Avian Flu

<grin>

Yes, that's correct.

For older folks, children, and those with compromised immune systems (like myself) it's almost mandatory good sense.

We're nearly there for this year.

I'm definitely getting a shot this year! Last year I felt I didn't need it so much that I had to "take" a shot from someone at a much greater risk... due to the shortage.

Gads, I was so sick with the flu for so long, I think I'll be getting a shot every year from now on!

Is that a picture of you Reyn?

Is there any sense in the U.S. if there will be any shortage of flu vaccines this year, like it was last year?

We had seniors by the busloads coming to BC last year for theirs. A clinic in White Rock did a booming business.

Yep, but it will only be there until I can get a better one. I plan to get a digital camera soon, and hope improve on the original shot. It's rather a crappy one, as it was taken in one of those "photo booths".

Colorbook helped me make it as an avatar, as I had trouble getting it under the 6kb needed for the forum.

Wow - you're CUTE!!!!

hehe, Photo fooled you, too, eh? Of course, from that angle, you can't see the big hump on my back. As a hobby, I ring bells.

I've been asked if I have a painting in a closet that ages. The answer to that is "Yes"! Nobody believes that I'm 54.

Hopefully, my wife will never read this, but she is 7 years younger than me. hehe, She's been mistaken as the same age as me. :wink:

Avian flu vaccine being tested in Adelaide and Melbourne as of now.


"Australian bird flu vaccine trials begin
Australian scientists have begun a trial to develop a vaccine against bird flu.

The vaccine, which is being produced by CSL, is the first of its type in the world and could be ready by the middle of next year.

More than 60 people have died since 2000 after contracting the bird flu from poultry.

There is an epidemic among Asian bird populations and health authorities believe a human pandemic is almost inevitable if the virus mutates and transmits from human to human.

Australia has accelerated trials of a vaccine, with 400 people in Melbourne and Adelaide to be injected with a dead virus.

Volunteers

A call has been put out to Adelaide residents to volunteer for the clinical trials.

The tests will be conducted by at the CMax clinical trial unit at the Royal Adelaide Hospital from next week.

CMax spokeswoman Jane Kelly says volunteers will be tested over many weeks to examine how their immune systems have responded to the vaccine.

"Once they're on the study they'll come in and have a vaccine, come back 21 days later and have another vaccine and then come back for a visit 21 days after that," she said.

"So it's 42 days and then there are follow up visits at six months and 12 months."

If successful, the vaccine could then be supplied to the entire Australian population if a threat breaks out."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1474450.htm


And:

'Australian bird flu team bound for Indonesia
An Australian team will arrive in Indonesia today to help assess the threat posed by the deadly avian influenza.

The policy advisers are being led by Bruce Davis, who is the head of the Australian Government's aid bureau, AusAid.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says the experts are being deployed to see how Australia can support Indonesia.

"Talks are going to involve discussions with both the health and agriculture ministers and looking for ways of very substantially strengthening Indonesia's capacity to deal with avian flu," he said.

"This was planned some time ago.

"But we want to keep the normality of the relationship going. And avian flu, despite the Bali bombings, still remains a very significant priority."

Mr Downer says the team will make an assessment of the threat, convey Australia's concerns and agree on further assistance.

He says Indonesia is struggling to cope with the outbreak.

"As things currently stand, I think they've been struggling a bit with it," he said.

"We've provided them with 50,000 anti-viral course and that obviously is important

"I think without our 50,000 anti-viral courses they wouldn't really have the capacity to counter the bird flu that has infected some people."

The courses of anti-viral drugs are part of a $5 million aid package Australia has offered Indonesia.

'Too late'

The Federal Opposition says the deployment of the team to Indonesia is "too little, too late".

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd says the Government has been slow to act.

"My fear about Mr Downer's package is that it may end up being too little, too late," he said.

"We have been calling on Mr Downer to act on this since the beginning of the year. It is now October. That's a long, long time and many months have been wasted."'

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1474262.htm



Real Media stream of comments re terrorism hindering fight against avian flu:

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200510/r60273_165760.ram

Uh, will a vaccine developed for the current virus be effective against a mutated virus?

I guess we are likely to find out.

If the vaccine proves safe.

Well, I hope nobody has to find out if it works.

I caught the tail-end of a segment on CKNW of the possibility of future flu pandemics and how Canada is "better prepared". I sure hope so. What was interesting to me was the fact that they were reporting that the U.S. is now using the same emergency protocols as Canada. So, I figure we must be doing something right.

I found it very ironic that Americans were coming up here in droves last year desperate to get a flu shot. It will be interesting to see how things turn out for this year.

Canada is better prepared now for flu pandemic
Oct, 04 2005 - 11:40 AM

VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980) - It's not a matter of if - it's a matter of when.

Canada's chief public health officer says a flu pandemic is inevitable in this country, but adds Canada is perceived as the most prepared in the world, for such an outbreak.

Doctor David Butler-Jones says Canada is much more ready now than to years ago to handle a flu pandemic, and he doesn't lay awake at night worrying about the prospect.

But he would rather have a few more years to prepare; pointing out not all communities are as organized for such a health emergency as others:

"We're well on the road. We still have an awful lot of work to do including getting an effective vaccine."

Butler-Jones made his comments in the opening address to a three-day emergency preparedness conference in Vancouver.

Source[/color]

As Reyn said, weve had a several bout hit of avian flu since the late 90's. Almost all the chickens in the big Chicken growing area of the Delmarva peninsula were killed in a big chicken slaughtering and diposing. A guy I know who runs a game bird operation on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake had to slaughter an entire bunch of his golden pheasants and "historic" breeds of turkeys and scooby ducks. He killed them and then put the carcasses into his crabbing "drake tailed" boat. He ws gonna take them out to the crab grounds and dump the carcasses to serve as crab food.
All he managed to do was leave a lot of dead birds floating around (he didnt even weight them down-even though he was a regular viewer of the sopranos) . He got caught by the clam cops and they thought he was poaching ducks until they saw these turkeys and golden pheasants. Then they called the wildlife biologists and they came out with moon suits on to clean up the carcae . Theres really no moral to the whole thing other than it doesnt pay big to be caught doing something really stupid.
He had to pay for the fisheries biologists and they declared it an environmnetal hazrd so that got his name in the Baltimore Sun and the Salisbury paper

Europe:

Romania reports bird flu cases in Danube
October 9, 2005


Romania reported new cases of avian flu in the Danube delta yesterday and started to cull hundreds of birds to prevent the disease from spreading.

Ion Agafitei, the country's chief veterinarian, told reporters three birds had tested positive for the virus in the village of Smardan.

The country reported its first cases of the disease, one strain of which can be dangerous to humans, on Friday.

"We have killed 220 (domestic) birds so far in Ceamurlia de Jos, where the first cases occured," Agafitei said. "The process is ongoing and will continue."

Further tests would be undertaken to discover if the virus was harmful to humans, he said. Quarantines had been imposed on other six villages where suspect bird deaths had occurred in recent days.

The H5N1 avian flu virus has infected more than 100 people, killing at least 60 in Asia since late 2003 and has decimated flocks of poultry in southeast Asia.

H5N1 has been officially registered in six Russian regions in Siberia and the Urals, and has also been confirmed in Kazakhstan.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/romania-reports-bird-flu-cases-in-danube/2005/10/08/1128563039192.html

From New Scientist.com:

NewScientist.com - NEWSFLASH

Deadly Asian bird flu is in Europe

The bird flu outbreak in turkeys in northwest Turkey was caused by
the same strain of H5N1 bird flu that was isolated in August 2005
from poultry in Siberia - meaning that the deadly strain has reached
Europe as feared.

It is the same virus as found in wild birds in Mongolia and Qinghai
Lake in China in spring 2004. Those in turn derived from the H5N1
that has spread across East Asia, so far killing at least 60 people.
It is thought to pose the greatest current risk of a human flu
pandemic.

Click on the link below for the full story on NewScientist.com/news:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8150



And:


Bird flu: kick-start vaccination or face the consequences
15 October 2005
From New Scientist Print Edition
Debora Mackenzie
Kristin Choo


SUDDENLY, the threat of avian flu is getting some serious attention in the US. Representatives of 80 countries met in Washington DC last week to discuss strategies to contain outbreaks of the virus.

Meanwhile Michael Leavitt, US Secretary of Health and Human Services, this week made his first official trip to Asia to encourage leaders in the region to do more to stop the virus spreading. And a decision by the US senate to earmark an extra $4 billion to protect the country against a flu pandemic is awaiting approval by the House of Representatives.

These moves are welcome, but do not go far enough, flu experts say. Substantial commercial, political and bureaucratic barriers remain that will stop us being able to vaccinate enough of the world's people to contain any pandemic. What is urgently required is a global plan to combat the threat.

“Because the virus is new to our immune systems, people will need two injections. That halves the number we can protect”The problem boils down to numbers. A hybrid vaccine virus has already been produced that could immunise people against the H5N1 bird flu virus. But manufacturers can't make enough of it. Production capacity will not significantly increase any time soon, beyond a few new plants already under construction in Europe, and with the equipment available they can make only a few kilograms of the viral protein that forms the basis of the vaccine. If each dose contains 15 micrograms (g) of viral protein, as in vaccines against ordinary flu, that's enough for no more than 900 million doses of vaccine over a normal six-month production cycle (New Scientist, 28 February 2004, p 36).

But that doesn't mean 900 million people can be protected. Because H5N1 is new to our immune system, people will need two vaccinations a few weeks apart. That halves the number who can be protected within six months to 450 million.

And even that is likely to be wildly optimistic. "This virus has done a number on us," says Robert Webster of St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. In August, human trials of the hybrid vaccine showed that each person would require two 90-g doses. That equates to enough vaccine worldwide for 75 million people, or around one quarter the US population.

The way round this, say vaccine experts, is to boost the power of the shots by combining them with a simple immunity-stimulating chemical called an adjuvant. Norbert Hehme at vaccine maker GlaxoSmithKline in Dresden, Germany, has made a vaccine that can induce full immunity against relatives of the H5 family of bird flu viruses with two doses of just 1.9 g each.

Given existing production capacity for H5N1, this would allow 3.5 billion people to be protected. That is as many as could practically be immunised, given other limitations, says David Fedson, founder of the vaccine industry's pandemic task force. But the US trials did not use adjuvant, despite warnings that without it only large doses would work (New Scientist, 26 March, p 10).

Trials of adjuvant with doses down to 7.5 g have begun in Australia and Hungary, and are planned in Canada, the US and Japan. But no one is looking at the smaller doses that would be needed to stretch the available vaccine as far as it needs to go.

"By not determining the lowest dose that is acceptably immunogenic, the vaccine companies have shown they do not understand the unforgiving arithmetic of pandemic vaccine supply," Fedson told New Scientist. "That means millions will not receive vaccine, and thousands will die. Economists call this an opportunity cost. I call it a tragedy."

Commercial considerations are also getting in the way. Companies have not yet worked out how to share patented techniques for making the vaccines, and are reluctant to start human trials on vaccines that have no guaranteed market. "If we have purchase guarantees from governments, that changes things," says Bram Palache of the Belgian-based vaccine maker Solvay. The US, UK and France, among others, have placed such orders in the past few months, which is why trials are now starting, But the constraints on vaccine production mean these orders may never be fulfilled.

There are political obstacles too. Nearly 70 per cent of the world's vaccine manufacturing capacity is in five countries in western Europe, and virus expert Albert Osterhaus of Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, predicts these countries will be reluctant to allow vaccine to be exported until their own populations are immunised.

Fedson, however, believes these barriers can be overcome. What is needed, he argues, is a well-funded international body along the lines of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, launched by the UN in 2002, which has spent $3 billion tackling these diseases. A similar body for pandemic flu, Fedson says, could coordinate vaccine development and fund the testing that will get us the low-dose, adjuvanted vaccine that may be needed to fight a global pandemic. "Wouldn't it be horrible if a pandemic comes and afterwards we discover we could have made far more vaccine?" he says. "We'll look like fools."

Such a body could also head off the political crisis that would ensue if vaccine-manufacturing countries decide to immunise their own people before allowing vaccine to be exported. "Can you imagine the conflict that would result if people in Bordeaux get vaccinated and people in Barcelona don't?" says Fedson. By paying into a global collaboration, he says, the "have-not" countries could ensure that they will get a share of vaccines made elsewhere..............


Full article here:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg18825215.900

Update from THIS POST.

Unfortunately, my community has been hit with a possible problem of Avian flu again. Sadly, this below link is in the news today. Just when farmers are slowly starting to recover from the 2004 outbreak.

B.C. farm quarantined after bird flu found in single duck

This is just preliminary news. There is speculation whether or not this is the dangerous strain that can be passed down to humans or not. We will know in a few days after testing is complete.

Myself, I feel that wild populations of various birds are at the root of this problem spreading infected feces.

I knew this would happen. Several countries, including U.S. have closed the border to imports due to one bird testing positive for Avian flu.

Small Impact Expected by Border Ban on BC Birds

Oh, oh! This does not look good!

More birds to be destroyed after second finding of avian flu in B.C.

avian flu
...A THREAT WORSE THAN TERROR ?...

this is the title/link of a newsweek article (oct 31, 2005 issue , picked up at library yesterday).
this article and another in the same issue, titled "the fight against the flu" , do not paint a pretty picture. i've had trouble getting a direct link to the article, perhaps you can find the back-issue.
the article claims that the world and the united states are completely unprepared to deal with a flu-pandemic. scientists claim it is lack of money that's the biggest problem right now.
some bits from the articles :
-this year's u.s. funding for the project = $119 million; funding for ballistic missile defense = over $10 billion; r&d spending for new fighter $4.5 billion:
-WHO had "five" scientists working on project, now "up to twelve" ! WHO lives hand-to-mouth and simply does not have the resources to deal with this;
-scientists suggest a "manhattan project" approach is neede to deal with it;
-some way has to be found to compensate poor farmers in underdeveloped nations to participate in reporting and cuullig of fowl.- again MONEY;
-quote from richard falkenrath, until recently, deputy homeland security adviser : " a flu pandemic is the most dangerous threat the united states face today. it's a bigger threat than terrorism ... if this would happen, the government would mostly be a bystander, not a manager" ;
-a crude nuclear device would probably kill hundreds of thousands; a flu pandemic ? - it could easily kill several million of people.

if you can lay your hands on that issue of newsweek, i suggest you read it. it's not a "scare mongering" article but a well-documented science report. hbg