http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N1538733.htm
Canada to host big October conference on avian flu
15 Sep 2005 20:20:39 GMT
Source: Reuters
OTTAWA, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Canada will host a major international conference on avian flu in October to discuss how ready the world is to combat a likely pandemic, Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh said on Thursday.
The head of the U.N. World Health Organization said on Thursday that avian flu will mutate and become transmissible by humans. The flu has already killed more than 60 people in Asia and spread to Russia and Europe.
"We believe that it is important for us across the world to prepare together and know about each other's plans with respect to a possible pandemic," Dosanjh told Reuters.
"For these kinds of issues one is never completely prepared ... we don't know when it (a pandemic) will occur, we all believe it will at some point (and) we need to make sure that we've done all we can to prepare for it."
He said the meeting -- which is most likely to be held in the Canadian capital Ottawa -- would group health ministers and senior officials from around 30 nations.
"We will of course be talking about accelerating global coordination efforts, rapid reaction plans and information sharing," Dosanjh said.
U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday unveiled a plan under which countries and international agencies would pool resources and expertise to fight bird flu.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/12657120.htm
As New Orleans flooded, Chertoff discussed avian flu in Atlanta
BY SHANNON MCCAFFREY, ALISON YOUNG AND SETH BORENSTEIN
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the U.S. official with the power to order a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina, flew to Atlanta for a previously scheduled briefing on avian flu on the morning after the storm swept ashore.
Chertoff's decision to fly to Georgia for a business-as-usual briefing even as residents in New Orleans fought for their lives in rising floodwaters raises new questions about how much top officials knew about what was happening on the Gulf Coast and how focused they were on the unfolding tragedy.
In fact, Chertoff didn't know for sure that New Orleans' life-preserving levees had failed until a full day had passed.
Not until Chertoff was returning from Atlanta on Aug. 30 did he begin writing the memo that declared Katrina "an incident of national significance" and put the full force of the federal government behind the relief and rescue efforts.
Critics charge that the delay in making the designation until about 36 hours after the storm may have been one reason why federal help was slow in coming and why no one seemed to be in charge in the disaster zone.
In a first accounting of Chertoff's activities before and after the storm, Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke portrayed his boss as deeply involved yet not the man in charge.
As the severity of Katrina became apparent on Aug. 26, Knocke said, Chertoff huddled with his staff at Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Washington. Katrina, he said, was a major concern, but not the only thing preoccupying Homeland Security officials.
On Saturday, Aug. 27, Chertoff worked from home and on Sunday, Aug. 28 - with President Bush on vacation in Texas - he spent a long day in his office monitoring the storm's progress, Knocke said. On Monday, Aug. 29, as Katrina made landfall, Chertoff was hobbled by a lack of specific information from officials on the Gulf Coast, Knocke said.
Chertoff's team was unable to confirm until midday on Aug. 30 that the levees had breached even though the flooding was being widely reported on television beginning that morning and officials in Louisiana first reported those breaches in the early morning hours of Monday, Aug. 29.
The Homeland Security chief was "extraordinarily frustrated with some of the scattered information we were getting," Knocke said.
Stung by criticism, Chertoff's aides this week attempted to downplay his importance in managing the disaster relief, saying that former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown was in charge. Brown resigned this week amid intense criticism about the sluggish and meager initial response to Katrina.
At the same time, Knocke said, Chertoff was deeply engaged in preparing for and responding to the powerful hurricane - ordering U.S. Customs helicopters to the Gulf Coast on Monday, Aug. 29, as the storm bore down and receiving a steady stream of updates from FEMA. Part of his time in Atlanta was spent at the FEMA operations center there receiving updates on the storm.
"There was a real sense of urgency," Knocke said.
Nonetheless, congressional critics and others are questioning how well Chertoff carried out his responsibilities under the National Response Plan - the blueprint for how the nation responds to disasters.
"There are a lot of questions that ultimately now put more light on the Secretary of Homeland Security," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the ranking minority member on the House Homeland Security Committee.
Thompson said oversight hearings are needed to resolve them.
FEMA's Brown had arrived in Baton Rouge, La., on Sunday, Aug. 28. By Monday night, Aug. 29, he had called Chertoff and either White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card or his deputy Joe Hagin and said that things were spiraling "out of control," according to an interview Brown gave to The New York Times. Knocke said that Chertoff promised Brown "anything he needed."
Despite Brown's phone call, Chertoff went ahead the next day with his previously scheduled visit to the headquarters for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta with Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt for a briefing on avian flu. The disease has killed 57 people worldwide.
Afterward, Chertoff went to FEMA headquarters in Atlanta for an update and it appears that that's when he realized the magnitude of the crisis.
Still critics on Thursday questioned Chertoff's judgment in turning his attention elsewhere, even as the storm damage mounted.
"In the relative scheme of things it (avian flu) needed to be put on the back burner while New Orleans was going under water," said John Copenhaver, a southeastern regional FEMA director under the Clinton administration
Copenhaver found it incredible that Chertoff didn't know water was flooding into New Orleans until Tuesday, Aug. 30.
"He is the Cabinet official of the department that's supposed to know things like this," Copenhaver said.
With the spotlight now on Chertoff, officials at the Department of Homeland Security this week have begun issuing new versions of events surrounding his role in the botched federal response to Katrina.
What they are saying this week contradicts many of their previous statements and actions.
Knocke said Thursday that Chertoff's Aug. 30 memo, first obtained by Knight Ridder, created "an administrative paper trail" for an incident of national significance. He said that the department had been acting "under the auspices of an incident of national significance" since President Bush issued an emergency declaration on Aug. 27, the Saturday before the storm.
But the National Response Plan says that it's the Secretary of Homeland Security who designates an event an incident of national significance. When asked if Chertoff had made the designation earlier than Aug. 30, Knocke refused to answer the question directly.
After Chertoff made the designation in his Aug. 30 memo, federal troops began to file into New Orleans, bringing much-needed supplies to residents. But many people remained stranded on their rooftops seeking help from passing helicopters and boats.
Knocke acknowledged on Thursday that the National Response Plan - which was redrawn after the Sept. 11 attacks and became effective just this year - could be in line for an overhaul.
"We're also going to have to step back and take a look at the playbook," he said.
bttt
Deadly avian flu keeps N.J. on edge
Friday, September 16, 2005
By BOB GROVES
STAFF WRITER
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2NzY5NzgwJnlyaXJ5N2Y3MTdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5Mg==
There's flu, and then there's Flu.
This year, doctors are on the lookout not just for seasonal influenza, but also for the possible arrival, later on, of a lethal and highly contagious strain of avian flu from Southeast Asia.
"Basically, bird flu has the same symptoms as regular flu, except you don't get better," said Dr. Barry Prystowsky, a pediatrician in Nutley. Prystowski is one of about two-dozen doctors in New Jersey designated by the state as "sentinel physicians," who keep a watchful eye for signs of pending epidemics.
"You quickly dehydrate and get pneumonia at the same time. You would need hospitalization within a few days, then end up on a respirator and probably die," Prystowsky said.
It's a dire diagnosis, but New Jersey health officials believe the state is ready.
Sentinel physicians are one component of a comprehensive early detection and response system outlined in a draft of the state's 2005 Influenza Pandemic Plan. An updated version of the plan, first conceived in 2002, is posted online. It will be revised to keep up with emerging infectious diseases, officials said.
A pandemic is an epidemic that can spread across a country and to other parts of the world. Bird flu, which emerged last year in Vietnam and Thailand and moved recently to Russia, has killed more than 50 people, mainly poultry workers. What has not happened, but what health officials fear, is that the avian flu virus - known as H5N1 - will be spread further by migratory birds.
The even bigger fear is that the virus will combine genetically with a human viral strain that can be transmitted person to person.
That new strain would be highly contagious and deadly, scientists say.
Some experts have predicted darkly that, if such a strain develops, the world could face a pandemic like the so-called Spanish flu of 1918 that killed more than 20 million people. There is no way to say if and when bird flu will hit the United States, but European officials worried this summer that they will have to deal with it sooner rather than later. One British scientist told reporters bird flu presents "a national emergency. ... Many people are threatened by a virus that can decimate a country."
As it is, New Jersey health officials estimate that an eight-week pandemic would cause 1.5 million outpatient visits and nearly 41,000 hospital admissions, including 9,553 patients in intensive care and 4,775 on respirators. There would be 8,141 deaths, they estimate.
Across the United States, officials predict that a pandemic could kill upward of 207,000 and hospitalize 733,000, compared with 36,000 deaths and 114,000 hospitalizations in an average flu season.
Sentinel doctors
Sentinel physicians such as Prystowsky are on the outlook for increasing numbers of patients with symptoms such as sore throat, fever and cough. The doctors file a weekly report with New Jersey's Local Information Network and Communication System and state health officials analyze the data for spikes in the numbers.
If a suspicious illness appears, the sentinel physician may send a sample to the state labs in Trenton to be tested and forwarded to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which oversees the sentinel program.
New Jersey's Pandemic Plan is a "generic" defense against any invading microbe, said Dr. Eddy Bresnitz, the state epidemiologist.
"The approach would be the same whether for bird flu or other flu," Bresnitz said. "This is flu. We're going to test it. When we do surveillance, we don't presuppose for what. If we knew what strain it was, we wouldn't have to test for it."
New Jersey will also monitor any "influenza-like illness" reported by hospitals, nursing homes and elementary schools, as well as the amount of over-the-counter drugs sold by pharmacies, as possible early indicators of flu.
Also, six cities - Paterson, Jersey City, Elizabeth, Newark, Trenton and Camden - are among 120 cities nationally that will tell the CDC each week how many death certificates involved pneumonia and influenza.
New Jersey's response to a flu pandemic would include informing the public about supplies of vaccine and antiviral medication - such as Tamiflu, an effective prescription flu treatment if used shortly after symptoms appear - school and business closings, suspended public meetings, travel restrictions and quarantines. More than 3,000 crisis counselors would be deployed.
The state is a lot better prepared since Sept. 11 and the subsequent anthrax and bioterrorism scares, Bresnitz said. "We've really improved all our capabilities of responding to emerging infections," he said.
In months to come, New Jersey will stage a flu-pandemic exercise similar to the simulated bio-terrorism attack drills held at hospitals in the spring, Bresnitz said. The state Department of Agriculture also has an avian-flu detection and response plan, including the culling of infected poultry flocks if necessary.
Flu is airborne
Bresnitz said there is more than just a whimsical distinction between sentinel physicians who gather information, and the so-called sentinel chickens used by health officials in years past to detect the presence of West Nile virus-infected mosquitoes.
But surveillance is only a tool for early detection and might not stop a pandemic, Bresnitz said.
"Influenza is an airborne disease spread very efficiently, with a short incubation, so we'd have to depend on other things," he said. This includes common sense personal hygiene such as hand washing and covering coughs and sneezes.
Seasonal influenza and flu pandemics have many similar public health issues, such as potential vaccine shortages, Bresnitz said. Federal scientists, for example, announced this month they had successfully tested a potentially effective bird-flu vaccine in people, but are unsure whether they can produce enough of it in time.
"But a pandemic is a different beast," Bresnitz cautioned. "A novel virus strain that nobody is experienced with has higher mortality and greater number of people infected."
New Jersey will also encourage hospitals statewide to develop "surge capacity" guidelines, similar to ones issued during last year's flu-vaccine shortage, to accommodate the anticipated crush of thousands of pandemic patients. They will have to decide whom to admit and whom to send home.
"I think they're all as prepared as they can be," Aline Holmes said of the New Jersey Hospital Association's 105 members.
"Everyone has their plans in place to work closely with the Health Department," said Holmes, a nurse and the association's flu liaison with the state.
Prystowsky, the Nutley sentinel physician, is less sanguine.
If bird flu combines with a human viral strain and begins to spread, he said, "I think it's going to be devastating."
"I think thousands of people are going to die, especially the fragile, the elderly, the very young, the babies. I don't think we'll have the vaccine supply because they won't be able to produce it. If it hits, hopefully we'll have enough Tamiflu to save some of us."
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http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=triangle&id=3450239
Worries Mount over Bird Flu Tim Nelson
(09/16/05 -- RALEIGH) - Health experts say a deadly, new strain of the flu virus could pose a far greater threat than smallpox, AIDS or anthrax.
ABC News obtained a government draft report predicts as many as 200,000 Americans could die within a few months if the killer strain made its way to the United States. The avian flu, or bird flu, comes from Asia. It had never been seen in humans until recently. About half of the people it infected have died.
The strain started in birds, which transmitted the virus to people. Doctors fear that the virus could mutate.
"It would move rapidly through the population, if it had adapted to the point that it can move from human to human," said Dr. Leah Devlin, the state's health director.
She says local, state and federal officials are preparing for a worst-case scenario. At this point, neither the state nor the country has an adequate vaccine supply against the bird flu. The U.S. agreed yesterday to purchase about $100 million of inoculations, possibly enough for $2 million.
Devlin says the state is as prepared as it can be.
"We have strong laws in N.C. about reporting communicable diseases," she said. "We also have strong laws about quarantine and isolation. So, we are in good shape in N.C. We are as prepared as we can be, given we don't have enough vaccine for everyone."
Devlin says everyone should get their normal flu shorts to protect against a regular flu virus, but adds the normal vaccine would not prevent bird flu.
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http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillatestnews.asp?fileid=20050917173215&irec=1
Indonesia promises tough action to counter spread of bird flu
JAKARTA (AFP): Indonesia promised tough action Saturday to counter the spread of bird flu and urged people to remain calm after the country confirmed a fourth death from the virus.
The death last week of a 37-year-old Jakarta woman from bird flu brought Indonesia's toll level with that of Cambodia, while 43 deaths have been recorded in Vietnam and 12 in Thailand.
"We appeal to the public to help us by remaining calm. We will work very hard to minimize this disease so that it will not spread further," Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari told AFP.
I Nyoman Kandun, the ministry's director general of disease control, said Saturday that a six-year-old girl was also being treated in Jakarta as a "suspected case" of bird flu.
Commenting on mounting international concern that bird flu could mutate into a major killer, Nyoman said Indonesia would carry out "comprehensive efforts" to stop further outbreaks.
Birds would be vaccinated, people visiting infected areas would be monitored, hospitals would be told how to cope with bird flu patients and an information campaign on the virus would be launched, he said.
Jakarta launched a massive vaccination drive against the disease after a man and his two daughters died in suburban Jakarta in July, but has been criticized for carrying out only limited culls.
The World Health Organization (WHO) requires that poultry within a radius of three kilometers (1.9 miles) from any bird flu outbreak be killed.
Health experts have warned that the bird flu virus could spark a global pandemic if it developed the ability to spread quickly among humans. (**)
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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/17/content_3502821.htm
Thai gov't to ask US assistance in fighting bird flu
www.chinaview.cn 2005-09-17 13:18:19
BANGKOK, Sept. 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Thailand will seek help from the United States in strengthening its ability to combat bird flu, an official from the Livestock Development has said.
The department will ask the United States to help develop its laboratory work and capacity-building for epidemiologists, the key part for fighting avian influenza, Nirundorn Aungtragoolsuk, head of the disease control and veterinary services bureau was quoted by Bangkok Post newspaper as saying Saturday.
To date, Thailand have all together eight laboratories to conduct bird flu test and no more than 10 epidemiologists working to detect and contain the epidemic. .......
~~~
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/17/content_478729.htm
WHO warns of a world wide bird flu epedemic
(IHT.com)
Updated: 2005-09-17 15:16
As World Health Organization officials repeated warnings about the potential for a deadly bird flu pandemic and President George W. Bush proposed an "international partnership" to combat the disease, wealthier countries around the world are redoubling efforts to purchase an experimental vaccine and antiviral drugs in the hopes of protecting their own citizens from infection.
"We cannot afford to face the pandemic unprepared," said Lee Jong Wook, director of the WHO, at the United Nations on Thursday.
The UN agency and the European Union have been urging countries for months to prepare for the possibility of a future human pandemic caused by the bird flu virus, even as they have acknowledged that there is no current risk: The virus, A(H5N1), which has killed millions of birds, only rarely infects humans and does not normally spread from person to person - a basic requirement for human epidemics.
But scientists are worried that it could someday acquire that ability through one of several biological processes. Faced with the unprecedented damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, calls for better disaster planning against disease seem to have taken on new urgency.
This week, the United States announced that it had placed an order for $100 million worth of a promising but still technically unlicensed vaccine that is under development by the French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis.
Italy announced that it had contracted to order 35 million doses of vaccine and other medicines.
Roche Pharmaceuticals was struggling to fill huge recent orders from 30 jurisdictions for antiviral drugs, said Martina Rupp, a spokeswoman for the company, based in Basel, Switzerland. These include Australia, France, England, Singapore and South Korea, as well as Hong Kong..............
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http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/09/17/2003272035
Indonesia confirms bird flu death
DON'T PANIC, YET: The country confirmed its fourth human death from H5N1, Asia's 63rd, as a WHO official warned yet again on the threat of a deadly pandemic
AP , JAKARTA
Saturday, Sep 17, 2005,Page 5
An Indonesian man carries chickens on his motorbike at a farm in Jakarta yesterday. Indonesian health authorities announced yesterday its fourth human death from bird flu after tests confirmed that the woman who died late last week was infected by the deadly virus.
PHOTO: EPA
Indonesia yesterday confirmed its fourth human death from the bird flu virus, taking the death toll in Asia to 63, and said it was investigating whether a neighbor of the victim was also sickened by the disease.
Tests from a Hong Kong laboratory showed that a 37-year-old woman who died last week had contracted the H5N1 bird flu virus, said I Nyoman Kandun, the health ministry's director general for illness control and environmental health.
The health ministry also said that a neighbor of the woman had been hospitalized with symptoms consistent with bird flu. But authorities said they were still awaiting lab results before confirming she had been sickened by the virus.
Kandun warned that Indonesia would continue to report cases because the virus was rife in poultry farms across the country.
"It will be like in Vietnam and Thailand," he told reporters.
The virus has swept through poultry populations in large swathes of Asia since 2003, resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of birds -- and 63 people, most of them in Vietnam and Thailand.
"Be alert, but do not be alarmed."
I Nyoman Kandun, the Indonesian health ministry's director general for illness control and environmental health
Indonesia recorded its first human fatalities from bird flu in July when a father and his two daughters died after contracting the virus. Officials have linked those deaths to droppings from an infected bird.
Kandun said the source of the latest infection was not yet known.
He said surveillance of poultry needed to be stepped up, but urged the country's 210 million people not to panic.
"Be alert, but do not be alarmed," he said.
Officials have carried out limited vaccinations of some of the estimated 2 billion birds in the country, but say they lack funds to carry out culls of flocks in areas where the virus is prevalent.
The virus has been recorded in 22 of Indonesia's 32 provinces since 2003.
Most of the human deaths from bird flu have been linked to contact with sick birds. But the World Health Organization has warned that the virus could mutate into a form which is more easily transmitted from human to human, possibly triggering a pandemic that could kill millions worldwide.
Indonesia confirmed its fourth human death from bird flu on Friday and said another person was suspected of having the virus as global alarm grew that the disease would mutate and become a pandemic.
Speaking in New York on Thursday, World Health Organization chief Lee Jong-wook said the virus was moving toward becoming transmissible by humans and that the international community had no time to waste to prevent a pandemic.
The highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of the virus has killed 64 people in four Asian countries since late 2003 and also spread to Russia and Europe.
Indonesian health officials said tests had shown bird flu killed a woman who died last week in a Jakarta hospital after she was admitted suffering from pneumonia and flu-like respiratory problems.
"It's positive for H5N1," I Nyoman Kandun, director-general of disease control at the Health Ministry, told reporters.