A UK doctor writing in the British Medical Journal has warned that governments around the world must stop burying their heads in the sand over the growing threat of a global epidemic of avian flu. Dr. Nigel Higson writes that disasters like the Asian Tsunami will "pale into insignificance" when compared to the human cost of an influenza pandemic which has the potential to wipe out "hundreds of millions" of lives.
Higson says the catalyst for government action should have been the discovery earlier in the year that avian flu (known as strain H5N1) is now spreading via human to human transmission. "Development of vaccines against H5N1 needs government pump priming, as will the stockpiling of euraminidase inhibitors, which should be effective against avian flu," writes Higson. "It is many years since a pandemic struck, and people have become complacent in that time. For governments to bury their heads in the sand may have some benefits in many political areas but it will be disastrous in terms of pandemic planning."
Now that human to transmission has been confirmed, Higson believes that doctors should prepare themselves for the practicalities of treating epidemic or pandemic influenza as well as encouraging increased pharmaceutical company capacity.
Thanks starting the thread.
Thanks for taking on this project.
A friend of ours was diagnosed with a type of avian influenza some years ago. While it did not prove fatal, it has left him permanently impaired with decreased lung function because of it. When I speak with his wife tonight I will ask if they remember exactly what the "name" of the diagnosis was.
At the time of his diagnosis that was the least of their concerns because it was discovered while he was being treated for tuberculosis. However there was some speculation at the time that it may have been present in his system for many years from exposure while he was a medic in Viet Nam, but only surfaced when his system became impaired due to the TB.
Good idea...we have a ping list for it?
If so..put me on both...
Please add me to the avian flu watch ping.
Thanks
Great job! This new thread is a very good move.
Good Deal (bump)
I wonder why he is promoting protein inhibitors over and above vaccination? protein inhibitors such as this are only effective if taken prior to the onset of symptoms, they also retard the replication of the virus not relieve symptoms, in the case of influenza high risk groups are still at risk of succumbing to symptoms that impair and impact the respiratory system (ARDS chiefly). The most effective proactive measures against a pandemic of this nature would be timely and relevant vaccination as well as symptomatic relief for infected high risk groups. The majority of the mortality statistic is made up from the elderly (65+), infants under 2 years old, people with weakened immune systems, caregivers and people with chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes, heart or lung disease. If this is undertaken then most patients will recover, remember that influenza for instance is not attributed with a high mortality statistic it kills the high risk in the main, even in pandemic years.
the government only becomes aware of the danger of pandemic when it is too late, once the filed reports are coming in, there is not much that can be achieved only reactionary measures. It is far more likely that a proactive strategy will result in less fatalities globally.
Nice thread Judith well done :-)
Bump
Tonight Jeff Rense will be interviewing Patricia Doyle, Phd with Special Guest Dr Henry L Niman, PhD who runs the Recombinomics web site. The topic is the Bird Flu Pandemic. The program will be web cast from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM Pacific Time. Jeff Rense' web site is Rense.com.
Thanks!
Doyle and Niman are talking right now about Stage 7. That is the stage where people are dead and dying in the U.S. Stage 7 means people will be afraid to go to work or too sick to leave home. Many will be too sick to obtain medications. The U.S. government will tell everyone to stay home especially if they are sick. Which means power plants going down, water and sewer shutting down, food and other supplies will not be delivered. Under the Executive Order signed by President Bush, everybody with the Avian Flu will be quarantined.
Of course, Rense is a rabble rouser. But his guests are painting a very bleak picture of the immediate future.
I believe NOW is the time to restrict all air travel between bird flu hot spot and the U.S.
But nobody listens to me anyway. Just a geezer living in the Peoples Republic of Oregon.
Our drug companies are too busy making drugs for erectile dysfunction for the geezers and sexual predators to be researching vaccines for the avian flu epidemic. The priority is what you can sell to juice your bottom line for investors this quarter. If we didn't even have enough regular flu shots available last year, there is NO chance we will be prepared for a pandemic.
Rather long, but very much appropriate to this thread ( and to the Marburg thread, for that matter.) Read the entire speech.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-6_25_05_SWF.html
June 25, 2005
“A Manhattan Project for the 21st Century”
By Senator William Frist, M.D.
". . .I propose an unprecedented effort – a “Manhattan Project for the 21st Century” – not with the goal of creating a destructive new weapon, but to defend against destruction wreaked by infectious disease and biological weapons . . ."
(Note: Text of the prepared remarks of Senator Frist delivered on June 1, 2005 at the Harvard Medical School Health Care Policy Seidman Lecture)
http://maconareaonline.com/letters/letter.asp?id=36
Migratory birds as terrorist bioweapons
by Brad Arnold
The Asia H5N1 avian flu reservoir appears to be in migratory birds. These hardy fowl withstand infection and shed virus across state and country borders. Their feces hits the barnyard, drys, and then blows in the wind. The RNA strand of influenza is actually composed of eight segments that are adapt at reassortment. The more strands in circulation, the more of a chance that the H5N1 avian flu will change into a supervirus that would infect people. Since animal pathogens are less controlled, and RNA is so adaptable, the bioterrorism strategy of sowing an animal pathogen would not only be agriculture bioterrorism, but would be an effective strategy to create a human pandemic. WHO is not recommended culling migratory birds, which are the obvious reservior of the H5N1 avian flu. This is equivalent to our not seeking to exterminate mosquitos that carry the West Nile virus, and are a presumed reservoir of the disease. Basically, there are potential animal/virus reservoirs that can't be eliminated, and that would make any bioweapon that used such a niche unextinguishable. The viral smoldering could last for years, or even decades, before a supervirus flared. One person could be infected with a highly contagious bioweapon, and they could fly airplanes and walk through crowds while shedding the virus, causing a epidemic, then a pandemic. You could infect one migratory bird, and cause an avian pandemic, which could turn quickly into a human pandemic. North American birds will be returning from the South this Spring. Will a deadly, highly contagious pathogen be delivered with them? How easy would it be to smuggle a sample of H5N1 avian flu from Asia, where it is a pandemic, to America, to be introduced to our migratory bird population? Such a sly attack probably wouldn't even be labeled a bioterrorism attack, but just a natural occurrence. Who needs airplanes filled with gasoline to use as a missiles? All you need is one migratory bird shedding the H5N1 avian virus.
Flu viruses can swap many genes rapidly to make new resistant strains, US researchers have found.
Scientists previously believed that gene swapping progressed gradually from season to season.
The National Institutes of Health team found instead, influenza A exchanged several genes at once, causing sudden and major changes to the virus.
The findings in PLOS Biology suggest strains could vary widely each season, making it potentially harder to treat.
Sudden mutations
They also increase concerns about bird flu mutating to spread readily between humans. Each year, experts must predict which strains will be most common and design new vaccines to fight them. Dr. David Lipman and colleagues looked at strains of influenza A that had circulated between 1999 and 2004 in New York.
These strains had given rise to the so-called Fujian strain H3N2 that caused a troublesome outbreak in the 2003-2004 flu season because the vaccine made that winter was a poor match for the virus. Dr Lipman's team found wide variations in the 156 strains that they analysed. Some of the strains had at least four gene swaps that had occurred in a short time period.
"The genetic diversity of influenza A virus is therefore not as restricted as previously suggested," said the researchers.
This suggests that scientists need to study circulating flu viruses more carefully because important mutations can occur suddenly and without warning, they said.
ping
August 25, 2005
Spread of bird flu virus is a 'national emergency'
By Simon Freeman, Times Online
Veterinary experts from across Europe are meeting today to develop a strategy to stop the spread of a deadly strain of avian flu, which one British scientist has declared a national emergency.
Scientists from the other 24 member states are expected to dismiss the drastic measure adopted by the Dutch of locking up all free-range poultry, instead demanding increased surveillance of migratory birds and insisting on extra vigilance among farmers.
The EU's response to the H5N1 strain of the virus, which claimed 57 lives as it swept rapidly west across South-East Asia and has now been detected on Europe's doorstep in Siberia, has so far been fragmented.
Today, leading British scientists said that it was inevitable that the disease would be carried across the Ural mountains by migratory birds.
They believe a co-ordinated strategy is essential to prevent a potential repeat of the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed 40 million - more than the First World War.
Professor John Oxford, of Queen Mary's School of Medicine, warned in January that the threat from bird flu "sent a cold shiver down the spine."
Today he went further, declaring: "This is a national emergency, how could it be otherwise? Resources are made available for natural emergencies and now many people are threatened by a virus which can decimate a country."
The two central strands to stalling the disease have been identified as stockpiling vaccines and introducing more effective surveillance measures, which will give warning of its presence at the first opportunity.
Hugh Pennington, one of Britain's leading food safety experts, said: "I've spoken to a number of senior public health officials and this is the one thing that keeps them awake at night. It's a very, very nasty virus and it would be an economical disaster if it got here, never mind the human impact.
"This is one of the nastiest potential threats we've faced for many years," he told the BBC.
The H5N1 strain of the virus, which was first detected in Hong Kong in 1997, emerged in Vietnam and Thailand in January 2004.
The virus is carried in wild birds and infects free-range poultry which mingle with wildfowl and can then be transmitted to farmers. It has so far only infected people in direct contact with birds, but the greatest fear is that it could mutate into a strain which can pass efficiently between humans, triggering a global pandemic.
In the Netherlands, where an outbreak in 2003 cost more than £100 million, all free-range chickens have been locked up. Belgium, Lithuania, Denmark and Croatia have recommended vigilance and German farmers have been told to take similar precautions by 15 September.
Many other nations - including Britain and France - are adopting a wait-and-see approach, and have advised against a mass cull of wild birds which they say would prove ineffective.
The pharmaceutical company Roche yesterday donated 3 million doses of its antiviral drug to the World Health Organisation (WHO) stockpile.
Dick Thompson, a spokesman for the WHO, said: "What we have today is a shiny new expensive fire truck. What we need to do is make sure that we have sensitive alarm system on every corner so when this virus flares up we can know about it right away."
Britain has enough drugs to treat a quarter of the population but experts argue that money would be better spent in preventing the spread of the disease rather than stockpiling cures.
The UK has about 120 million poultry, including chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese, worth £1.3 billion a year. About 25 per cent of the egg-laying flock are kept outdoors and about 10 per cent of chickens raised for meat are free-range.
Dr Bob McCracken, President of the British Veterinary Association, said that it was inevitable that the virus would cross into Europe's borders, carried on the pathways of migratory birds.
He told the BBC: "Now it has spread to Russia it will undoubtedly spread over coming months and years. I don't believe that at this time the risk [in Britain] is such that one should bring poultry indoors, but the Government must ensure that we have a sensitive alarm system that will detect it at the very outset, not six months after it arrives in the UK."
Mr Pennington, who is based at the University of Aberdeen, said that it was essential to stop the virus in its tracks as soon as it is detected.
He said: "It’s doing enormous damage in the Far East at the moment, it’s got into Russia. If it got here, it would be economically disastrous, never mind the human impact, so we do need to be, I think, spending more than we have been spending.
"Surveillance is key. I don’t know if we should be scared but I think we should be putting pressure on for the resources to be made available to do the things that we know are at least going to make the problem less if it arrives," he said.
"In 1918, when we lost quarter of a million people in the UK and 40 million people worldwide, this virus that we’re talking about now could be even nastier than that."
A key item on the agenda of the meeting of EU veterinary experts in Brussels will be the Netherlands’ explanation of its controversial decision to cope with the bird flu by keeping millions of birds indoors.
"It’s not a meeting from which we expect decisions. It’s more of a meeting for information and discussion," European Commission spokesman Philip Tod said.
"Not all member states share the same analysis of the risk as the Dutch government and we know that this measure would not be possible or desirable for all of the member states," he said.
"We are following the situation closely, but we are not alarmist. Our analysis is that the risk (of bird flu spreading to the EU) is weak."
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