Influenza Virus Mashup

(Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:54:00 +0000)

# 6300

Four days after holding hearings in the Netherlands, the Dutch government today announced the granting of an export license to Ron Fouchier which clears the way for the publication of his research on transmissible strains of the H5N1 virus.

The decision was announced today in a letter of authorization posted on the Dutch Ministry for Agriculture and Foreign Trade website.

Letter authorization for export manuscripts on bird flu research

Letter authorization for export manuscripts on bird flu research

Page | 1 page | 31 KB

Unknown type | 27/04/2012 | EL & I

Letter from Secretary Bleacher (EL & I) about the status of the license for the export of manuscripts with detailed information about the modified avian flu virus (H5N1). The Secretary of State has decided to grant the license.

Via Emirates 24/7: Bird flu spreads in Kerala; Indian expats wary of travelling. Excerpt and then a comment:

The spread of H5N1 virus (bird flu) in India, especially the spate of cases in Kerala, is forcing expatriates to rethink their plans to travel home. 

Health officials in Kerala have confirmed that H1N1 cases have touched a dozen – the maximum number of cases being reported in district of Kozhikode. Thrissur, Malappuram, Kasargode and Alappuzha have also reported bird flu cases.   

Keralite expats in Abu Dhabi said they are worried and are postponing their travel plans. Abdul Jalal, an AC technician from Malappuram, is one among them. Jalal said he is afraid that bird flu may spread rapidly in his district. 

“People are not very aware and they do not follow good hygiene. I am scared of getting infected. It is better to be cautious,” he said.   

Kunji Mohammed, who works in a restaurant in Abu Dhabi, said one of his neighbours in his home town in Kozhikode district was infected. “My mother told me over the phone that she is close to the woman who tested positive last week. I am definitely not going now,” he said.

So it's H5N1 in the first paragraph and H1N1 in the second, indicating that the reporter (and maybe the expats) have no clue what they're talking about.

Via VIVAnews.com: Hundreds of Poultry in Bali Bird Flu Positive. Excerpt:

The death of a child in Kintamani, Bangli District, Bali, with the initials of NP, 8, from bird flu infection, has forced the Department of Animal Husbandry in Denpasar and Bali Province to conduct poultry inspection in Satria Bird Market in Denpasar.  

Applying rapid test method, the officers discovered hundreds of poultry being marketed carry the deadly virus.  

“The chickens are bird flu positive. We conducted a restrictive extermination to cut the cycle of H5N1 virus distribution,” said Head of Animal Health Laboratory of the Animal Husbandry Department in Bali Province, Wayan Sukanadi, on Thursday.  

Sukanadi said the decision to inspect the poultry is due to the many reports about the sudden deaths of chickens. Before NP’s death, officers have also received reports about chickens that died shortly after being purchased from the market.  

Considering these symptoms, the Department of Animal Husbandry in Denpasar finally implemented supervision and discovered two dead chickens that were going to be sold. The chickens were positive with the H5N1 virus.  

The authority then implemented focal culling or restrictive elimination in the Satria Bird Market, Denpasar.  

As many as 231 fighting cocks from Probolinggo and Jember, East Java were exterminated, buried and disinfected.  

The exterminated chickens were from seven poultry traders in the market. The Denpasar Town Government compensated the traders with Rp50 thousand per chicken.

A news release from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency: Avian Influenza Viruses Added to Reportable Diseases List. Excerpt:

The Government of Canada has strengthened its approach to controlling avian influenza in domestic poultry by adding low pathogenicity H5 and H7 avian influenza viruses to the list of reportable diseases. 

Most avian influenza viruses are low pathogenicity and typically cause few or no visible signs of illness in infected birds. However, H5 and H7 viruses have the potential to mutate into a highly pathogenic form and cause high mortality in domestic poultry. 

Effective immediately, all suspected or confirmed cases of low pathogenicity H5 and H7, as well as all highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses, must be reported to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). 

"This amendment underscores the Government of Canada's commitment to protecting animal health, public health and the economic viability of our poultry industry," said Canada's Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr. Brian Evans. "We remain vigilant in our efforts to prevent, prepare for and respond to avian influenza." 

The amended Reportable Diseases Regulations formalize Canada's current approach to controlling avian influenza in domestic poultry but do not significantly change what the CFIA does to respond to disease outbreaks. 

When reportable avian influenza viruses are found in domestic poultry, the CFIA works with industry and provincial and territorial government partners to contain and eradicate the disease, and to re-establish Canada's disease-free status as soon as possible.

Via Reuters, a report by Tan Ee Lyn: Hong Kong suspends poultry imports from Liaoning over bird flu. Excerpt:

Hong Kong on Thursday suspended imports of poultry products, including eggs and frozen meat, from China's northeastern Liaoning province for 21 days after the authorities there confirmed an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu. 

Hong Kong imported about 28,000 tonnes of frozen poultry and 103 million poultry eggs from Liaoning in 2011.

"The outbreak in Dalian city was among chickens," said a Hong Kong government spokesman, who had no further details.

This sounds bad. Via The Bangkok Post: Bird flu feared in Ang Thong.

Hundreds and possibly thousands of open-billed storks have died mysteriously in Ang Thong, triggering fear of a new outbreak of bird flu. 

The birds were found dead in open ground behind a deserted factory by the side of the Chamlong-Nong Jik road in tambon Chamlong in Sawangha district after residents noticed that the animals looked drowsy and lay around on the ground, causing a bad stench in the air, the kamnan of Chamlong, Suebsak Waewkaew, said. 

Residents alerted authorities who inspect the site twice and then went away, Mr Suebsak said. 

He demanded the authorities collect samples of the birds’ remains and move quickly to identify the cause of the mass deaths as residents living nearby were worried that bird flu might be involved. 

Suthee Srisuwan, head of the provincial natural resources and environment office, said he had instructed  experts to launch an investigation into the incident. An initial inspection had found huge numbers of dead birds in two locations. He would not elaborate further other than to say an investigation is underway.

(Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:30:00 +0000)

# 6299

Several news outlets overnight are reporting on the death of an 8 year-old  child on the Indonesian island of Bali, ostensibly from the H5N1 virus.

While some of these media reports vaguely indicate a positive lab finding for H5N1, others suggest that the girl’s diagnosis was based on clinical signs and symptoms. Until the Indonesian Ministry of Health confirms this case, it remains `suspected’.

Gert van der Hoek on FluTrackers   has picked up and translated a couple of media reports on this case (another has been added by Shiloh) on this thread.

A translated excerpt from Antara news reads:

 

Patient Died With Clinical Condition for Bird Flu

Wednesday, in April 25 2012
Denpasar (Antara Bali) - A Patient was suspected bird flu, with initial P (8) died when undergoing the maintenance in the central Public Hospital, Denpasar, clinically showed the condition was attacked by this deadly illness.

 

"We indeed treated the patient that clinically his direction to bird flu, afterwards was based on the laboratory inspection simply in RSUD Bangli also showed the picture" of the "virus infection," said the Secretary of the Penanggulangan Committee of the Flu Burung Rumah Sakit Umum Pusat Illness (RSUP) Sanglah, Dr IGB Ken Wirasandhi, on Wednesday.

 

He said, so as the patient of the female child from Kintamani, Kabupaten Bangli, that was at once treated in Nusa space as isolation space for the bird flu sufferer, since his arrival on Tuesday afternoon (24/4) around struck 17,00 Wita.

(Continue . . . )

If confirmed, this case would make the 7th known H5N1 case on the island of Bali.

The H5N1 virus remains poorly adapted to human physiology, and so far remains primarily a threat to poultry and wild birds.

That could change of course, as the dozens of strains and clades around the world continue to mutate and evolve. So we watch these cases with great interest, looking for any signs that the threat has changed.

Via The Jakarta Globe: Bali Boy Dies From Bird Flu. Excerpt:

Denpasar. An eight-year-old boy died from bird flu in a Bali hospital on Tuesday night. 

The boy, Ni Putu Purnami, was in critical condition when he was transferred from Bangli Hospital to Sanglah Hospital on Tuesday afternoon and he was immediately isolated. 

“Clinically, and supported by the VCR (Visual Convention Reaction) laboratory result, the victim was positively infected with the H5N1 virus,” said Sanglah Hospital spokesman Ida Bagus Ken Wirasandi on Wednesday. 

Putu died at 10:15 p.m. after four hours at the hospital. 

Ken said Putu’s family told him the victim was in contact with dead poultry two months ago. 

The Bali Health Agency head Ketut Suarjaya said that seven people on Bali have died since the virus first reached the island in 2007.

The two-month gap between exposure and illness seems unusually long.

Via The Hindu Business Line: 920 cases of swine flu reported this year. Excerpt:

Admitting that cases of pandemic influenza-A H1N1 have re-surfaced in States of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, the Government said a total of 920 cases, including 57 deaths, had been reported across the country this year till April 18. 

Replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha on cases of swine flu resurfacing in some parts of the country, the Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, said an advisory has been sent to all States and UTs to gear up the state machinery for screening and isolation facilities including critical care. 

States/UTs have also been advised to follow guidelines on triage, categorisation and testing of patients, he said, adding 45 laboratories (26 in government sector and 19 in private sector) have the capability to test samples for H1N1 and adequate stock of Oseltamivir, the antiviral drug, is available. 

Maximum number of cases 

The Minister said Maharashtra accounted for the maximum number of 463 cases and 20 deaths, while Andhra Pradesh reported 112 cases and 12 deaths and Rajasthan had 107 cases with 12 deaths, followed by Karnataka where 164 cases were reported, including eight deaths.

(Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:09:00 +0000)

# 6298

Constant readers are aware that I am an unabashed fan of TED Talks, and have featured a number of them in this blog.  TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and participants are invited to `give the 18 minute talk of their lives’ before a live audience.

I was first turned onto the TED Talks when a friend sent me a link to the winner of 2006’s TED Prize, Dr. Larry Brilliant’s presentation on his dream of a new global system that can identify and contain pandemics before they spread. If you’ve never seen this speech, I urge you to watch it now.

There are now over 1100 TED talks on a myriad of subjects, freely available for viewing on the TED Website, and you could spend weeks exploring the site. You can also subscribe to them on itunes or view them on Youtube.

So popular have the official TED TALKS become that local, independently organized versions of them (called TEDx) have sprung up around the world. 

TEXx describes their mission as:

Created in the spirit of TED’s mission, “ideas worth spreading,” the TEDx program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level. TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis

And now there are hundreds of local TEDx events held around the world every month. Their website provides information on upcoming events.

Last weekend the University of Minnesota held a day-long TEDx event (TEDxUMN) , which was live-streamed on the internet, and those videos are now online.

While I would invite you to view all of the talks, I wanted to call attention to one in particular, delivered by Nick Kelley -  preparedness program coordinator at CIDRAP – on Rethinking Influenza Vaccines.

The TEDxUMN talks are archived in two videos on this page, and you’ll find Nick’s in the second (bottom) video, at time stamp 2:16:35. 

Nick’s message is that influenza vaccines – while providing modest (59%) protection in healthy adults (under 65) – are in dire need of improvement. Worse, our inability to produce vaccines quickly seriously limits their value in a pandemic.

Despite these deficits, today’s flu vaccine remain our best weapon against influenza.

Nick argues that our acceptance of today’s vaccine technology as being `good enough’ serves as a psychological barrier to investing in, and developing, better vaccine technologies.

I’ll not give away the rest of his talk.

Follow this link to watch Nick’s entire presentation, and while you are at it, take a look at some of the other dozen plus TEDxUMN presentations.

Personal Note:  I’ll be away from my desk for much of the next three days, and while I’ll have my laptop with me, blogging and updates to this site may be light until Friday.

As always, Crofsblog, Arkanoid Legent, FluTrackers, the Flu Wiki  and Maryn McKenna’s Superbug Blog are terrific resources in Flublogia.