound or less in China can fetch a dollar or more in Vietnam.

Duoc said the high cost of poultry in Vietnam also reflects the expense of importing vaccines and other medicine to combat bird flu. Chinese farmers are able to keep costs down because of the vast scale of their poultry industry and the inexpensive supply of feed and domestically produced vaccines, he said.

Moreover, Duoc alleged that Chinese farmers unload chickens from areas struck by bird flu at bargain prices. In some cases, he said, the farmers tell Chinese authorities they have culled their flocks to earn government compensation and then peddle the birds to smugglers.

"They try to get as much money as they can," he said. "They are selling sick chickens because of the outbreak."

China's Agriculture Ministry confirmed that poultry was being illegally transported from Guangxi into Vietnam. In response to written questions, ministry officials said that an investigation by Guangxi animal health investigators had discovered smuggling from three areas close to Lang Son province but that there were no reports of this poultry being infected with bird flu.

Chinese agriculture officials said government veterinarians were working with customs and border defense officers to stop the illicit trade. Chinese police have confiscated more than 23,000 chickens and 3,500 ducks this year, officials said.

The syndicates running the smuggling rings pay local villagers about 30 cents a bird to haul the contraband along mountain trails that in some cases snake for more than 10 miles, said Nguyen Thang Loi, director of market inspections in Lang Son. Some smugglers, especially women and children, can carry only a few birds, but fit men haul as many as 20 at a time. Over the course of a week, the earnings can far outstrip the salaries of animal health officers, inspectors and others charged with stemming the trade.

The traffickers are finding new ways to move even larger amounts. In recent weeks, Loi's inspectors captured a pair of makeshift wooden carts that were being used to transport up to a ton of chickens at a time along railroad tracks running through the mountains.

Once the smugglers descend the slopes, their haul is often moved by motorbike to local farms that serve as stopover points, Loi reported. From there, the chickens are loaded onto trucks for transport, in many cases to the markets of Hanoi and points farther south, Loi and animal health experts said.

An average of up to 1,500 birds are slipped over the mountains into Lang Son each day, Loi reported. Along the entire Vietnam-China border, the total could be thousands more, according to Vietnamese and international livestock experts.

Worldwide, the trade in illegal poultry and other birds is extensive, said Lubroth of the U.N. agriculture agency, though the specific scope is unknown.

This business includes large-scale commercial shipments of uninspected meat, often from China, to destinations as diverse as Europe, Africa and the United States. Last month, U.S. inspectors discovered 2,000 pounds of frozen chicken, duck and geese smuggled from China in a Detroit-area warehouse that supplies Chinese restaurants and Asian groceries in southeastern Michigan.

Last year, Taiwanese officials reported their first case of the deadly bird flu virus among more than 1,000 birds that were being smuggled by ship from China. A pair of eagles confiscated two years ago at Brussels International Airport from the hand luggage of a Thai passenger were found to be carrying the disease.

In Africa, commerce spread the virus from Egypt to Sudan and likely took it to other countries on the continent, Lubroth said.

In Lang Son, Loi said he has only 22 inspectors at the border to stem the smuggling of everything from batteries to automobiles. Though joint efforts with police and soldiers have resulted in repeated arrests, he acknowledged that the organizers remain at large. "The real smugglers are behind the scenes, and even the people hired to carry don't know the names or have any information about them," Loi said.

As long as high prices in Vietnam make the illicit chicken trade lucrative, it will continue, said Jeffrey Gilbert, an animal health specialist in the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's Vietnam office. "You can put helicopters up there, really mobilize the army and put all kinds of resources in, and it would still go on," he said. "It's like the Ho Chi Minh Trail."

Researcher Vivian Zhang in Beijing contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
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Glaxo touts bird flu vaccine

Glaxo touts bird flu vaccine
Manufacturers race to develop effective virus inoculation
- Bernadette Tansey, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, July 27, 2006


GlaxoSmithKline said Wednesday that its experimental bird flu vaccine delivered the best results shown so far among the manufacturers who are racing to develop an effective inoculation against the deadly avian virus.

Glaxo said an additive it included in the vaccine boosted its power, allowing the use of significantly lower doses while also producing a higher rate of response than the vaccine candidates of competitors whose data have already been reported.

The lower the dose needed, the more shots a factory can produce. And the world's drug manufacturing plants might need to churn out vaccine quickly, because an avian flu pandemic could rapidly sweep the world population.

The effectiveness of bird flu vaccines is evaluated by measuring by the level of antibodies produced by inoculated human subjects. Scientists predict that a sufficient level of antibodies will activate the immune system to attack the virus if the immunized person is exposed to it. But trial subjects are not exposed to the H5N1 virus, because that would be too dangerous.

The H5N1 strain is primarily a disease of birds that doesn't infect humans easily. But of the 232 cases reported by the World Health Organization, 134 have died. Most are believed to have had close contact with infected birds. The fear among public health officials is that the virus will mutate into a pandemic form transmitted easily from person to person.

Stockpiles of experimental H5N1 vaccines are on order by the United States and other governments. But it's not clear whether any vaccine manufactured in advance, based on H5N1 strains in circulation, will protect against a mutated variety that may eventually cause a pandemic. Glaxo is conducting studies to determine whether its vaccine will deliver cross-protection against different viral strains.

The government has been fostering the study of additives, also called adjuvants, as a strategy for stretching limited supplies of vaccine, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

"I'm totally delighted that GlaxoSmithKline has had this advance,'' said Fauci. "It's not the solution to the problem, but you can certainly say it's good news.''

Results had been disappointing for another manufacturer, Sanofi-Aventis. In March, the French company reported that its bird flu vaccine induced a significant immune response in only 50 percent of trial subjects when two doses of 90 micrograms each were injected. With the addition of an adjuvant called alum, the results improved. But not enough, Fauci said. Two doses of 30 micrograms each were required to spur immune responses in 67 percent of subjects.

With Glaxo's proprietary adjuvant, 80 percent of subjects responded when given two shots of 3.8 micrograms each. J.P. Garnier, GlaxoSmithKline's chief executive officer, said no other manufacturer has produced such a strong response at such a low dose of vaccine created from H5N1, the bird flu strain considered a leading contender to cause a pandemic.

"These excellent clinical trial results represent a significant breakthrough in the development of our pandemic flu vaccine,'' said Garnier. Glaxo will seek regulatory approval for the vaccine in the coming months, he said.

Fauci said he predicts similar results will be achieved by Novartis with an H5N1 vaccine developed by a Bay Area company it recently acquired, Chiron Corp. The Novartis vaccine includes an adjuvant similar to Glaxo's, he said.

Sanofi, in a prepared statement, said it will continue to study formulations that include alum, because it is "the world's most widely used and proven adjuvant currently licensed for vaccines. We believe following this initial clinical path with a time-tested adjuvant is a fast way to attain a licensable vaccine with the safest profile possible. Future initiatives will look at alternative adjuvants.''

Glaxo did not give details about the composition of its proprietary adjuvant. The company would consider licensing it to other manufacturers in the event of a bird flu pandemic, said spokeswoman Patti Seif.

Along with its bird flu vaccine news, Glaxo reported a 14 percent increase in second-quarter profit Wednesday. Glaxo shares dropped 87 cents, or 1.53 percent, to close at $56.04.

E-mail Bernadette Tansey at btansey@sfchronicle.com.

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©2006 San Francisco Chronicle

Thailand faces renewed avian flu fight

Thailand faces renewed avian flu fight
Jul 24, 2006 (CIDRAP News) – Thailand is facing its first outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza in birds in 8 months, along with flu-like illnesses in a number of people in areas with sick birds, according to news services.

Thai agriculture officials said the virus was identified in a fighting cock from the northern province of Phichit, the Bangkok Post reported in a story published late today. The dead bird was from Bang Mun Nak district, where almost 300 birds were culled after the mysterious deaths of about 30 poultry 2 weeks ago, the story said.

The confirmation came shortly after poultry farmers and a senator accused the agriculture ministry of covering up the re-emergence of the disease following "massive deaths of poultry in many provinces" starting early in July, the newspaper reported.

Earlier today, the Thai newspaper The Nation said Agriculture Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan confirmed that 20 samples of dead fighting birds from Phichit had tested positive for avian flu, according to a report today by The Nation. Agence France-Press (AFP) quoted him as saying the virus was an H5 strain, but it was not yet known if it was H5N1.

Sudarat said the virus was detected in imported chickens, and he announced a ban on poultry imports, The Nation reported. To contain the outbreak, he said, officials have imposed quarantine near where the birds died and have prohibited the transport of birds.

Two other provinces, Phitsanulok and Uttaradit, also are reporting suspicious poultry deaths, The Nation said.

Meanwhile, a number of suspected human cases of avian flu have been reported. A United Press International report published 2 days ago said local news media were reporting that two sisters, aged 3 and 4, were in a Phichit hospital with suspected avian flu and that lab results were expected by July 27.

Today The Nation reported that three other patients were hospitalized in Phichit: two men, aged 59 and 86, and a 7-year-old boy. All three were reported to have had contact with dead chickens. Also, a Reuters report said an 11-year-old girl with flu-like symptoms was being treated in a Phichit hospital after chickens died on her family's farm.

In addition, a report yesterday in The Nation said two men, aged 67 and 35, were hospitalized in Uttaradit Provincial Hospital with avian flu–like symptoms that developed after they ate spotted doves. The report said blood samples were taken for testing at a nearby laboratory.

Fifteen other patients, two of them from Phichit, had been on a watch list for suspected avian influenza but were removed after tests came back negative, The Nation reported today. But the disease has not been ruled out in a 5-year-old boy from Phitsanulok, and Uttaradit province has three patients with flu-like symptoms, the story said.

Thailand has not had a confirmed human H5N1 case since last December. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the country had 17 human cases with 12 deaths in 2004. Five more cases, two of them fatal, occurred in 2005.

Sudarat, the Thai agriculture minister, had said on Jul 6 that he hoped the country would be entirely free of avian flu within 3 years. At that point there had been no outbreaks in 239 days, he said.

In Indonesia, the lone survivor of the family cluster of H5N1 cases in North Sumatra left the hospital last week, according to an Associated Press report. The patient, 24-year-old Jones Ginting, had been hospitalized since May when he and seven other family members fell ill after a family gathering.

Ginting told the AP that he couldn't remember much of his battle with the illness. He said he was afraid to go to the hospital because that was where his relatives died. During his hospital stay, he said, he constantly struggled to breathe, experienced pounding pain in his head and hips, and was exhausted by 2-hour coughing fits. Later, he developed a stiff neck and headaches, and his doctors discovered that he had brain abscesses.

Ginting must return to the hospital for weekly checkups. He said he looks forward to living a healthy lifestyle, but will not avoid eating chicken. "I'm not afraid of chicken. I don't know why," he said.

See also:

WHO avian flu case count


Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy
Academic Health Center -- University of Minnesota
Copyright © 2006 Regents of the University of Minnesota

Planning now for flu pandemic

Planning now for flu pandemic


First published: Sunday, July 23, 2006

The projections are sobering. Hospital emergency rooms and intensive care units would be overwhelmed. Absenteeism in the workplace could range from 30 percent to 50 percent. Travel could be sharply curtailed, and basic necessities could soon be in short supply.

State health and emergency management officials are making preparations for an influenza pandemic that some say is overdue. The likely culprit would be a new form, or mutant, of the H5N1 avian flu virus, which in its current form is not easily transmitted between humans.

Humans who have caught avian flu have been in close and prolonged contact with infected poultry or other birds. What alarms health experts is the high death rate: Half those who contracted the virus died.

A pandemic is a global outbreak of flu caused by a new strain of the influenza virus. It's easily transmitted between humans, and can strike people of any age, at any time of year, said Dr. Sarah Elmendorf, an epidemiologist at Albany Medical Center.

Businesses have begun planning to reduce the potential impact of a pandemic. The state Public Service Commission last month held a workshop with utilities to review their business continuity plans. Banks and other financial institutions, meanwhile, are preparing ways to continue operating.

"Having the key utilities functional during a pandemic is imperative," said Debbie Drew, a spokeswoman for National Grid, which serves much of the Capital Region. "We're working to that end."

The utility has drawn up plans to continue functioning with as many as half its workers absent, she said. Its information technology department is increasing the capacity of its computers to permit large numbers of employees to work from home.

Planning began last August, and since then the utility has stockpiled medical supplies, as well as masks, gloves and antiseptic wipes, she said.

Verizon Communications Inc., the Capital Region's major provider of phone service, is preparing for a shift in data and voice traffic on its network from business centers to residential neighborhoods, as more employees telecommute to avoid catching the flu, said spokeswoman Heather Wilner.

KeyBank N.A., with more than 50 Capital Region offices and 1,600 employees locally, is working on ways to keep automated teller machines stocked, and to keep branches staffed, said Charlene Whitcomb, manager of continuity and recovery. In a pandemic, the bank might consolidate several branches in a given area into one or two to reduce staffing needs, she said.

The bank also is preparing for a surge in online and call center business, she added. And, like many businesses, it's identifying succession plans, not just for top executives, but for employees throughout the organization, to ensure workers with the necessary skills are in place.

While KeyBank and other companies say that, internally, they're in control, it's the external factors that have them worried. Will the power continue to flow? Will deliveries be made? Will the water be safe to drink? Will the Internet service providers continue to function?

With large numbers of workers telecommuting, said Whitcomb, "now, you're potentially competing for Internet resources, kids downloading music competing with" telecommuters, she said.

That's because schools will likely shut down, and students will be at home.

Business planners often draw parallels with 1918, when a pandemic killed between 20 million and 40 million people worldwide, including 675,000 in the United States.

In some ways, we're better prepared, but in other ways, the risks we face are greater than in 1918, said Kim Baker, a registered nurse who is a certified infection control practitioner in Albany Medical Center's department of epidemiology.

While international travel is far more prevalent today, worldwide surveillance systems to detect and report disease outbreaks also are more sophisticated, she said. Antibiotics to treat complications of the flu are readily available, households are smaller and we have more effective face masks and other protection.

But society also is more interdependent, Baker said, with manufactured goods, raw materials and other items coming from such places as Asia. She said supplies of chlorine, used to treat water supplies, might be exhausted within a few weeks of a pandemic's onset.

The practice of just-in-time deliveries to reduce inventory carrying costs could exacerbate the problem, Baker said.

But Amy Fires, a spokeswoman for the state Office of Homeland Security, said the availability of such critical materials as chlorine for water treatment, while provided by the private sector, would be closely monitored by government officials.

But Baker questioned how much assistance government would be able to provide.

"Hurricane Katrina was just one area of the United States," she said. "This would hit everywhere."

Awareness of the need to plan is apparently increasing among Capital Region businesses. A session in April sponsored by the Chamber of Schenectady County had to be canceled because of a lack of interest. More recently, though, the Saratoga County Public Health Department held an evening session that drew between 50 and 80 people, said Terry Stortz, the department's prevention team supervisor.

And a meeting of the Capital Region chapter of the Association of Contingency Planners two weeks ago attracted several dozen people.

Most agencies say they're prepared, but they'll depend on guidance from state and federal health officials.

"We have teams that are set up on a nationwide basis that are set to respond to emergencies such as a pandemic," said Paul Varville, federal security director for the Transportation Security Administration at Albany International Airport. "We'd be mostly just helping out. Guidance would be from the health officials."

Pandemic planning "is being worked on largely with the State Emergency Management Office and the Health Department, and we would take direction from them if there was an event that occurred," said Jennifer Post, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.

The Health Department has expanded capabilities to test for influenza viruses at its Wadsworth Laboratories, and it has stockpiled medicines. Officials declined to permit a photographer to visit either location.

Health care facilities could be overwhelmed by a pandemic, said Scott Heller, director of the Regional Resource Center for Emergency and Disaster Preparedness, based at Albany Medical Center.

"It doesn't take much to see how stressed the health system is now in this country," he said. "What are some of the innovative ways we can expand capacity? We're working with 30 to 50 percent fewer employees."

Baker, of Albany Med's department of epidemiology, said hospitals would postpone elective procedures to increase capacity. Nevertheless, hospitals could face bed and equipment shortages.

Elmendorf, the Albany Med epidemiologist, told contingency planners at their meeting that pandemic patients would take up 63 percent of hospital bed capacity, 125 percent of intensive care unit capacity, and 65 percent of hospital ventilator capacity.

Developing a vaccine would take four to eight months, she said, and only 5 million doses a week could be produced.

"We don't know when it will come until it comes," she said. "When it gets here, it's going to take weeks to months for it to run its course."

In the meantime, travel may be disrupted, quarantines may be put in place, and people will be encouraged to stay home and isolated from others.

"One of the things we've been promoting is social distancing -- don't go out to the mall," said Stortz of the Saratoga County Public Health Department. Any large public gatherings, particularly indoors, might be discouraged, she and others said.

In workplaces, employees might have to be separated and face-to-face contact limited, said Deborah Taylor of SunGard Availability Services, who also spoke at the contingency planners' meeting. The Wayne, Pa.-based company helps businesses keep their data networks and systems operating.

What's not known is how the financial markets might react.

"Large Wall Street investment and financial firms have been urged to have plans in place," Taylor told the planners.

Depending on the pandemic's severity, the nation might see a decline in its gross domestic product of 1.5 percent to as much as 5 percent, or about $200 billion to $700 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The World Bank has estimated the global cost to the economy at about $800 billion, Taylor said.

A separate study by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta estimated total impact on the U.S. economy at $71.3 billion to $166.5 billion, excluding disruptions to commerce, and the number of deaths at 89,000 to 207,000.

KeyBank's Whitcomb said pandemic preparations are reminiscent of some of the efforts bank officials made to prepare for Y2K, when worries about computer failures led to equipment upgrades and a host of contingency plans.

Unlike Y2K, however, there's no point in time when we know the danger will have passed.

"We don't know when the pandemic will start -- tomorrow, next year, 10 years," said Albany Med's Baker. "Preparations should be made, not because it's imminent, but because the cost of not preparing will be great." Anderson can be reached at 454-5323 or by e-mail at eanderson@timesunion.com.

Pandemic's death toll Three influenza pandemics in the past century have claimed thousands of lives in the United States: 1918: 675,000 deaths 1957: 70,000 deaths 1968: 34,000 deaths Seasonal influenza strikes 5 percent to 20 percent of the U.S. population annually, and kills about 30,000 people each year. Source: Albany Medical Center


All Times Union materials copyright 1996-2006, Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation, Albany, N.Y.

Super computer tackles bird flu

Super computer tackles bird flu

A super computer, considered one of the most powerful in Europe, has been given a boost in its brain power for the UK's fight against bird flu.
Blue C, based at Swansea University, has been made 20% more powerful so it can work out more quickly the best way to tackle a possible disease outbreak.

The flu's H5N1 strain has killed 133 people worldwide and the UK had one confirmed case in a swan in April.

Blue C aims to predict where a UK outbreak would start.

By modelling bird flight patterns, experts hope the machine will work out how best to confine the disease, through culls and quarantines, should more birds carrying the disease migrate to the UK in future.

A spokeswoman for Swansea University said: "The data government scientists are looking for to underline their decision is there to be found, that's where Blue C is making the difference.


"Because of its processing power, it allows us to run multiple models throughout the system and means we're waiting minutes or hours for the results."

The project was funded by Defra, the rural affairs ministry, she added.

IBM-made Blue C, the size of a tennis court, is derived from Deep Blue, the first computer to beat a reigning world chess champion.

Energy bill

According to the university, the technology upgrade means Blue C now has a processing power of more than two trillion calculations per second.

Blue C is part of the university's £50m life sciences research centre, the research arm of the campus' School of Medicine.

A spokesperson for Swansea University said the computer's upgrade has also cut the amount of power Blue C needs, making it a "greener" machine and cutting its energy bill by £50,000 year.

Professor Julian Hopkin, head of the school of medicine, said: "The development of new medical breakthroughs demands vast computing power and Blue C has proved to be enormously important to our work here."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_west/5202730.stm

Published: 2006/07/21 14:30:15 GMT

© BBC MMVI

WHO confirms Indonesia’s 54th avian flu case

WHO confirms Indonesia’s 54th avian flu case
Jul 20, 2006 (CIDRAP News) – A World Health Organization (WHO) reference laboratory confirmed today that a 44-year-old man who died on Jul 12 near Jakarta had H5N1 avian influenza.

The WHO announcement brings Indonesia’s official avian flu toll to 54 cases with 42 deaths. The country is now tied with Vietnam for the most deaths.

The patient lived in East Jakarta and was hospitalized for high fever, coughing, and breathing difficulties 2 days before he died.

The WHO said investigators have taken samples of poultry from around the man’s home. Health authorities are also investigating another potential source of infection: the local wet market the man regularly visited as part of his job as a food vendor. Previous reports said he sold fried chicken and freshwater catfish.

All of Indonesia’s H5N1 avian flu cases have occurred within the past year, whereas Vietnam has had no human fatalities this year. An Indonesian health official said this week that he expects more human fatalities this year because the disease is so widespread among the country’s poultry populations (in 27 of 32 provinces) and because widespread culling would be too expensive.

Meanwhile, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported today on Bulgaria’s apparent first case of avian flu in poultry. Agriculture minister Nihat Kabil told AFP the virus was detected at a barnyard in the southern village of Slantchogled. Kabil said he ordered that all poultry and poultry products in the region be destroyed.

The report did not say what strain of virus was found, but it said the Sofia laboratory that detected the virus will give a definitive answer in 4 days on whether it is H5N1. Samples will also be sent to a European Union reference lab in Weybridge, England, for testing.

In February, the deadly H5N1 virus was detected in four swans in northern Bulgaria, the story said.

In other developments, a Connecticut congressman has criticized the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its handling of smuggled Chinese poultry parts found recently in Michigan, according to a report today in The Detroit News. In a letter to USDA Secretary Mike Johanns, Rep. Rosa DeLauro faulted the agency for not testing the poultry for the H5N1 virus before destroying it and for not alerting Michigan officials to a possible health risk.

On Jun 5, the USDA seized 1,940 pounds of illegal Chinese frozen poultry from a Troy, Mich., warehouse. The agency destroyed the product without testing it. The USDA said testing the product would have served no food-safety purpose. The agency states that poultry cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees poses no threat.

State officials did not find out about the USDA probe until June 22, according to previous reports. Michigan and USDA officials continue to track other poultry products from the same warehouse that were distributed to restaurants and grocery stores.

A USDA spokeswoman told The Detroit News that officials were reviewing DeLauro's letter and looked forward to addressing her concerns.

DeLauro, ranking member of the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee, has criticized the USDA over avian flu before. On Jun 21 she raised concerns about the USDA’s plans for detecting avian flu and questioned how the agency could ensure the safety of imported Chinese poultry products. According to a press release on DeLauro’s Web site, she inserted language into the fiscal year 2007 agriculture appropriations bill to bar the USDA from implementing a rule allowing the importing of processed Chinese poultry products.

See also:

Jul 20 WHO update on Indonesian situation
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2006_07_20/en/index.html

Jul 13 CIDRAP News story “Michigan officials track smuggled Chinese poultry”

Jun 21 press release from Rep. Rosa DeLauro on Chinese poultry imports
http://www.house.gov/delauro/press/2006/June/poultry_imports_6_21_06.html



Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy
Academic Health Center -- University of Minnesota
Copyright © 2006 Regents of the University of Minnesota

Get powers ready for bird flu, U.S. governors told

Get powers ready for bird flu, U.S. governors told
18 Jul 2006 19:52:51 GMT
Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, July 18 (Reuters) - Governors should make sure they have the legal powers they need to impose quarantines, close schools and keep utilities and transport running in case of a bird flu pandemic, according to new primer from the National Governor's Association published on Tuesday.

They should also be working now on clear, simple public messages about the risks of bird flu and what preparations are being made as well as stocking up on food and medical supplies, the document advises.

"Governors should consider creating a state legal team to review current laws and regulations and assess how they would be applied during a pandemic," reads the primer, posted on the Internet at http://www.nga.org.

"For example, decisions on closure of schools, limits on use or practices on mass transit or public transport systems, restrictions on public gatherings, etc., must be determined by state and local officials and supported by local or state policies and law."

The H5N1 avian influenza virus has not yet caused a human pandemic, but it has killed 132 people out of the 230 infected. It has infected birds in about 50 countries and is spreading faster than any other avian influenza ever has.

Many experts believe it may pose the worst threat of an influenza pandemic in 30 years.

"The effects of pandemic flu will be broad, deep and simultaneous," Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty told reporters by telephone from a National Governor's Association meeting in Charleston, South Carolina.

"Medical response will be limited, restrained and potentially depleted during a pandemic," said Pawlenty, a Republican. Outbreaks in people or birds may have to be met with "a pretty aggressive form of containment" and public gatherings eliminated.

CLOSED LIBRARIES

Flu is highly contagious, but the the 1918 flu pandemic, in which between 40 million and 100 million people died, showed that closing big buildings may help.

"Consequently, public facilities -- schools, government offices, transportation hubs, museums, libraries, and convention centers -- would be the first considered for closing," the primer advises.

"Private facilities -- shopping malls, concert halls, skating rinks, gyms, restaurants, bars, theaters, and grocery stores -- may be closed under general emergency powers or special powers granted during times of public health emergencies."

States would also have responsibility for making sure that utilities keep running when workers stay home either because they are sick, caring for relatives, or simply afraid to come out, the governors said.

"What about the guys that go out and repair power lines? You have to think that you are going to have 40 percent absenteeism for a year or more," said Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, incoming chair of the Association and a Democrat.

Governors should be identifying key personnel and making sure each of them has a trained backup in case they cannot come to work, she said.

Telecommunications should be checked now, the document advises. "Many states or state agencies may find, for example, that they do not have sufficient bandwidth or server capacity to allow large-scale telecommuting of its workforce."

States should "encourage and invest in increased food storage in pantries in government facilities such as schools, prisons, cafeterias, group homes, and state institutions," the primer says. Businesses and individuals should do the same.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Russia Expects to Have Prepared Bird-Flu Vaccine by September

Russia Expects to Have Prepared Bird-Flu Vaccine by September
July 16 (Bloomberg) -- Russia expects to have ready as many as 60 million doses of a vaccine against avian influenza in September, the country's health minister said today at the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg.

Tests on a vaccine are being carried out with the help of 200 volunteers in Moscow and 156 from St. Petersburg, Russia's second-biggest city, Health Minister Mikhail Zurabov said.

``All the results of the clinical investigations will be presented to the ministry by Sept. 10,'' Zurabov said at a briefing today.

Human fatalities from the H5N1 strain of avian influenza almost tripled in the first half of this year as the lethal virus spread across Asia, Europe and Africa. Governments and international health authorities are trying to stem outbreaks in birds, which create opportunities for human infection and raise the risk of the virus mutating into a pandemic form.

A severe pandemic, such as the one that killed 50 million people in 1918, may take 70 million lives and cause global economic losses of as much as $2 trillion, the World Bank said last month.

Pharmaceutical companies, including Sanofi-Aventis SA, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, MedImmune Inc. and Vical Inc., are racing to produce treatments for use in a pandemic.

Since late 2003, H5N1 is known to have infected at least 229 people, mainly in Asia, killing 131 of them, the Geneva-based WHO said on July 4.

The United Nations health agency said last month that more human cases could be anticipated later this year or early next year, based on epidemiological patterns observed during the past few years.

Russian Spending

Russia plans to intensify its fight against infectious diseases by allocating $40 million to improve research facilities inside Russia and in central Asia, Zurabov said. The country also is spending $18 million to fight poliomyelitis, a viral disease that mostly infects children and can lead to paralysis.

Since January, at least 55 people have died from the virus in Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq and Turkey, according to the WHO. That compares with 19 fatalities in Vietnam and Cambodia in the first six months of 2005.

Almost all human H5N1 cases have been linked to close contact with sick or dead birds, such as children playing with them or adults butchering them or taking off feathers, according to the WHO. Thorough cooking of meat and eggs kills the virus.

More than 209 million poultry have died or been culled worldwide since 2004 because of H5N1 outbreaks, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations said on June 19.



To contact the reporter on this story:
Garfield Reynolds in St. Petersburg, Russia, at
7713 or greynolds1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 16, 2006 13:01 EDT

Work on Pandemic Flu Vaccines Must Start Now, WHO Report Says

Work on Pandemic Flu Vaccines Must Start Now, WHO Report Says
July 15 (Bloomberg) --

Work on vaccines used to protect against a flu pandemic must start immediately, even though the effectiveness of the treatments might not be known until after a global outbreak ended, the World Health Organization said.

Randomized trials of candidate pandemic vaccines will be important in gauging their safety and gaining regulatory approval, the Geneva-based WHO said in a report published yesterday in the Weekly Epidemiological Record.

``Internationally coordinated preparatory work for these trials should start immediately, as little time would be available for putting the needed infrastructure in place after the start of the pandemic,'' the report said.

Pharmaceutical companies, including Sanofi-Aventis SA, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, MedImmune Inc. and CSL Ltd. are racing to produce treatments for use in a pandemic amid concern over the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which has infected at least 230 people in 10 countries in Asia and the Middle East, killing 132.

Yesterday, Indonesia confirmed its 41st fatality after tests confirmed the H5N1 virus killed a 3-year-old girl earlier this month.

Governments and international health authorities are trying to stem the spread of H5N1 to reduce opportunities for the virus to mutate into a pandemic form.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations will open a crisis management center in Rome later this month to help improve control of H5N1, which spread in domestic fowl and wild birds to at least 55 countries since late 2003.

Crisis Center

The center, to be run by the UN agency in collaboration with the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health, will provide animal disease analysis and deploy international resources to prevent and contain dangerous animal diseases, the FAO said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

A pandemic can start when a novel influenza A-type virus, to which almost no one has natural immunity, emerges and begins spreading worldwide. Experts believe that a pandemic in 1918, which may have killed as many as 50 million people, began when a lethal avian flu virus jumped to people from birds.

Shots produced each year for seasonal flu won't be effective in a pandemic because the vaccine needs to closely match the pandemic virus, the WHO said in a statement on its Web site.

At least four strains of bird flu are capable of spawning the next pandemic, including the H5N1 virus, according to virologist Robert Webster, the Rosemary Thomas professor at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

Vaccine Delays

Although a vaccine against the H5N1 virus is under development in several countries, none is ready for commercial production and no vaccines are expected to be widely available until several months after the start of a pandemic, the WHO said.

``Effectiveness of pandemic vaccines will not be known before the pandemic and possibly only after it is over,'' the report in the Weekly Epidemiological Record said. ``In addition, unexpected adverse events, whether coincidental or vaccine- related, will occur that may lead to anxiety and may affect vaccine uptake.''

The UN health agency said it could play a critical role in assisting countries collect and review safety data on pandemic vaccines.

``WHO's role in gathering information on the safety profile of candidate pandemic vaccines from clinical trials should be enhanced,'' it said. The report follows a meeting in Geneva last month of the Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety, an expert clinical and scientific advisory body.

The committee reviewed possible measures to overcome obstacles relating to the use of newly formulated vaccines for emergency use, some of which will contain new adjuvants, or compounds that allow immunization doses to be diluted, giving more people access to the shots.

Pregnancy

Pregnant women are at special risk for influenza infection based on morbidity and mortality from previous pandemics and from intense flu seasons, the report said.

The committee reviewed the use of inactivated seasonal flu vaccine in 2003 and concluded that the risk-benefit of immunization during all stages of pregnancy should be reconsidered, given the high risk to the mother and fetus of the disease itself, and the likely small risk to mother and fetus of the inactivated flu vaccine, the report said.

It said there are no data on the safety profile of candidate pandemic flu vaccines when administered during pregnancy and reproductive toxicity studies using animal models should be conducted.



To contact the reporter on this story:
Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 15, 2006 01:13 EDT

Avian flu threatens fast-paced world

Avian flu threatens fast-paced world
Contingency panel warns of ways pandemic would challenge region

By ERIC ANDERSON Deputy business editor
Click byline for more stories by writer.
First published: Friday, July 14, 2006

COLONIE -- The very things that keep the modern economy humming -- just-in-time deliveries, lean inventories, frequent international travel -- could deepen the impact of an avian flu pandemic, health care experts warned during a presentation Thursday morning.
The 1-year-old Capital Region chapter of the Association of Contingency Planners gathered to see what needs to be done to prepare for a potential outbreak.


"There's quite a bit of hype about this" in the media, said Dr. Sarah Elmendorf, an epidemiologist at Albany Medical Center. Still, the risk is real, although individuals can take steps to protect themselves.

While Elmendorf described the different types of influenza and what it would take for avian flu to create a pandemic -- easy human-to-human transmission, which hasn't yet happened -- a colleague, Kim Baker, described the potential impact to businesses, and what people can do to protect themselves.

Elmendorf said pandemic flu typically strikes three to four times a century and can come at any time of year, unlike seasonal influenza, which typically strikes in the fall and winter. Also, pandemic flu puts the entire population at risk because it's a new strain for which there's no resistance.

One challenge will be hospital capacity.

"The surge capacity in hospitals is limited," Elmendorf said. "Our hospitals are full. We don't have the beds right now."

Basic economic functions could be challenged by the high rate of absenteeism that would result from a pandemic, Baker said.

The state and federal governments likely won't be able to provide much assistance, she said, reminding the audience of how difficult it was to assist the areas struck by Hurricane Katrina.

Businesses could slow the spread of disease by keeping people apart, Baker said, letting workers telecommute when possible. Businesses also could increase the cleaning and sanitizing of door knobs, keyboards, telephones and other commonly touched office surfaces.

Employers should expect high rates of absenteeism and health care services that are overwhelmed, Baker said.

Essential services could also be at risk, with supply lines disrupted. With lean inventories, everything from groceries to the chlorine that's needed to treat water could soon be in short supply.

"Preparations should be made, not because it's imminent but because the cost of not preparing will be great," Baker said.

Eric Anderson can be reached at 454-5323 or by e-mail at eanderson@timesunion.com.



All Times Union materials copyright 1996-2006, Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation, Albany, N.Y.

More Avian Influenza in Humans Confirmed in Indonesia

14 July 2006

More Avian Influenza in Humans Confirmed in Indonesia
More children die after exposure to diseased birds



By Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer



Photo Snapshot

Children play with a chicken in Kedaung village, near Jakarta, Indonesia, June 3, 2006. Two children from the village are reported to have died from the H5N1 bird flu virus. (©AP/WWP)

Children play with a chicken near Jakarta, Indonesia, June 3, 2006. (©AP/WWP)Washington – Avian influenza has killed another child in Indonesia, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed July 14.

A 3-year-old child from a suburb of Jakarta died on July 6, about two weeks after she first became ill. Medical authorities have confirmed she was infected with the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which now has killed a total of 132 people worldwide. Indonesia has reported more cases of the disease than any other nation so far in 2006 with a total of 36 cases causing 30 deaths.

As of July 14, WHO reports a total of 230 human cases of H5N1 avian influenza in 10 nations. Health authorities warn that if this viral strain becomes contagious among humans a global influenza pandemic could develop, with a death toll potentially in the millions.

In the first week of July, medical authorities reported the death of another Indonesian child, a 5-year-old boy from East Java who died in mid-June. He, too, had been exposed to ailing chickens at his family’s home in the weeks before his death.

The deaths of children are tragic under any circumstances, but epidemiologists have not found any evidence that youngsters have a special biologic vulnerability to H5N1. Rather, studies suggest that their vulnerability lies in demographics. Nearly 29 percent of the population in Indonesia is under age 14, so odds are in favor of a seemingly high number of cases appearing in youngsters.

Children’s habits and responsibilities in the households of the worst affected nations are another factor, studies show. Children frequently share the yard around the house with domestic poultry. They often are given the jobs of gathering eggs or of catching and de-feathering the birds when a family meal is being prepared. This activity gives them greater opportunity to be exposed to the birds, their feathers or feces, all of which can be a route of transmission for the virus. (See related article.)

ANIMAL CASES

Reports of H5N1 in domestic or wild bird populations have dropped significantly in June and July, after a rapid spread of the virus out of East Asia, across Central Asia into Europe, the Middle East and Africa during the first four months of 2006.

Spain is the exception. One of the few European nations that did not spot a case during that rapid spread early in the year, Spain reported its first occurrence of H5N1 to the World Organisation of Animal Health (OIE) July 7.

Spanish animal health authorities spotted the virus in a single great crested grebe – a water bird related to the loon – in a wetland located in the northern Basque region.

Spanish authorities reported to the OIE that they had created a 10-kilometer surveillance zone around the outbreak in which the movement of poultry, other captive birds and their products is prohibited. A ban on gathering of live birds and hunting of wild game birds also has been imposed.

Migration of wild birds has been suggested as a probable cause of the spread of H5N1 across broad geographic areas, but transportation of domestic birds and bird products in agricultural trade is also considered a likely means of travel for the virus. (See related article.)

The United States is a key backer of the International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza, which involves about 90 other nations. With pledges of more than $334 million, the United States is involved a variety of activities to assist other nations in improving both animal and human health disease surveillance and containment to prevent a pandemic. (See related article.)

For ongoing coverage, see Bird Flu (Avian Influenza).


(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)


This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=July&x=20060714144554cmretrop0.0554468

Goose Parts From Bird Flu-Ridden China Lost in U.S. (Update1)

Goose Parts From Bird Flu-Ridden China Lost in U.S. (Update1)
July 14 (Bloomberg) --

U.S. inspectors are probing the disappearance of four boxes of goose intestines smuggled from China, where bird flu is spreading.

The Department of Agriculture had tagged about 100 pounds of goose guts, a delicacy used in some Chinese recipes, for destruction before they disappeared last week from a Troy, Michigan, warehouse, officials said today. Agency inspectors previously found about 2,000 pounds of frozen poultry shipped illegally from China at the same warehouse.

Smuggling of poultry products poses a risk for avian influenza, which has infected 230 people in 10 countries in Asia and the Middle East, killing 132. Frozen products pose less risk because they aren't likely to spread virus to other birds, said Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary officer for the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, based in Rome.

``Nothing can be sure and everything can happen,'' Domenech said in a telephone interview late yesterday. ``This is smuggling and it's totally uncontrolled.''

People can be infected with H5N1 through close contact with infected live birds or by eating them, according to the World Health Organization in Geneva. Proper cooking kills the virus, and no cases of transmission from cooked food have been recorded, the health agency's Web site said.

``We have no evidence to lead us to believe this is of concern to consumers,'' said Lisa Wallenda-Picard, a spokesman for the Agriculture Department, in a telephone interview today. ``We have no reason to believe this was infected by avian influenza, and we have no reason to think this is on the average American's dinner plate.

`Small Amount'

``We're talking about a small amount of product in question,'' Wallenda-Picard said.

None of the seized meat was tested to see whether it was contaminated with H5N1, said Karen Eggert, a spokeswoman for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, in a telephone interview today.

Michigan health and safety officials are now conducting a sweep of about 65 food import warehouses in the southeast part of the state to look for more smuggled imports.

The discovery of the smuggled birds has prompted a debate over testing. Brad Deacon, emergency management coordinator for the Michigan Department of Health, said that if more Chinese bird parts are found, they should be tested for bird flu. Eggert said the agency is not convinced testing is necessary.

`Know There's Disease'

``Our purpose in testing would be to determine whether or not there was disease in that country,'' Eggert said. ``We know there's disease in that country, and we've placed restrictions on that country.''

The USDA seized and destroyed more than 326,000 pounds of illegally shipped meat last year, Eggert said.

``That would require a lot of testing on each individual piece that we receive,'' she said. ``Unless there's some sort of scientific trigger to believe this meat needs to be tested for a reason, and that's rare, we're not going to test it.''

Thousands of domesticated birds, including chickens, ducks and geese, are shipped illegally in airports in Europe every year, and health officials have said they are also concerned about H5N1 bird flu in smuggled poultry in Africa, Domenech said. Restrictions and surveillance in the U.S. probably keep the risk lower, he said.

The Michigan warehouse case shows why health officials say arrival of the virus in the U.S. is inevitable, said Steve Brozak, an analyst with WBB Securities Inc. in New Jersey. He previously worked as a military liaison to the United Nations.

`Troubling Trend'

``It's a troubling trend when you're looking at the smuggling of any kind of livestock that might be vulnerable to H5N1,'' he said in a telephone interview today. ``This verifies that the arrival of H5N1 in America is a certainty. It's just a matter of time.''

Since 2003, H5N1 has spread in birds from Asia to Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Millions of birds in China have died of H5N1 or been culled to prevent its spread. Scientists also have found infected wild, migratory geese that may have carried the infection to other parts of Asia.

Health officials are concerned about H5N1 because avian influenza strains have been known to gain the ability to spread quickly in people. A pandemic that killed as many as 50 million people worldwide in 1918 and 1919 is thought to have started spreading in birds.

2,000 Pounds

The Michigan warehouse was targeted by an U.S. probe that on June 5 found almost 2,000 pounds of uncooked, frozen poultry that appeared, based on the markings on the boxes, to have been shipped from China, said the USDA's Wallenda-Picard. The U.S. bans importing uncooked poultry from China, and the meat was incinerated on June 9.

USDA and Michigan health officials returned to the warehouse June 27 and found five boxes containing 150 pounds of smuggled goose intestines, and pieces of suckling pig. The boxes were bagged and tagged for destruction, Wallenda-Picard said. When they returned to the warehouse July 5, they found that the goose intestines had been replaced with chicken parts, she said.

Michigan health officials are following up with at least 35 restaurants and other customers whose names were found in paperwork at the Tin Way warehouse to see if they bought smuggled meat, said Deacon, from the state's health department.

Health officials are concerned about H5N1 because avian influenza strains have been known to gain the ability to spread quickly in people. A pandemic that killed as many as 50 million people worldwide in 1918 and 1919 is thought to have started spreading in birds.



To contact the reporter on this story:
John Lauerman in Boston at jlauerman@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 14, 2006 11:10 EDT

Bird flu draws local scientists to Arctic shore

PLYMOUTH
Bird flu draws local scientists to Arctic shore
By Robert Knox, Globe Correspondent | July 13, 2006

Shorebird specialists from a Plymouth -based conservation science organization are heading for Alaska this month to look for signs of avian flu in migrating birds.

Scientists will be on the lookout for the possibility that migratory shorebirds may take the dangerous pathogen from Asia to Alaska, where it would be transmitted to migratory birds that return to this region and other parts of the Americas.

``It's like the early-warning system for bird flu," said Trevor Lloyd-Evans , a bird scientist at the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences . To date, no sign of bird flu has been found in the Western Hemisphere.

Shorebirds -- golden plovers , red knots , buff-breasted sandpipers , phalaropes among them -- make some of the longest migratory flights of any species, flying thousands of miles to breed on the Alaskan coast during the brief Arctic summer. There they take advantage of rich food resources (think crustaceans and sea worms), a protected environment, and the polar region's 24-hour-long summer days.

They then head south to winter on South Shore coastal areas and beyond, with some going as far as the tip of South America. Because of this long -distance migratory pattern, the possibility of spreading bird flu in the Americas through an Alaskan connection has to be considered, Lloyd-Evans said.

Specialists say avian flu has spread in the Eastern Hemisphere, reaching areas in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Pacific islands, through the legal or illegal importation of domestic fowl. But some populations of wild birds have also caught the infection, Lloyd-Evans said.

Last year , 10 percent of the world's population of bar head geese was wiped out in an infestation at a lake in western China . Three weeks ago, Russian authorities reported a deadly outbreak of bird flu in the Tuva region of Siberia, north of Mongolia .

Scientists believe wild birds can transmit the infection for short distances only, Lloyd-Evans said. However, they are not sure how far that distance is.

While bird flu has been disastrous for birds and local economies (millions of domestic fowl have been destroyed in Asia), it would pose a serious risk to human health if the deadly strain of avian flu (type AH5N1 ) mutates into a form that can be passed from person to person.

``We wouldn't be worried about chickens any more, we'd be worried about people," Lloyd-Evans said.

Scientists do not know how likely it is that that kind of mutation will take place. The last time it is known to have happened produced the so-called Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 , which killed an estimated 20 million to 40 million people worldwide.

This trip to Alaska is not the first for the Manomet scientists. They have spent summers before in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Alaska's North Slope as part of an effort to study the status of shorebird populations in a coastal area where Congress has debated permitting drilling for oil.

Lloyd-Evans will take part in a monitoring program led by the US Fish and Wildlife Service . Team members will capture birds with nets, weigh and swab them, and send the swab to a federal lab.

Manomet has also been swabbing birds caught in its spring banding program at Plymouth. The difficult part, Lloyd-Evans said, is putting the nets in the right place.

Manomet scientist Stephen Brown also has his work cut out for him this summer. He will spend six weeks in the Arctic Refuge, relying on an inflatable dinghy to help him survey the refuge's 100 -mile coastline and document the relative value of estuaries and lagoons for staging shorebirds. Brown's team will count shorebird populations at the sites.

The effort is part of Manomet's ongoing program to evaluate which areas are most important for shorebirds and help protect areas critical for species like the golden plover, which are declining by 7 percent each year.

Brown and two other scientists will disembark in coastal mudflats, carrying 60 -pound packs through waist -deep water to set up camp in tundra wetlands -- great habitat for the birds, Brown said, though tough on humans. But the scientists' summer camp out in Alaskan mudflats pales in comparison to ``the remarkable long -distance flying" of shorebirds, Brown said, some of which fly 20,000 miles a year.

Robert Knox can be contacted at rc.knox@gmail.com.



© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Saskatoon centre to run survey for avian flu in wild birds

Saskatoon centre to run survey for avian flu in wild birds
Last Updated: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 | 3:53 PM CT
CBC News

Canadian scientists are preparing to conduct a national survey for avian flu in migratory birds.

The Canadian Co-operative Wildlife Health Centre, with headquarters at the University of Saskatchewan's Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, is co-ordinating the survey. It begins July 15 in most parts of Canada.

In the survey, dead and living birds from Asia, Africa and Europe that have been found in Canada will be tested for the bird flu virus.

Ted Leighton, director of the centre, said the plan is to test birds for avian flu as part of ongoing efforts to keep the flu away from domestic poultry stocks. The survey is also designed to promote early detection of bird flu across the country.

This is the second year in a row that the centre is organizing the survey. In 2005, the survey focused on wild ducks. This year, it has been expanded to include all wild birds.

Seeking public assistance

The centre is appealing to the public for help in reporting dead birds, especially if several of the same species are discovered in the same spot.

Leighton said the centre will test "particularly water birds and particularly birds that are dead in unusual numbers — you know, not just one duck but five ducks or three ducks" that are found dead together.

"We want to know what sorts of influenza viruses those birds have," he said.

The survey will also look at wild geese, including Arctic nesting geese and urban geese. He said the focus is "not because we think we will find nasty viruses in them, but we think we will find influenza viruses."

If the virus is found, a containment plan will be activated. Leighton said the poultry industry "will be put on high alert to make sure they don't let any viruses in the door."

Last year, a survey by the centre found that one-third of the wild ducks tested were carrying the bird flu virus.

U.K. Seeks 10 Million Vaccine Doses to Mitigate Bird Flu Risk

U.K. Seeks 10 Million Vaccine Doses to Mitigate Bird Flu Risk
July 12 (Bloomberg) --

The U.K. is seeking 10 million extra doses of vaccine that may be used to immunize poultry against bird flu after the lethal H5N1 strain of the virus was reported for the first time in Spain last week.

The vaccine will protect fowl and other captive birds against H5 and H7 subtypes of avian influenza, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, known as Defra, said yesterday. The inoculations will be used only if a risk assessment and scientific evidence indicate they will help to prevent the spread of the disease, it said.

``This is part of sensible contingency planning in the light of uncertainties about the future spread and nature of the virus and the possibility of as yet unforeseen circumstances,'' Defra said in the statement posted on its Web site.

Governments and international health authorities are trying to prevent the spread of H5N1, which has the potential to mutate into a pandemic form that may kill millions of people. Outbreaks among domestic fowl could also devastate the poultry industry in the U.K., Europe's second-largest, because of consumers' fears about the safety of the meat.

Almost all human H5N1 cases have been linked to close contact with sick or dead birds, such as children playing with them or adults butchering them or taking off feathers, according to the WHO. Thorough cooking of meat and eggs kills the virus.

A flu outbreak killing 70 million people worldwide may cause global economic losses of as much as $2 trillion, the World Bank said last month. Since late 2003, H5N1 is known to have infected at least 229 people, mainly in Asia, killing 131 of them, the World Health Organization said on July 4.

Infection in Spain

The U.K. reported an initial H5N1 infection in a dead swan found in Scotland in April. Spain confirmed the infection July 7 in a great crested grebe found dead at Salburua Lake, near the city of Vitoria in the northern Basque country.

No outbreaks among commercial poultry flocks have been reported in the U.K., which slaughtered more than 889 million fowl for meat production last year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. France slaughtered almost 998 million fowl in 2005, according to the FAO.

The U.K. government sought to increase its supplies of poultry vaccine on the advice of the Chief Veterinary Officer, as a precaution, Defra said.

Effective Defense

It doesn't signal a change in policy and the Chief Veterinary Officer's advice remains that poultry shouldn't be vaccinated in advance of an avian influenza outbreak because of the ``well documented limitations of the vaccines currently available,'' the department said.

``These vaccines are not the most effective defense against avian influenza,'' it said. ``Early reporting, rapid action, biosecurity, culling and surveillance remain the most effective ways of controlling an avian influenza outbreak.''

Human H5N1 cases may be harder to detect in countries where the vaccination of poultry is poorly implemented, the influenza team at the European Centre for Disease Surveillance and Control in Stockholm said last month.

Earlier this year, the U.K. bought 2.3 million doses of vaccine which are being stockpiled in the event zoo birds become at risk of infection.

Last week, Defra said the risk of avian flu re-entering the U.K. will be higher between August and November, when wild fowl typically fly through the country during winter migration.

In France, poultry producers hurt by a slump in demand reportedly lost 40 percent of their income in the first quarter of 2006, said Milan Brahmbhatt, a lead adviser for the World Bank in the East Asia region.

Europe's $42 billion poultry feed industry has suffered a 40 percent drop in demand in some European Union countries, Brahmbhatt told a conference in Paris on June 29.



To contact the reporter on this story:
Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 12, 2006 00:28 EDT

Early detection best to control bird flu -report

Early detection best to control bird flu -report
11 Jul 2006 23:01:11 GMT
Source: Reuters


Bird flu
More LONDON, July 12 (Reuters) - Immediate culling of infected birds and detecting the virus early are the best ways to control an outbreak of avian flu on farms, researchers said on Wednesday.

The team of French and American scientists developed a mathematical model to assess the most effective methods to prevent the spread the lethal virus to poultry on other farms and people.

"From the results of the mathematical model of avian influenza spread, we can say that the best methods, ranked by importance, are a) immediate culling of infected flocks...b) early detection of the disease in a flock," said Dr Arnaud Le Menach of the University Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris.

He added that increasing the radius in which surrounding farms are culled would also help in controlling the disease along with improved surveillance.

The rapid spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus from Asia to the Middle East, Europe and Africa has sparked fears that it could mutate into a highly infectious strain that could cause a human influenza pandemic.

Outbreaks in birds have been confirmed in 48 countries and territories, according to data from the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).

Since late 2003 there have been 229 human infections of H5N1 and 131 deaths.

The scientists, who used data from a Dutch avian influenza outbreak in 2003 in their model, reported their findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences journal.

Vaccination was not taken into account in the model.

"We simulated 1000 epidemics over a period of 100 days beginning with a unique index case in the Renswoude municipality where the epidemic began," Le Menach explained in the journal.

During the Dutch outbreak three years ago 185 commercial farms were reported infected.

The researchers said that for culling to be effective it must take place quickly after an outbreak is detected. Delays in culling increase the risk of further infection in birds and in humans.

They also called for control measures to be used for both low and high pathogenic avian influenza viruses because a virus can acquire additional virulence.

AlertNet news is provided by



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Mayor details plan to fight an outbreak of bird flu

Mayor details plan to fight an outbreak of bird flu
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
By HEIDI J. SHRAGER
Responding to the deadly spread of bird flu that now spans 10 countries and three continents, Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday described what the city would do should the virus mutate into a human strain and hit American shores, creating a "potentially cataclysmic event."

Speaking at the Health Department, Bloomberg said, "The fact that New York is a major gateway to the nation, and one of the world's most densely populated cities, means the possibility of pandemic flu -- however remote -- is one we must take extremely seriously."

Experts have said that one of the biggest challenges facing the city is hospital beds, particularly on Staten Island, a borough with far fewer acute-care beds per capita than anywhere else in the city.

"Right now our hospitals are reasonably full -- we'd have to do something in addition," Bloomberg said about the citywide plan to fight a potential bird flu outbreak.

The bed crunch would be partly alleviated by the fact that first responders such as the Visiting Nurse Association would treat many people in their homes, the mayor said.

In the event of a pandemic, hospitals would coordinate their response so that resources were managed regionally and supplies shifted to meet demand, said Susan Waltman, senior vice president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, a trade group that counts Staten Island University Hospital and St. Vincent's Hospital among its members.

EMERGENCY PROGRAM

"Staten Islanders shouldn't feel like they're isolated," said Ms. Waltman, who heads the emergency preparedness program. For instance, Islanders might be transported to treatment centers off-Island, or certain Island facilities might be given extra capacity to handle more patients, she said.

Since contagious patients should not be placed in close quarters together, makeshift facilities like high school gyms would not be practical -- as they would be in a natural disaster emergency, Bloomberg noted.

Though light on details, the broadly defined city flu plan was organized in stages -- from early detection with high-tech tracking devices; to effective treatment of victims and halting the virus's spread; to uninterrupted health services for the general population. It also includes measures for updating the public as the emergency unfolds.

As for a vaccine, the mayor acknowledged that one would not be available until six to nine months after the pandemic were detected.

"Vaccine is a challenge," said Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden, in part because none can be produced until the exact strain is known.

The vaccine for the current strain of bird flu is of a "limited effectiveness and limited quantity," said Frieden. The city would have to depend on the federal government, which would coordinate production should the virus arrive in the United States. "We would then obtain as much of it as we could," said Frieden.

The limited supply would be distributed "based on federal guidelines, to health workers and first responders on the front lines, as well as to those most at risk of dying," said Bloomberg.

Scientists fear Americans are due for another flu outbreak, and the H5N1 virus has loomed as a chief candidate. Having first emerged in 1997, the lethal strain so far has spread to Africa, Asia and Europe. It has left millions of dead birds in its wake, along with more than 200 stricken people who contracted it from infected birds.

Bloomberg stressed there is no imminent threat of bird or any other flu pandemic, but added the deadly consequences must not be underestimated.

Heidi J. Shrager covers City Hall for the Advance. She may be reached at shrager@siadvance.com.



© 2006 Staten Island Advance
© 2006 SILive.com All Rights Reserved.

Migratory birds tested in Maine for avian flu

Migratory birds tested in Maine for avian flu
July 10, 2006

BANGOR, Maine --Hundreds of Canada geese and other migratory birds are being captured and tested by Maine state biologists for avian flu.

The testing of Canada geese, Arctic terns, common eiders and black guillemots by state Inland Fisheries and Wildlife biologists is being done to check for early signs of the bird flu virus before it channels over to Maine's commercial bird flock.

Biologists may end up testing hundreds if not thousands of birds before the program ends later this year.

Last week, biologists went to a pond near Rockport that's home to 80 to 100 Canada geese. The visit was timed to coincide with a period when the birds are molting, meaning most are unable to fly and are easier to capture.

Biologists in canoes corralled the geese toward a V-shaped pen set up at one end of Tolman Pond. Once the birds were removed to smaller cages, biologists collected fecal samples with long swab sticks.

Samples are sent to a lab in Connecticut for testing, and the results are sent to the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Canada geese are a favored choice of birds for testing because they often mingle with other species of migrating birds, said Michael Schummer, a game bird specialist who led last Friday's roundup in Rockport.

"There's a fair number of them, they are easy to catch, they are statewide, so they are a good sentry bird," Schummer said. "If anything is going to pick (the bird flu) up, it seems likely to me and to other biologists that it would be the Canada goose."

So far, no birds in Maine or anywhere else in the United States have tested positive for the H5N1 strain, which has devastated poultry flocks in Southeast Asia and appeared on two other continents.

------

On the Net:

U.S. Department of Agriculture, avian flu site: http://www.pandemicflu.gov/

Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention: http://www.maine.gov/dhhs/boh/

------

Information from: Bangor Daily News, http://www.bangornews.com



© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Avian Flu May Have Spread to Spain by Wild Birds, Society Says

Avian Flu May Have Spread to Spain by Wild Birds, Society Says
July 10 (Bloomberg) --

Spain's outbreak of avian flu may have been introduced by wild birds that carried the virus from the Mediterranean, a U.K.-based conservation society said.

The Ministry of Agriculture confirmed the infection July 7 in a great crested grebe found dead at Salburua Lake, near the city of Vitoria in Spain's northern Basque country. It was the first time the H5N1 avian influenza virus was reported in Spain, Europe's biggest tourism destination by revenue.

``Perhaps the most likely explanation is that it was one of the scattering of wild birds killed by H5N1 this spring in Europe -- possibly a bird that wintered in an affected part of the Mediterranean,'' Richard Thomas, a spokesman for Cambridge-based BirdLife International, said in a July 7 statement.

Governments and international health authorities are monitoring for the H5N1 virus, which has the potential to mutate into a pandemic form that may kill millions of people. This year, almost 40 countries reported initial outbreaks in domestic fowl and wild birds, including France, Italy, Egypt and Nigeria.

Since late 2003, H5N1 is known to have infected at least 229 people, mainly in Asia, killing 131 of them, the World Health Organization said on July 4. Almost all human cases have been linked to close contact with sick or dead birds, such as children playing with them or adults butchering them or plucking feathers, according to the Geneva-based WHO.

The disease in birds creates more opportunity for human infection and increases the risk of the virus changing into a pandemic form.

Bird Species

Identifying the subspecies of Spain's infected grebe and its age will be essential in determining the source of the virus, BirdLife said.

``Birds from sub-Saharan Africa are subtly different from those found in Europe, and have never been recorded north of the Sahara,'' Thomas said in the statement, which was posted on the society's Web site. ``Even a North African origin is highly unlikely'' because only a handful of great crested grebes nest there, he said.

If the grebe was hatched this year, it indicates a local source of infection because the bird is unlikely to have flown outside Spain, Thomas said. It's also possible that H5N1 was brought to Spain by imported poultry products, he said.

In February, 21 metric tons of poultry meat illegally imported from China were confiscated in the eastern seaside city of Benidorm, BirdLife said.

Illegal Imports

``Perhaps H5N1 arrived in Spain the same way it got into Africa -- in imported chicken products,'' Thomas said. ``But even if it was smuggled in, it's difficult to see how it could have ended up in a grebe. It would be useful to know the circumstances under which the bird was discovered.''

Spain's H5N1 outbreak occurred on June 30, Lucio Ignacio Carbajo Goni, deputy director general of animal health in Madrid, told the World Organization for Animal Health in a July 7 report.

The H5N1 infection may hurt poultry sales in Spain, Europe's third-largest producer of the meat.

In Romania, which has reported more than 100 H5N1 outbreaks in the past three months, domestic poultry sales have fallen by 80 percent, bringing many producers to the verge of bankruptcy, Milan Brahmbhatt, a lead adviser for the World Bank in the East Asia region, told a conference in Paris on June 29.

French Producers

In France, Europe's largest poultry supplier, producers hurt by a slump in demand reportedly lost 40 percent of their income in the first quarter of 2006, Brahmbhatt said. The $42 billion poultry feed industry in Europe has suffered a 40 percent drop in demand in some European Union countries, he said.

There isn't any risk in eating poultry or eggs that are properly cooked because the virus is destroyed at temperatures above 70 degrees Celsius (158 degrees Fahrenheit). The World Tourism Organization said it's safe to travel to countries that have reported avian flu as long as tourists avoid close contact with birds.

Spain gets 46 billion euros ($59 billion) in revenue a year from foreign tourists and the industry makes up about a 10th of gross domestic product. Most tourists come from the U.K., Germany and France. Hotel companies such as Sol Melia SA and airlines including Iberia Lineas Aereas de Espana SA depend on tourism for profit growth.



To contact the reporter on this story:
Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 10, 2006 00:07 EDT







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Baxter Initiates Clinical Study With Cell-Based Candidate H5N1 Pandemic Vaccine

WEBBOLT® Global Business News, Research & Intelligence

Baxter Initiates Clinical Study With Cell-Based Candidate H5N1 Pandemic Vaccine
By CJ - Webbolt Newsroom
July 06, 2006, 15:51

DEERFIELD, Ill., -- Baxter International Inc. (NYSE:BAX) announced that it has initiated a Phase I/II clinical trial to test the company's vero-cell based candidate H5N1 pandemic influenza vaccine. The study is being conducted with several hundred healthy adults in Austria and Singapore using the fully inactivated wild-type H5N1 strain A/Vietnam/1203/2004. Four different antigen concentrations ranging from 3.75mcg to 30mcg are being tested in formulations with and without alum as adjuvant.

"We look forward to receiving clinical results this fall on the safety and immunogenicity of the candidate vaccine for pandemic flu," said Noel Barrett, vice president of Global R&D for Baxter's vaccines business. "Our goal is to produce a safe and efficacious pandemic vaccine and demonstrate the advantages that vero-cell based production can offer for manufacturing influenza and other vaccines. The study will provide us with critical data concerning the vaccine dosage required to induce protective immune responses, and information about the ability of a vaccine, based on a single H5N1 strain, to induce protective immune response against a range of different H5N1 strains. Preclinical studies in animal models have shown very good cross-protection to date, and we are looking forward to confirming this with studies in humans."

Baxter is developing both seasonal (or inter-pandemic) and pandemic influenza vaccines based on the company's proprietary vero-cell technology, which has the potential to significantly reduce production time compared to traditional vaccine production methods that use embryonated hens' eggs. The company is already licensed to produce vaccines at its commercial scale cell- culture vaccine manufacturing facility in Bohumil, Czech Republic, which is GMP approved and fully validated to Biosafety Level Three (BSL-3).

Cell-based systems for production of vaccines offer a number of potential benefits over more traditional egg-based systems. Baxter's vero-cell technology is capable of producing high yields of influenza virus without the addition of any animal-derived serum. Through the company's research and development work, Baxter has been successful in growing wild-type virus at pilot and commercial scales using its unique vero-cell technology. This means the company is currently capable of manufacturing pandemic vaccine without having to wait for high-growth or attenuated virus reassortants normally used when vaccine is produced in eggs. The requirements for such reassortants may involve considerable delay in vaccine production in the event of a pandemic.

In addition, Baxter is working with the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in partnership with Fisher BioServices Inc., and with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in partnership with DVC LLC, a Computer Sciences Corporation Company, to develop vero-cell based H5N1 pandemic and seasonal influenza candidate vaccines. Both collaborations are the result of U.S. Government contract awards. Baxter and its partners will be providing the vero-cell based candidate vaccines to the agencies for further clinical testing in the United States, which is expected to begin later in 2006 and 2007. Baxter is currently in discussions with several other governments regarding its candidate pandemic vaccine, and has been awarded a contract to supply two million doses of cell-culture based candidate H5N1 vaccine to the U.K. government.

Baxter International Inc., through its subsidiaries, assists healthcare professionals and their patients with the treatment of complex medical conditions, including hemophilia, immune disorders, cancer, infectious diseases, kidney disease, trauma and other conditions. The company applies its expertise in medical devices, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology to make a meaningful difference in patients' lives.


© Copyright 2006 - Webbolt Company Limited All rights reserved.

Bird flu blitz

Bird flu blitz
Janelle Miles

July 10, 2006

AUSTRALIAN businesses are stockpiling anti-viral drugs and face masks as fears grow of an avian flu outbreak.

Public companies such as Telstra and Bluescope Steel have pandemic risk committees meeting regularly and the Commonwealth Bank has appointed a pandemic planning project manager.

Plans include expanded computer networks so staff can work from home.

So far, fatal cases of bird flu in Asia and Europe have been a result of humans catching the disease from sick birds.

But with the number of global deaths exceeding 100, experts fear it is likely the disease will pass from human to human, creating a pandemic.

This year, 55 people have died from the H5N1 strain. There were 41 deaths reported in 2005.

BHP Billiton, through its relationship with the medical support agency International SOS, has stockpiles of anti-viral drugs in regional offices considered at high risk.

The Bank of Queensland is about to implement basic hygiene education for staff, a measure immunologists believe is vital to reducing the spread of disease if a pandemic develops.

Some researchers fear the H5N1 virus could develop a seasonal pattern in line with flu seasons. In Australia, mid-June through to the end of August is the worst time for influenza, with up to six times the number of flu cases recorded than in other months of the year.

Director of the Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Zsuzsanna Jakab told a recent European news conference that it was quite likely H5N1 cases in birds would reoccur in Europe, despite peaking for now.

"In birds, it has peaked for now but it is very likely it will come back," she said. "We have to get used to a seasonal pattern," Ms Jakab said.

In Queensland, small businesses, such as the Tangalooma Resort on Moreton Island, are developing their own avian flu plans.

The resort, which employs 240 staff, has stockpiled 1000 masks and has evacuation plans in place if a pandemic strikes.

The Federal Government has advised businesses to plan for up to half their staff being absent whether through illness, or caring for sick family members or children if schools are closed.

Bank of Queensland group risk executive Bruce Auty said having measures in place to allow staff to work from home was critical to the preparations.

Despite the focus on the cost to business of absenteeism, experts say a pandemic may actually turn the gaze on to a new risk which they have dubbed "presenteeism".

Stoics who normally trudge into work while sick will be told firmly to stay at home to protect their well colleagues.

"At the moment now, one of the serious problems in preparing for a pandemic is that the population really has very low levels of hand washing and staying at home if you've got a flu-like illness with a fever," said immunologist Ron Penny, who diagnosed Australia's first case of AIDS in the 1980s.

"It's still accepted that they're allowed to come to work. There's no strong recommendation that people who have a seriously infectious disease should stay at home.

"I think we need to educate people."

Federal Government advisers warn that economically, Queensland would be the hardest hit of any Australian state, with even a "modest-level" pandemic forecast to wipe 7.1 per cent, or about $11 billion, off the Gross State Product (GSP) in the first year alone.

International health experts predict bird flu has a 10 per cent chance of turning into a pandemic this financial year.

Telstra's network services managing director Michael Lawrey said preparations for the likelihood of a pandemic were slightly higher in intensity than planning for other business risks such as fires, cyclones and floods.

Nevertheless, economists and business risk consultants say spending so far has been nowhere near the estimated hundreds of millions of dollars, possibly billions, Australian companies forked out to protect them from the Y2K millennium bug.

"People aren't spending that much money on a pandemic as they did with Y2K," said Deloitte business continuity management specialist, Kevin Nevrous.

"With Y2K you had a business risk ... and its impact could be immediate.

"With something like bird flu, I don't expect something like the whole country to be impacted on day one.

"We're not comparing apples with apples."

Sydney-based company Good Health Solutions, which advises business on how to maintain a healthy workplace, has estimated the cost of protecting a staff of 1000 against the possibility of a bird flu pandemic at about $92,000.

That includes consultancy fees, training programs for staff and 90 days' supply of anti-viral drugs for critical employees as well as other supplies to reduce infection risk like masks, disinfectant wipes, antimicrobial handwash, tissues and thermometers.

For businesses such as big retailers, whose staff have a high level of contact with the public, that figure could blow out to millions if they decided to stockpile enough face masks and other protective gear to protect staff for three months.

On the other hand, Mr Nevrous, who has consulted in risk management for many years, said he had discussed with some companies the possibility of turning a pandemic into a business opportunity, not just a threat.

For example, security companies may be in high demand if civil disobedience becomes an issue.

"If thousands of people are knocking on hospital doors trying to get in, hospitals are probably going to be short staffed, as will the emergency services," Mr Nevrous said.

Spain reports first avian flu case in birds

INFLUENZA >> AVIAN INFLUENZA >> NEWS >>

Spain reports first avian flu case in birds
Jul 7, 2006 (CIDRAP News) – Spain today became the latest country to join the list of nations responding to outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza, as officials reported finding the virus in a wild bird.

In a report to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), Spanish officials said highly pathogenic H5N1 strain had been confirmed in a sample taken from a great crested grebe that was found dead Jun 30 in the Salburua wetlands in Alava province. The diagnosis was established by the Central Veterinary Laboratory in Algete.

To control the outbreak, a 3-kilometer protection zone around the site has been established, and surveillance will be conducted within 10 km. Authorities have banned movement of poultry and hunting of wild birds within the zone and are monitoring natural areas for any further bird deaths.

Spain is the 14th European Union member to report H5N1 avian flu in birds, on the basis of information from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

An outbreak of avian influenza is a particular concern in Spain because, according to a Bloomberg News report today on the outbreak, Spain is Europe’s biggest tourist destination.

In other avian flu developments this week:

Canadian authorities reported that final virological tests on samples from a dead gosling were negative.
The OIE announced that avian influenza had recurred among ostriches in South Africa.
Thailand said it hoped to be free of avian influenza in 3 years.
Canada ends testing of Prince Edward Island birds
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) announced Jul 5 that further testing related to a suspected H5 avian flu outbreak in Prince Edward Island had revealed no evidence of the virus.

Authorities had announced Jun 16 that preliminary tests had indicated an H5 virus in a gosling, one of four birds that had died in a backyard flock. The positive test led authorities to destroy the rest of the flock and raised concern about the threat of H5N1 spreading to North America. But officials reported on Jun 20 that further tests at Canada's avian flu reference laboratory in Winnipeg, Man., were negative.

In the latest announcement, the CFIA said attempts to culture the virus from samples from the gosling had failed. The agency said testing was finished, and a quarantine on the affected site was lifted.

South African ostriches have H5N2 virus
An H5N2 strain of avian flu has been confirmed on an ostrich farm in South Africa, according to a report that officials filed with the OIE. The virus was identified Jul 1 in eight ostriches on the farm in Riversdale, Western Cape province.

In his notice to the OIE, South Africa's senior manager of animal health, Bothe Modisane, said surveillance indicated that the outbreak was probably limited to the farm where the disease was detected. He reported that the farm was quarantined and that all 58 ostriches there were destroyed on Jul 1. Culling of all other poultry on the farm was completed on Jul 3. The source of the infection was not known.

In 2004, a similar outbreak of H5N2 in ostriches stopped all poultry exports from South Africa. That outbreak killed 2,000 ostriches on two farms, and officials planned to destroy 6,000 remaining ostriches on the farms.

Highly pathogenic strains of H5N2 virus have caused a number of past outbreaks in birds, though none in humans. H5N2 viruses were blamed for outbreaks in Pennsylvania (1983-85), Mexico (1994-95), Italy (1997), Texas (2004), and South Africa (2004), according to the World Health Organization. In addition, Japan had H5N2 outbreaks in poultry in 2005.

Thai official offers optimistic projection
Thailand’s agriculture minister said yesterday the country hopes too be completely free of avian influenza virus in 3 years. The Thai official, Sudarat Keyuraphan, told Agence France Presse (AFP) that the country has gone 239 days without an outbreak.

"If we are able to control the virus for the rest of this year, we will have fewer worries next year, and I am confident that Thailand will be free from the bird flu virus within three years,” Keyuraphan told AFP. She said the 239-day outbreak-free stretch is notable, given that surrounding countries continue to report the disease.

According to the AFP report, Thailand has recruited 900,000 volunteers to help with prevention efforts, including regularly spraying disinfectant around poultry farms.

In May 2005, Thai officials declared the country free of the H5N1 virus, but more poultry outbreaks were reported the following July, and new human cases emerged in the fall.

See also:

Jul 7 OIE report on avian influenza in Spain
http://www.oie.int/Messages/060707ESP.htm

Jul 5 CFIA report on avian flu test results
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/heasan/disemala/avflu/situatione.shtml

Jun 21 CIDRAP News article "Further tests show no avian flu in Canadian flock"



Jul 3 OIE report on avian influenza in South Africa
http://www.oie.int/Messages/060703ZAF.htm

Aug 6, 2004, CIDRAP News article "Avian flu hits ostriches in South Africa"

May 5, 2005, CIDRAP News article on Thailand’s avian flu battle
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/avianflu/news/may0505avflu.html



Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy
Academic Health Center -- University of Minnesota
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