Indonesia Ready to Listen to Reason

And by that, of course, I mean that they will resume sending samples of their H5N1 to the World Health Organization. Here's the WHO itself with the report:


"JAKARTA -- WHO welcomes the news from the Minister of Health of Indonesia, who announced at a joint news conference today that the country would resume sharing of H5N1 avian influenza virus samples “immediately”. This commitment by the Government of Indonesia follows a two-day meeting organized by WHO in Jakarta on 26-27 March 2007.

Indonesia’s Minister of Health, Siti Fadilah Supari, has focused global attention on the fact that developing countries have supplied H5N1 virus to WHO Collaborating Centres for analysis and preparation for vaccine production, but that the resulting vaccines produced by commercial companies are likely to be unavailable to developing countries such as Indonesia. She called this system “unfair.”

At the same time, withholding viruses from WHO Collaborating Centres poses a threat to global public health security and the ongoing risk assessment for influenza, conducted by WHO Collaborating Centres.

WHO Collaborating Centres perform a number of key influenza-related public health activities, including:

• determining if the virus has acquired human genes or made other significant changes;
• identification of potential vaccine strains;
• testing to determine if the virus remains vulnerable to the recommended class of antivirals;
• tracking the evolution of the virus and its geographic spread; and
• updating diagnostics tests which may be necessary because the H5N1 virus, like all influenza viruses, constantly mutates.

WHO has welcomed the attention that the Minister has focused on this issue and her concern for developing country needs. In order to address these concerns and to maintain sample sharing for risk assessment, WHO organized the Jakarta 26-27 March meeting entitled “High Level Technical Meeting on Responsible Practices for Sharing Avian Influenza Viruses and Resulting Benefits”.

Experts at the meeting included representatives from approximately 20 countries which have had H5N1 animal or human outbreaks; senior scientists, including directors of WHO Collaborating Centres; and potential funders, including representatives from the Asian Development Bank and the Gates Foundation.

"We have struck a balance between the need to continue the sharing of influenza viruses for risk assessment and for vaccine development, and the need to help ensure that developing countries benefit from sharing without compromising global public health security,” said Dr David Heymann, WHO’s Assistant Director-General for Communicable Diseases."

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Good news, until they crack the strain's DNA open and see just how nasty it is, of course. I have a strong belief that Jakartan Bird Flu is probably the worst strain in the world, Fujian-type included.

We shall see, now that the "Poultry Curtain" has fallen.

Thai Bird Flu Resistant to Drugs

From IOL:

"Hong Kong - Scientists have found that a strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus circulating in Thailand is resistant to the flu drug amantadine, and they called for rigorous study of H5N1 strains to better treat human victims.

While the World Health Organisation has long recommended that Tamiflu be used as the first line of defence against H5N1, it said last May that a "dual therapy" combining amantadine and Tamiflu may be considered in case of an outbreak.

Yong Poovorawan, a medical professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, said an H5N1 strain in the central part of Thailand had become resistant to amantadine, casting more doubt over its use to fight the disease.

"It would be very dangerous if we don't know the sensitivity or resistance of the strain to amantadine and we use amantadine (to treat people infected with this strain of H5N1)," Yong said.

He urged more rigorous surveillance and study.

Yong and his researchers came to the latest conclusion after studying the molecular structure of the strain, which has been circulating in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam since 2004.

"We need to conduct in vitro experiments," he said, referring to experiments in a laboratory or other controlled settings.

However, he could not say how effective a dual Tamiflu-amantadine therapy may be as Thailand has not tried administering such a treatment.

Their findings were published in the March issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

There are two H5N1 strains circulating in Thailand, one in the northeast and the other in the central part of the country.

Yong identified the strain in the northeast province of Nakhon Phanom as the Fujian-like strain, which an international group of virologists said in October may start another wave of H5N1 outbreaks in poultry in Southeast Asia and Eurasia.

The Fujian-like strain was first isolated in China's southern Fujian province in 2005."

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But the Chinese government says that the Fujian-type strain doesn't exist! How could independent Thai scientists isolate it and study it? And here I was thinking China was a completely honest and open partner in the fight against H5N1...

Too bad the WHO doesn't have access to the nasty bastard thats raging in Indonesia, which in all accounts appears to be Tamiflu-resistant.

Pro-tip: Amantadine is the chemical name of the antiviral drug Symmetrel.

Top Interpol Official Warns of Bioterror Attacks

From Gulfnews.com:

"Muscat: A top Interpol officer yesterday said that law enforcement agencies around the world should be prepared for a bioterrorist attack.

"Al Qaida could use chemical or biological weapons to perpetrate its terrorist actions," said Ronald K. Noble, Interpol Secretary General, to Gulf News on the sidelines of the Interpol Workshop on Preventing Bioterrorism, at a hotel here.

He said that the training material recovered from Al Qaida and information gathered from some of their captured operatives have convinced the world law enforcement community that the terrorist outfit has had plans to use chemical and biological weapons in their actions.

"Nobody really knows when Al Qaida will strike with chemical or biological weapons but it is just a matter of time before the terrorists believe they are ready," he said, adding that the only restraints the terrorists were facing was the technical complexity of operating them properly and effectively.

Justifying the fears of bioterrorism, Noble said: "In Iraq there have been no fewer than three chlorine bomb attacks, targeting innocent civilians, in the recent past. It is not difficult to imagine these attacks being extended from chemical to biological."

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The Interpol, of course, having much more of a reputation to uphold than pretty much any other intelligence agency besides maybe Mossad, coming out with a warning about bioterror should carry some weight.

I know the rabid left (and I am not implicating all leftist or social democratic parties or people here!) like to believe that all terrorist warnings are fictions of the Bush administration, but I think Interpol is just a tad bit removed from US politicking.

I imagine Al Queda bioterror attacks will be largely simplistic in nature - infecting water supplies and crops and such Either that or they will be fairly harmless but big and showy, which is always the terrorist's preference...

You only need a small amount of anthrax in a powder substrate to give the desired effect, I can an imagine an IUD exploding in a crowded market, only no big explosion, just a bunch of white powder everywhere. I think 1 part per 1000 anthrax to baking powder or whatever will certainly make a few people sick.

I hereby coin the term "powder bomb." You saw it in print here first, folks!

H5N1 Report Round-Up

Hey folks! Sorry it's been a long little while since I updated. As I am a college student, the past two weeks have been midterm hell. So, you can expect another little pause near the second week of May, as well... heh.

While I have been studying and writing about a billion papers H5N1 has been pretty active. I assume you go to other sources for your bird flu news when I'm not regularly updating, and I tend to only report on fairly interesting news anyway (new infections, new deaths...), so a lot of this may be redundant...

Indonesia was going to give it's H5N1 samples to the WHO, but has recently decided that it will not do so after all, and will not share it's bird flu samples. This came a few days before the country confirmed its 65th death from H5N1.

Right, of course there's no interest to take a look at the strain that has killed the most people worldwide besides to use it for exploitative pharmaceuticals. Indonesia, your rhetoric rings hollow and your political games will only result in the death of more of your people!

Aside from Indonesia, Egypt has also confirmed new H5N1 infections. Seemingly out of the woodwork, H5N1 has also hit Laos and Kuwait. All this now in Mid-March, well out of the flu season.

In the humor section, the deputy administrator of the USDA-ARS made a fairly boneheaded statement (in a Scientific American article), referring to H5N1 entering the US via migratory fowl:

It is unlikely that a sick bird would be able to carry the deadly H5N1 avian influenza virus into the United States through the Pacific and Atlantic flyways, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

"The distance may be too long for a (sick) bird to get that far," Steve Kappes, deputy administrator at the U.S. Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service, told reporters at a briefing on bird flu.

It's as if he didn't know that wild birds are CARRIERS of H5N1 and do not usually show signs of the illness or are killed by it! That would be ridiculous to assume, though, as I'm sure the administration of the USDA are very intelligent and aware of how biological and ecological systems work, as well as the current state of the bird flu situation...

Scientific American seemed to be unaware of this basic fact as well, unless this esteemed scientific journal (er, pop-sci trash) believes that a chicken in any state of health has a chance of crossing the Atlantic ocean.

Well, I hope that's made up somewhat for my hiatus in posting. My bioterror and conspiracy round-up will be sure to follow tomorrow or the next day. Its my spring break coming up this week so I'm sure I will inundate you all with biological minutiae as I have no money and thus will be bored as hell.

Take care!

China Confirms New Human H5N1 Infection

From CBS News:

"A farmer in southeast China has contracted the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, state media reported Thursday.

Xinhua News Agency said it was China's first human case of bird flu since Jan. 10, when the government said a 37-year-old farmer in Anhui province in eastern China had contracted bird flu but had recovered.

In the latest case, in coastal Fujian province, Xinhua said a 44-year-old farmer with the surname Li was diagnosed on Feb. 18 after he developed a fever and began coughing.

Xinhua said tests by the provincial disease control and prevention center showed Li had been infected with the H5N1 virus strain and that the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the result on Feb. 27.

The report did not say whether the farmer worked with poultry or whether infected birds were found."

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China waited 12 days to report this news. Maybe in two weeks we'll get to find out whether he died or not.

Also note how amazingly detailed the report was! "Farmer has the bird flu." What farm? Was it a poultry farm???

The lack of information and delay in reporting is just a little suspect, I think. Watch this turn out to be a pig farmer.

Year of the pig, indeed!

Peanut Butter Confirmed as Source of Salmonella Outbreak

From the magazine you can trust (when they're not reporting about physics), Scientific American:

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An outbreak of salmonella food poisoning linked to peanut butter has widened to 329 people in 41 states, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.

Local health officials in Illinois and Pennsylvania were checking to see if the deaths of an elderly man and an elderly woman might have been caused by the contaminated peanut butter.

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said all Peter Pan peanut butter bought since May 2006, and all of Wal-Mart Inc.'s Great Value peanut butter with the batch code 2111 should be discarded. ConAgra Foods Inc. makes both, and has recalled all potentially contaminated batches.

The company said on Thursday that tests by some states found the salmonella bacteria in peanut butter produced at its Sylvester, Georgia, plant, where its Peter Pan and Great Value brands are made.

ConAgra spokeswoman Stephanie Childs said salmonella had been detected in its peanut butter in Iowa, and in other unspecified states.

"We are truly sorry for any harm that our peanut butter products may have caused," Gary Rodkin, chief executive of ConAgra, said in a statement released on Thursday."

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When it comes to peanut butter, I've always held that its not something to skimp on. Choosy moms choose Jiff for a reason: Its not contagious! (and its the tastiest!)

I also looove how this whole thing started in Iowa. Seriously Iowa, what the fuck is going on with you guys? One more outbreak originating from you and I will officially label you "the plague state". I'll make a graphic too, and put it right above my topic cloud. You've been warned.

And please people, don't ever buy anything made by ConAgra or Sysco, it's all crap. Have a little nutritional self-respect.

Bird Flu Hits Four Moscow Districs

In Russia, the Birds Cull You! Sorry, that was bad. Anyway, looks like there's a pretty bad H5N1 outbreak in Russia's capitol right now... Here's the story from The Toronto Star:

"MOSCOW (AP) – A Russian official reported a fourth outbreak of dead domestic poultry in a suburban Moscow district Sunday as experts tightened quarantines following confirmation of the presence of the H5N1 bird-flu strain.

The presence of H5N1, confirmed by tests late Saturday, was the first such outbreak to be recorded so close to the Russian capital.

Dead domestic fowl were reported Sunday in the Taldom district, north of the capital, Andrei Barkovsky, a spokesman for the Moscow regional governor, told Ekho Moskvy radio, although it was unclear exactly when the deaths occurred.

Earlier, officials with the federal agricultural oversight agency Rosselkhoznadzor said three districts west and south of Moscow had recorded bird deaths.

Agency spokesman Alexei Alexeyenko said late Saturday that tests had confirmed H5N1 in poultry found dead in two districts, Odintsovo and Domodedovo, where two dozen birds died this week. Results of tests taken in the Podolsk district, where nearly four dozen birds died, were pending.

Officials said several people who were in close contact with the dead poultry were taken in for medical observation, but no health problems had been reported.

Russian television broadcast footage showing veterinary workers clad in protective suits checking homes in one district and spraying vehicle tires with disinfectant, while police began enforcing a quarantine in an effort to prevent the virus's spread.

Regulators also shut down an outdoor poultry market in Moscow where some of the dead birds appeared to have been bought and Nikolai Vlasov, a senior veterinary official, warned that more outbreaks were possible.

No human cases of bird flu have been reported in Russia, which had its first reported cases of the H5N1 strain in Siberia in 2005. Outbreaks have since occurred farther west, but mostly in southern areas distant from the capital."

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In other Bird Flu News, Turkey has outbreaks in ten villages, the lady infected in Egypt died, and Bernard Matthews is under investigation.

Let's just hope the Ides of March is good to us this year, the Ides of February was not so kind.

Egyptian Woman Positive for H5N1

From the International Herald Tribune:

"CAIRO, Egypt: An Egyptian woman has tested H5N1 positive, bringing the total number of persons infected with the deadly bird flu strain in the country to 21, a World Health Organization official here said on Wednesday.

The 37 year-old woman, from the oasis town of Fayoum, some 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Cairo, was moved to a hospital for contagious diseases in the Egyptian capital, WHO's John Jabbour said.

Twenty-one people have been infected with the deadly H5N1 strain in Egypt so far, with 12 of them dying from the disease. Of the 12 deaths, 11 have been women.

Almost all cases reported in Egypt were among families raising domestic poultry and women accounted for most of the patients. In Egypt, women and girls tend to look after chickens and turkeys kept in backyards, making them more vulnerable to avian flu.

Since the avian influenza outbreak a year ago, Egypt has been one of the countries worst afflicted with the deadly bird flu outside Asia, where the disease originated.

Also, Egypt has seen an increase in the death rate from the bird flu infection over the winter months, which sparked fears that the strain of the virus may be mutating to a more drug resistant form.

Egypt's latest case was identified as Nadia Mohammad Abdel Hafez. The woman was first admitted to a clinic her hometown of Fayoum on Monday, with high fever and symptoms of pneumonia, Jabbour said.

Once she tested positive, she was transferred to Cairo but is reported to be in stable condition."