Posted on 05/09/2005 10:18:08 AM PDT by Dog Gone
Some folks suggested that we begin a thread similar to the Marsburg Surveillance Project for monitoring developments regarding Avian Flu.
The purpose is to have an extended thread where those interested can post articles and comments as this story unfolds.
If we're lucky, the story and this thread will fade away.
Unless they are feeding the pigs growth hormone by the bucket full, I have never heard of this! Funny thing is that growth hormone is gradually being phased out in the Western countries do to concerns over side effects.
I will ask my Dad about this next time I talk to him.
From Recombinomics this morning. The last paragraph is ... interesting...
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/08020507/H5N1_Amantadine_Rimantadine.html
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Amantadine and Rimantadine Sensitive H5N1 Approaches Europe
Recombinomics Commentary
August 2, 2005
As H5N1 continues its migration toward Europe, demand for FDA approved Amantadine and Rimantadine should sky-rocket. The 12 isolates from Qinghai Lake did not have the resistance markers in M2, so H5N1 from northern and western China should be sensitive to both Amantadine and Rimantadine. In Vietnam and Thailand the M2 gene has two changes that make the H5N1 from their resistant, leaving only Tamiflu as an approved and somewhat available treatment for bird flu.
However, Tamiflu is in short supply and in vivo data showed that Tamiflu's effectiveness against H5N1 may require a higher dose. The H5N1 from China should be susceptible, but resistance could develop. Initially, however, bit Amantadine and Rimantadine should be effective against H5N1 that is rapidly migrating toward Europe and should arrive in the next few days, if it is not already there.
____________________________________________________________
Okay, H5N1 from China via Russia to Europe. Wonder how long before it's in the US?
I'm sorry--I meant to ping the list to post 1142 above.
The last paragraph, about the Chinese H5N1 routing from China to Russia to Europe (in the next few days) is what caught my attention.
This thing is spreading westward fast. It really looks like it is now out of any control.
Thanks - particularly for the information about the potential effectiveness of the various antivirals.
This story has now blipped in the MSM in the UK:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1539974,00.html
with quite a soooothing tone.
Bird flu may cost Russian poultry farmers $1 bln
14:10 | 02/ 08/ 2005
http://en.rian.ru/business/20050802/41074347.html
MOSCOW, August 2 (RIA Novosti)-The zone of the chicken flu outbreak in Russia is expanding: the virus has been found in the Altai territory and the Omsk region in the south of Western Siberia, a leading business daily reported Tuesday.
Kommersant wrote that poultry farmers had calculated that if bird flu affected poultry farms, their losses might reach $1 billion.
Dmitry Rylko, director of the Institute of the Agrarian Market Situation, said: "There will be a catastrophe if the virus spreads to Tyumen (north of Western Siberia), Omsk and further, to European Russia," where the country's largest poultry farms are situated.
Experts warn that bird flu may spread to European Russia with chicken egg supplies, up to 50% of which are exported from Tyumen and Krasnoyarsk (Eastern Siberia). If bird flu spreads to such regions as the Leningrad or Moscow regions, virtually every poultry farms will have to be closed.
Market players say that if chicken flu affects poultry farms, their losses may exceed the investments made in the industry over the past five years, which, according to the Russian Poultry Farmers Union, have reached to $800-900 million.
The measures taken by poultry farms to ensure that their products are not contaminated - additional disinfecting and the use of disposable packing for egg transportation - has put the prices of these products by more than 10%.
"Now all producers have to insure their poultry, which will raise the cost of poultry meat production by an average of 3-5%," said Dmitry Aveltsov Stavropolsky, the financial director of the Stravropol Broiler company.
A poultry farm spokesman speaking on the condition of anonymity said: "While we will be resuming production, Brazilian and American chicken legs will again take our place on the market and it will take much more effort and money to force them out of the market for the second time."
According to the paper, market players do not expect a sudden rise in retail prices for chicken meat and eggs. However, in the opinion of Ilya Kunkov, chairman of the board of directors of the Sinyavinskaya poultry farm, "they will probably increase in fall and winter."
Bird flu may cost Russian poultry farmers $1 bln
14:10 | 02/ 08/ 2005
http://en.rian.ru/business/20050802/41074347.html
MOSCOW, August 2 (RIA Novosti)-The zone of the chicken flu outbreak in Russia is expanding: the virus has been found in the Altai territory and the Omsk region in the south of Western Siberia, a leading business daily reported Tuesday.
Kommersant wrote that poultry farmers had calculated that if bird flu affected poultry farms, their losses might reach $1 billion.
Dmitry Rylko, director of the Institute of the Agrarian Market Situation, said: "There will be a catastrophe if the virus spreads to Tyumen (north of Western Siberia), Omsk and further, to European Russia," where the country's largest poultry farms are situated.
Experts warn that bird flu may spread to European Russia with chicken egg supplies, up to 50% of which are exported from Tyumen and Krasnoyarsk (Eastern Siberia). If bird flu spreads to such regions as the Leningrad or Moscow regions, virtually every poultry farms will have to be closed.
Market players say that if chicken flu affects poultry farms, their losses may exceed the investments made in the industry over the past five years, which, according to the Russian Poultry Farmers Union, have reached to $800-900 million.
The measures taken by poultry farms to ensure that their products are not contaminated - additional disinfecting and the use of disposable packing for egg transportation - has put the prices of these products by more than 10%.
"Now all producers have to insure their poultry, which will raise the cost of poultry meat production by an average of 3-5%," said Dmitry Aveltsov Stavropolsky, the financial director of the Stravropol Broiler company.
A poultry farm spokesman speaking on the condition of anonymity said: "While we will be resuming production, Brazilian and American chicken legs will again take our place on the market and it will take much more effort and money to force them out of the market for the second time."
According to the paper, market players do not expect a sudden rise in retail prices for chicken meat and eggs. However, in the opinion of Ilya Kunkov, chairman of the board of directors of the Sinyavinskaya poultry farm, "they will probably increase in fall and winter."
Just a mathematical aside:
If certain key variables are known, it is possible to create a mathematical model that will predict how long it will be until a given disease becomes easily transmissible in humans. The model will not tell you exactly WHEN the change will occur, but it will give you a "best guess" of when (mean, median, and mode), a range of times it may occur in instead, and the level of confidence that the event will occur within a given window of time (i.e., the odds that it will happen during that time period).
As always with statistics, the results will depend entirely on the quality of the data.
The key variables that come to mind are:
1. The SIZE of the subject population. In this case, that means how many infected animals/people there are, and how high the viral load is in the infected animals/people.
COMMENT: It would seem that we have a "large" number of infected birds, and possibly other animals. I am not an epidemiologist and do not know what is considered "large" in that field, but the articles I have read seem to support the conclusion that the current infected population is sufficient to be considered "large". Hence, the virus is currently being given a lot of opportunities to make the changes needed to become readily transmissible in humans.
2. The range of possible genetic changes that would result in a readily human transmissible virus.
COMMENT: We cannot know all of the possible changes that could result in this, but we can certainly make a guess based on comparisons with flu strains that are readily transmissible. NOTE: Most statisticians prefer to use conservative assumptions, and would choose to use only those changes that can be clearly identified when building this type of model.
3. The odds that one of the above identifiable changes will occur when a given virus particle reproduces.
COMMENT: This should be predictable based on the location of the needed changes on the DNA/RNA strand, and how likely the strand is to break at one of those particular points.
Item 3 is probably the key variable in this entire analysis. Early in the course of the disease's evolution the number of needed changes is likely to be quite difficult to quantify. However, when the disease gets to a nearly transmissible stage, which is where H5N1 seems to be now, making these assessments should be possible.
4. How likely it is that an infected animal/person who carries a virus particle that has made this transformation will pass it on.
COMMENT: Further transmission is not likely if the animal dies before a large number of mutated virus particles have been made, or if it is not in contact with other potentially infected hosts.
POSSIBLE HUMAN INTERVENTION:
A. The number of infected animals that comprise variable #1 can be reduced by culling the animal populations that are at risk. This is clearly being attempted, with varying levels of determination.
B. If a genetic transformation sufficient to allow easy human to human transmission, the chain of transmission can be still be stopped if it is caught early enough. If ALL humans who show symptoms of H5N1 are isolated, and those who have been exposed are quarantined, then even a successfully mutated virus variant can be stamped out.
SPECULATION: It certainly seems possible that a readily transmissible human form of H5N1 has begun to spread in a remote part of China. The little we know about China's actions indicates they suspect pigs are now serving as a reservoir for the virus, and that some humans have been infected with a readily transmissible form. Moving 50,000 "medical workers" (i.e., troops) into the province is quite consistent with what I would expect a totalitarian nation to do when faced with this type of crisis.
We will never know how hard China was hit by SARS, but they did manage to eventually stop its spread. Let's hope they can do the same with H5N1. However, since H5N1 is so easily spread by migratory birds, it seems unlikely that it can be kept in the box forever.
EH, that's an outstanding post. I do have a problem with one paragraph:
B. If a genetic transformation sufficient to allow easy human to human transmission, the chain of transmission can be still be stopped if it is caught early enough. If ALL humans who show symptoms of H5N1 are isolated, and those who have been exposed are quarantined, then even a successfully mutated virus variant can be stamped out.
When there are multiple vectors for the mutated virus i.e. pigs and possibly other mammals, then eradicating it in humans will not stop the spread, imho.
Ugh! Tomorrow? Next week?
Good morning...
Thanks for the reply. When people tamper with nature it really gives me the creeps! As if things aren't perfect already.
Cats are also thought to be possible infection vectors for H5N1 strains of avian flu (Kuiken et al, 2004).
I tend to agree with you Judith Anne. As there are multiple vectors and the countries that this is going to be coming out of have a very different view on certain kinds of animals many of us consider pets. In particular is the domestic house-cat that has been considered a possible vector in the spread of H5N1.
My house-cat is truly a house cat as she is housebound. The neighbors cat though being a domestic cat is not a house-cat even though he uses their domicile for shelter. Keeping that in mind I would be concerned for all those people who keep cats in ex. Europe. Ignorance of the possiblity of a vector bearing infected cat, their pet, as a possible killer of humans.
If that becomes the case we will see the mass killing of not only poultry and pigs, but also domestic cats. I think this is a very real possiblity that people who have never had contact with poultry/pigs, but keep a domestic cat may risk their lives to keep their precious pet.
Tragic if they are motivated by hunger, criminal if they are motivated by greed.
Good point, and I agree. However, the mutated variant has to get loose in the relevant animal population for this to happen.
Stamping it out in the affected humans would need to be coupled with measures to keep the mutated form from spreading within the potential animal hosts in the area. Culling the kind of animals the disease was thought to have been transmitted from would have to occur. (I suspect that is the explanation for culling $1 billion of Russian poultry, and the Chinese focus on pigs in an H5N1 infected region.)
Personally, I do not think it can be kept in the box. But we have to try.
Thank you for the map, one of those flyways goes right over us...thanks for the reality check...now I want to move!;- )
This flu is moving very quickly through Russia...I think if it waits until Oct. to arrive here we will be lucky...I also think the public will be the last to know because, like the Chinese, and most all govenments, we will want to delay panic until the last possible moment. I think protecting the economy is important...but being "just one of the masses" I also want to be protected, those two things being in conflict I am sure money will be chosen over our need to know anyday...At this time I think it is really important for everyone to prepare for this, and take responsibility for your family's welfare. Remember President Bush has already signed the Quarantine order, and if implemented it can call into effect martial law... see yourselves with exactly what that means...:-0
I agree with you, although we could both be wrong. I guess I have a subconscious hope, when I say that, that this Avian Flu will be a fizzle, or mutate to be no more dangerous than any other year.
But the Avian Flu has been a killer since 1997...behold, a pale horse...
Think back to 1997, when this flu first appeared on earth. 18 or so people sick, 6 died. Every single chicken in Hong Kong was killed, in a desperate attempt to stop it.
8 years later, it flies west...
Yep.
As I'm sure you recall, the culling of the Hong Kong chicken population was considered essential to stopping the outbreak. If only it were that simple now.
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