Avian Flu Surveillance Project

Various ^ | May 9, 2005 | Vanity

[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.

[EBH]

That's what I thought and that's what is posted a few months back on this thread. The vaccine is experimental, being pushed for development, but will be administered through the the DoD. In addition, that is why the administration is looking into lifting the ability of the American people to sue the drug manufactures if some people are hurt from the use of the vaccine in the event of a pandemic. The usual FDA approval process would tie up this vaccine for years and if the pandemic develops we won't have time for such matters of approval.

[EBH]

See posts in the 1200-1270-1350 range for the experimental vaccine they are working on. It is mixed in with the suis flu discussions...but it's there.

[EBH]

Daily Bird Flu News Updates:
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/LatestNews/?AREA=LatestNews&Display=6187

People's Daily - 19th October 2005
Romania detects more suspected bird flu cases
ROMANIA detected new cases of suspected bird flu in the Danube delta and one of them occurred close to the border with Ukraine, Agriculture Minister Gheorghe Flutur said on Tuesday.
"A swan tested positive with (bird flu) antibodies close to the border with Ukraine, near the village of C.A. Rosetti. A few swans in Maliuc and a wild duck in Ceamurlia de Jos also tested seropositive," Flutur told reporters.

---

Xinhua via Thanhien News - 19th October 2005
Vietnam reports new bird flu outbreak
VIETNAM - All told, 400 ducks have perished in Vietnam’s southern Bac Lieu province, stricken with bird flu, a local official said Tuesday. "According to tests by the Regional Animal Health Center in Can Tho city, the fowl were infected with a type A bird flu virus strain," said Nguyen Phuc Tai, director of the provincial Animal Health Department.
Some 400 out of over 500 ducks raised by a local farmer in Hong Dan district died by Monday, he said, adding that the whole flock, which had yet to be vaccinated against bird flu, was culled Tuesday morning.
Bac Lieu had vaccinated more than 400,000 fowls out of its poultry population of over 1.1 million, said Lam Tri Thong, deputy head of the provincial Animal Health Department.

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The Guardian - 19th October 2005
Farmers warned free range poultry may be barred
Free range poultry farmers in Britain are being warned to make emergency preparations to house millions of runaround birds indoors as UK authorities remain on high alert to the spread of avian flu.
The upgraded advice from the National Farmers' Union, being issued in mailshots this week, comes as a leading supermarket stepped in yesterday to prevent panic. Although scientists have found no evidence that the H5NI bird flu virus can be passed to humans from eating infected birds, Asda put up notices at fridge points in an attempt to head off a consumer boycott. "We want to tell the public that all Asda's chicken is British and can be traced back to the farms where it was reared," a supermarket spokesman said.

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The Times - 19th October 2005
Poultry farmers to step up safguards
CHICKEN and turkey farmers throughout the country have been taking precautions in a determined effort to keep the deadly avian flu virus out of Britain. Poultry have not yet been ordered indoors but many farmers are using netting to protect their flocks from the threat of wild birds. Birds are also being fed and watered inside to deter wild birds or other pests and any potholes that collect water and could also attract wild birds are being filled in.

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MediCorp - 19th October 2005
Greece bans poultry shipments from bird flu-tainted region
GREECE - A Greek veterinarian sprays disinfectant at a small poultry farm in Oinousses. Greece banned all poultry shipments in the eastern Aegean Sea region and placed the elderly owners of a poultry flock under surveillance at home as it awaited tests to show whether the deadly Asian strain of bird flu has reached the country.

---

The Star - 19th October 2005
Iran braces for bird flu as fowl migrate for winter
TEHRAN - Iran has banned bird hunting and is stocking up on flu vaccines as it braces for what officials acknowledge is a highly likely outbreak of bird flu which has already arrived at its borders.
"We haven't seen a case yet, but we are extremely concerned because Iran is surrounded by the virus," Behrouz Yasemi, head of Iran's Bird Flu Committee, told Reuters.

---

Irish Examiner - 19th October 2005
Ireland will cull to stop bird flu
IRELAND will not vaccinate poultry against bird flu, Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan said yesterday. Instead the country’s fowl population will be culled and any suspect or infected flocks killed, she said.
Health ministers meet in Britain today, Thursday and Friday where they will evaluate how prepared each country is for a human flu pandemic and arrange to test systems later this year.

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iAfrica - 19th October 2005
SA to test for bird flu
SOUTH AFTICA - A Durban scientist has been tasked with collecting bird faeces from the city's harbour, which will be tested for signs of bird flu. The World Health Organisation recently warned that millions of people around the world could die if the virus mutated and was spread from person to person.

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Xinhuanet - 19th October 2005
Vietnam to reestablish poultry checkpoints
HANOI - Vietnam is going to reestablish fowlquarantine checkpoints along main roads to localities and at border areas, local newspaper Saigon Liberation on Wednesday quoted a deputy prime minister as saying.
Facing the high risk of bird flu relapse this winter, Vietnam will set up the checkpoints to monitor the transport of poultry, and accelerate vaccination among fowls, and disinfection of farms and nearby residential areas, said Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

---

The Malay Mail - 19th October 2005
Revamped Animal Ordinance law ready by next year
KUALA LUMPUR - Some segments of agriculture would be affected should parts of the country be quarantined following an outbreak of avian flu, a Department of Homeland Security official said Monday.
The Veterinary Services Department (VSD) is in the process of amending the Animal Ordinance 1953, and is confident it will be finalised next year. Its director-general, Datuk Dr Hawari Hussein, said the amendments would include penalties “significant enough” to send out a clear message — that animal cruelty will not be tolerated.
Declining to elaborate on the penalties under the Act, he attributed the delay in amending the ordinance to the legal process. Dr Hawari said the department is looking at educating the public on the treatment of animals. “The public must be educated on how animals should be treated,” he said.

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Daily Telegraph - 19th October 2005
Bird flu warning for whole of EU
EU - A top European health official yesterday warned the public to brace itself for outbreaks of Asian bird flu across the EU, as scientists worked round the clock to determine whether a suspected case of the virus in Greece involved the deadly H5N1 strain.
Markos Kyprianou, the EU health commissioner, told an emergency meeting of EU ministers in Luxembourg that the apparently relentless march of the disease westwards from Asia was unlikely to stop soon.

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News from Russia - 19th October 2005
More birds must be kept indoors, German officials says
GERMANY - German officials on Tuesday increased the number of areas where domestic fowl must be kept indoors in an effort to prevent contact with migrating birds possibly carrying the bird flu virus.
Following a meeting between federal and state agricultural officials, several new German states said they would require farmers to keep domestic birds inside in areas that are considered to be at risk for contact with migrating wild fowl.

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Associated Press via Star Telegram - 19th October 2005
Agriculture would be affected by bird flu outbreak
TEXAS - Some segments of agriculture would be affected should parts of the country be quarantined following an outbreak of avian flu, a Department of Homeland Security official said Monday.
John Hoffman told the Texas Cattle Feeders Association that the movement of farm equipment and products, including grain for bird feed, would be slowed if a massive quarantine were ordered following a bird flu outbreak.

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Baxter Bulletin - 19th October 2005
Local & state poultry industry eyes bird flu
ARKANSAS - The continued success of Arkansas' poultry industry could depend on feathered friends in other countries. The outbreak of avian influenza virus, or bird flu, has captured the world's attention prompting state officials to closely monitor poultry in Arkansas. The $3 billion poultry production industry in Arkansas ranks second in the United States behind to Georgia.

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Cambridge Evening News - 19th October 2005
'Stores to blame for this new crisis'
UK - Greedy supermarkets are to blame for bird flu, says MEP Robert Sturdy. Mr Sturdy, who represents the Eastern Region in Brussels and is the Conservative spokesman for international trade, said supermarkets had unwittingly caused the crisis by putting pressure on Asian poultry farmers to produce the cheapest birds, which could result in lower hygiene standards

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Haaretz - 19th October 2005
Only some poultry farms sealed against avian flu
ISRAEL - The chickens in Yitzhak Ben Harush's coop on Moshav Megidim, near Haifa, hatched from their eggs some 40 days ago. The young fowl were focused primarily on drinking water and eating their feed mixture, oblivious to the fact that their lifespan was already measured in hours: Chickens raised for their meat are sent for slaughter when they are 39 to 50 days old.

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FT - 19th October 2005
Shoppers wary of poultry in Europe as official assurances fail to calm fears
EU - Poultry consumption has begun to fall in parts of Europe as fears grow over the spread of bird flu despite official assurances that cooked birds remain safe to eat.
Chicken sales have fallen by athird in Italy, and prices have dropped by up to 40 per cent over the past month or so, according to the Italian farmers' union.

[EBH]

Have any of you clicked through to the Poultry Site? Take a look at the picture in the right hand sidebar of birds being destroyed by fire. I am not one to get crazy about such matters, but it sure looks like the Hound of Hell in the smoke near the top of the cloud and several demonlike creatures near the bottom dancing about. Really weird or maybe just my imagination.

I don't know how to post pics on FR even with all the helpful instructions from fellow FReepers and the HTML Bootcamp. The right click on my computer doesn't pull up the pic addy? Perhaps someone could pull that pic over?

[I'll be your Huckleberry]

Thank you for taking the time to straighten this question out.

My wife and I follow these threads religiously, and we were confused as well.

We all appreciate your work, and your dedication to accuracy.

Your original statement that "there is no vaccine under commercial development", appears to be spot on.

For those who choose to argue with MA, I urge caution.

[bitt]

great post - must see
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TechCentralStation has posted a few good articles recently about this issue. Here's the most recent:

http://www.techcentralstation.com/101705B.html
Preparing for the Pandemic
Henry I. Miller, MD

I have a long and intimate relationship with influenza virus. More than 30 years ago, I was the co-discoverer of one of the viral enzymes that are essential for the virus to duplicate and proliferate. Later, my medical training taught me respect for this pathogen. Real influenza -- as opposed to a garden-variety cold -- is a serious illness. Its victims don't soon forget the fever, headache, muscle aches and profound weakness, and in an average year -- in spite of vaccines that are usually at least moderately effective -- it kills tens of thousands in this country.

Now it appears that the flu virus is poised to repeat its several-times-a-century metamorphosis into something much worse.

First, some background. The exterior of the flu virus consists of a lipid envelope from which project two surface proteins, hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). The virus constantly mutates, which may cause significant alterations in either or both of these, enabling the virus to elude detection and neutralization by humans' immune system. A minor change is called genetic drift; a major one, genetic shift. The former is the reason that flu vaccines need to be updated from year to year; an example of the latter was the change in subtype from H1N1 to H2N2 that gave rise to the 1957 pandemic. This new variant was sufficiently distinct that people had little immunity to it: The rate of infection of symptomatic flu that year exceeded 50 percent in urban populations, and 70,000 died from it in the United States alone.

In the 1957 outbreak the mortality rate (the fraction of infected persons who die) was low, but we appear to be on the verge of another, much worse pandemic.

During the past several years, an especially virulent strain of avian flu, designated H5N1, has ravaged flocks of domesticated poultry in Asia and spread to migratory birds and (rarely) to humans. Now found from Russia and Japan to Indonesia, it is moving inexorably toward Europe. Since 2003, more than 60 human deaths have been attributed to H5N1. Public health experts and virologists are concerned about the potential of this strain because it already has two of the three characteristics needed to cause a pandemic: It can jump from birds to human, and can produce a severe and often fatal illness. If additional genetic evolution makes H5N1 highly transmissible among humans -- the third characteristic of a pandemic strain -- a devastating world-wide outbreak could become a reality.

Moreover, this is an extraordinarily deadly variant: The mortality rate for persons infected with the existing H5N1 appears to be around 50 percent, whereas the usual annual flu bug kills fewer than one percent.

We are ill-prepared for a flu pandemic. Reserve capacity is grossly inadequate for vaccines, drugs and hospital beds. The best and most cost-effective intervention -- prevention with a vaccine -- presents many obstacles, technological, economic and logistical.

Anti-flu drugs exist but are not a panacea. Unlike vaccines, which confer long-term immunity after one or two doses, drugs need to be taken for long periods. The only drug that has been shown to prevent the flu is Tamiflu, the prophylactic dose of which is one tablet a day, the effect lasting only as long as one takes the drug. (The other major anti-flu medicine, Relenza, has only been shown to be effective to treat, but not prevent, flu.)

Historically, flu pandemics have come in two or three waves, lasting a total of 13-23 months. In other words, the need to take Tamiflu -- by first responders, health care workers and ordinary citizens -- could go on for months and months, or even years. U.S. public health officials have said they plan to buy 20 million doses of Tamiflu, but that would be enough to treat only 200,000 people (fewer than the number who would attend a seven-game World Series) for 100 days. And the retail price per pill is around $8, so the expense to treat that small number of people for that amount of time would be $160 million.

According to various models, in the absence of sufficient amounts of an effective vaccine -- which is not yet within reach -- to blunt a pandemic we would need to treat perhaps a third to a half of the population with Tamiflu. Do the math: 100 million people for 100 days equals 10 billion doses, at a retail cost of $80 billion, in order to blunt the pandemic's first wave.

Although President Bush and HHS Secretary Leavitt are saying some of the right things about the need to prepare for the pandemic, if they or their staffs have done this sort of calculation, they give no sign of it.

We need push-pull incentives to forming public-private partnerships. Public policy must reward both inputs on R&D (via grants, tax credits and the waiver of regulatory registration fees) and outputs of products (with guaranteed purchases, payments for the regulatory approval of new drugs or vaccines, and indemnification from liability claims). Part of this effort should be R&D on various new technologies and approaches to making flu vaccine, to boosting the immune response to vaccines, and to creating greater reserve capacity for the production of drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza.

Preparation for pandemic flu involves many thorny issues of science, technology and medicine, but also much more. It requires contingency plans for the "social" aspects of a deadly pandemic -- when to shut our borders to travelers from infected regions, close schools, restrict public gatherings, and enforce quarantines, as well as a designated chain of command to implement those decisions.

Like the WWII Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, preparation for a flu pandemic involves scientific uncertainties, strategic decisions that span many specialties and government departments, and prodigious resources. To oversee all this, we'll need a Flu-Pandemic Czar -- someone analogous to Army General Leslie Groves, who headed the Manhattan Project: a plenipotentiary with broad powers and discretion.

There is no time to waste.

Henry I. Miller, a physician and fellow at the Hoover Institution, was the founding director of the Office of Biotechnology at the FDA, 1989-1993. Barron's selected his latest book, "The Frankenfood Myth..." as one of the 25 Best Books of 2004.

1,836 posted on 10/18/2005 2:42:15 PM EDT by EarthStomper

[Iowa Granny]

We all appreciate your work, and your dedication to accuracy.

Your original statement that "there is no vaccine under commercial development", appears to be spot on.

For those who choose to argue with MA, I urge caution.

I, too appreciate MA's fight for accuracy.

Huck, if you get into a 'wrasslin match defending MA, please know I'll be right there behind you with a great big hat pin, ready to stab anybody who gets the best of you.

[redgolum]

No US company will develop a vaccine, and Congress will not give them any guarantees that they won't be sued if they do.

We as a nation have come to the point where we just expect others to do the work for us. This will haunt us.

[EBH]

[7 bills, showing 1-7 ]

S.96 'A bill to target Federal funding for research and development, to amend section 1928 of the Social Security Act to encourage the production of influenza vaccines by eliminating the price cap applicable to the purchase of such vaccines under contracts entered into by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to establish a tax credit to encourage vaccine production capacity, and for other purposes. '
1 R
S.AMDT.159 'AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
'
2 D
S.375 'A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for an influenza vaccine awareness campaign, ensure a sufficient influenza vaccine supply, and prepare for an influenza pandemic or epidemic, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to encourage vaccine production capacity, and for other purposes. '
5 D, 2 R
S.AMDT.402 'AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
'
2 D
H.R.628 'To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for an influenza vaccine awareness campaign, ensure a sufficient influenza vaccine supply, and prepare for an influenza pandemic or epidemic, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to encourage vaccine production capacity, and for other purposes. '
13 D
H.R.813 'To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for an influenza vaccine awareness campaign, ensure a sufficient influenza vaccine supply, and prepare for an influenza pandemic or epidemic, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to encourage vaccine production capacity, and for other purposes. '
34 D, 1 I
S.AMDT.1886 'AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
'
10 D, 1 R

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/issuesaction/billlist/?keyword=flu

[Oorang]

Thanks for the pings to the very informative posts EBH.

I would be happy to post that photo for you, but, after checking it out I noticed it is a Reuters photo. Can't post anything from Reuters on FR. Best for folks to go to the site you linked to view the photo.

[Alice in Wonderland]

Please add me to the ping list.
Thank you in advance.

[Gritty]

Has anybody else noticed the lack of any news on this problem from Indonesia lately?

The silence from that corner has been deafening.

[I'm ALL Right!]

Marking my spot...

Drinking my tincture, taking my vitamins....

[Oorang]

Hi Gritty, you're right, not much news out of Indonesia. Here is one article though:

Oct 19 23:47

Father And Son Treated For Suspected Bird Flu

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - A father and his son were admitted to the Sulianti Saroso special hospital for infectious diseases here on Wednesday for suspected bird flu increasing the number of suspected bird flu patients that had been treated at the hospital so far.

"We have received a report from the RSPI hospital`s director that the hospital had received two new patients - a father and his son - with symptoms of bird flue," Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said after breaking the fast with her ministry officials at her residence.

The two patients had been transferred by the Hajj Hospital in East Jakarta to the RSPI Sulianti Saroso hospital after showing bird flu symptoms such as high fever, breathing problems, headache, and a sore throat.

The minister said on a different occasion that the government would not as yet revoke the extraordinary status it had declared in the middle of September in dealing with the disease. She said the status would only be revoked after the country was really free of the disease.

Five people have been declared as having contracted the virus by the World Health Organization`s laboratory in Hong Kong, and three of them had succumbed.

Until this month a total of 44 people in the country have been suspected of having contracted the disease and nine of them have died.

http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=6887

_____________________________________________

News from areas other than Indonesia:

Second Romanian bird flu outbreak

A swan has been discovered with bird flu antibodies near the Ukrainian border, Romanian agriculture minister said Tuesday.

Phanom Thuan declared an avian flu epidemic zone
Man dies despite tests coming back negative

[Oorang]

H5N1 Wild Bird Flu Expands Into European Russia

China and Russia File H5N1 Wild Bird Flu OIE Reports Today

Russia Reports New Bird Flu Cases

[EBH]

Thanks for letting me know, too bad. It's a freaky photo though.

[bitt]

Dear Reuters;

This is an important issue and we are not stealing your image for profit but for education and 'awe'.

Flames engulf dead domestic birds culled on suspicion of bird flu disease in the village of Ceamurlia de Jos, 300km ( 186 miles) east of Bucharest on October 14, 2005. Lab tests have confirmed the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu was responsible for the death of birds in Romania. REUTERS/Bogdan Cristel

[MarMema]

GEORGIA (unconfirmed)

Presence of bird flu in Western Georgia not confirmed

Despite widespread fears, there have been no officially confirmed cases of bird flu in Western Georgia, government health officials report. Head of the Public Health Department Levan Baramidze stated that poultry found dead in the Imereti region had died of a normal aviary illness. At the same time, the Ministry of Agriculture has dispatched disinfection equipment to the Sarpi border crossing with Turkey in an effort to prevent the illness from crossing that border. In response to bird flu fears, the Ministry of Environment Protection and Natural resources of Georgia has prohibited the hunting of migrating birds. The government has already allocated GEL 800,000 for preventive measures against the illness. (Prime News)

[MarMema]

The H5N1 “seed strain” (the strain used to produce the trial vaccines) was developed by researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, using a technique known as reverse genetics. NIAID provided this H5N1 reference virus to sanofi pasteur and Chiron in spring 2004 for vaccine production.

When will NIAID begin testing the H5N1 vaccines, and where will clinical trials be held?

The first clinical trial is recruiting volunteers and began start vaccinations on April 4, 2005. This first trial will investigate the sanofi pasteur vaccine’s safety and ability to generate an immune response (immunogenicity). The trial will take place at three NIAID-sponsored Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units (VTEUs).