Posted on 01/22/2007 7:50:29 AM PST by Gritty
CAIRO - Egypt is on high alert after the H5N1 strain of the avian flu became more resistant to the Tamiflu antiviral drug predominantly used to combat the disease, the health minister was quoted as saying Monday.
"The health ministry remains in a state of maximum alert and is reviewing its strategy in combating avian flu following the mutation of the H5N1 virus," Hatem al-Gabali told the top-selling state-owned Al-Ahram daily.
The World Health Organisation announced last week that a mutated strain of the virus with "reduced susceptibility" to Tamiflu had been discovered in two people infected with bird flu in northern Egypt.
The two Egyptians were from the same household and died in late December.
A total of 11 people have died of the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza since the virus was first detected in Egypt almost a year ago, making it the world's worst hit non-Asian country.
The Egyptian government has launched a broad awareness campaign in a bid to curb the occurrence of infections caused by domestic poultry rearings.
But in recent weeks, none of the infected humans have survived despite being treated with Tamiflu, while the mortality rate hovered around 50 percent in the first half of 2006.
The virus detected in the two patients in Egypt was resistant to Tamiflu but susceptible to other antiviral drugs, in a development which could prompt health services to treat patients with a cocktail of drugs.
"The resort to Tamiflu continues, but additional medication now has to be given to complement the treatment," health ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shaheen said.
"These drugs are part of the Amantadine antivirals and are available commercially under various names," he explained.
Tamiflu-resistant strains of the avian influenza virus were found in three unrelated patients in Vietnam in 2005 but did not spread.
Health organisations fear the virus could mutate into a strain transmissible from humans to humans, prompting a pandemic.
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How is this being dealt with on the C/E threads?
ping.... (Thanks, KoRn!)
BUDAPEST - Five geese found dead in southeastern Hungary are being tested for suspected bird flu, an Agriculture Ministry official said on Monday.
The dead birds are being tested in Budapest and come from a large farm in the southeastern county of Csongrad where about 40 geese had fallen sick and some had died, Farming Ministry Secretary of State Fulop Benedek told national news agency MTI.
Veterinarians who saw the birds said the suspicion of bird flu was justified.
Excerpted
Mon Jan 22, 2007 11:51 AM GMT
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong confirmed on Monday that three more dead birds found in the city carried the H5N1 virus, the third such case this month in the wealthy city.
The carcasses of the trio of birds -- a Japanese White-eye, a House Crow and a White-backed Munia -- had been picked up last week and subjected to a battery of tests, the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department said in a statement.
It did not elaborate.
Since the start of the year, authorities had confirmed H5N1 in two dead birds -- a Crested Goshawk and a Scaly-breasted Munia -- found dead in the bustling shopping district of Causeway Bay on New Year's Eve.
Hong Kong periodically finds H5N1-infected wild birds, but the infected munia marked the first case in 10 months. Seventeen wild birds tested positive for H5N1 in Hong Kong in 2006.
The highly pathogenic H5N1 virus made its first known jump to humans in Hong Kong in 1997, killing six people and leading to a mass culling of poultry. But it has not been able to pass easily from human to human, although experts fear the virus could mutate and cause a pandemic, potentially killing millions.
The Associated PressPublished: January 22, 2007
BEIJING: Chinese health officials Monday denied reports that dozens of people have been sickened by bird flu or the SARS pneumonia in southern China and quarantined in a local hospital.
The reports last week by Hong Kong media said the patients had been isolated in the No. 8 People's Hospital in the city of Guangzhou for either bird flu or severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. The reports touched off fears of an epidemic amid flu season as temperatures drop.
Health officials in Guangdong province, where Guangzhou is located, denied the reports.
"No such thing has happened. It's all rumors," said an official at the provincial health bureau, who would give only his surname, Wu.
A report on state television's Web site quoted Xiong Yuanda, deputy head of the Guangzhou health bureau, as saying that the reports were "baseless and that there are no cases of a contagious disease of unknown origins" in the city.
The reports and the denials bore reminders of the SARS outbreak in late 2002-early 2003. There were sporadic reports of an outbreak of a strange new disease. Many of the ill were hospitalized at the No. 8 Hospital, which specializes in the treatment of infectious diseases, while for weeks officials denied and suppressed media reports on the outbreak.
Health experts worldwide criticized Beijing's refusal to release timely information, saying the official reticence contributed to the disease's spread to Vietnam, Singapore, Canada and elsewhere. SARS eventually killed 774 people worldwide before fizzling out in the summer of 2003.
Since then, China has promised a more open and aggressive campaign against diseases like bird flu, which experts fear could mutate into a strain that passes easily between humans, potentially sparking a global pandemic. So far, 14 people have died from the H5N1 strain in China.
"Every local health agency is required to report epidemic outbreaks as promptly as possible, and we will keep the press and the people informed of any news," Xinhua quoted Liao Xinbo, deputy director of the Guangdong Health Bureau, as saying.
The World Health Organization has made inquiries with the Health Ministry but has not received a response, said Joanna Brent, the agency's spokeswoman in Beijing.
The ministry did not respond to a faxed request for information on Monday.
A man who answered the telephone at the No. 8 People's Hospital in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, denied the reports before hanging up.
While SARS and bird flu are caused by different viruses, they have similar symptoms, including high fever, coughing and breathing problems.
Last year, China confirmed that a soldier died of bird flu in 2003, two years before it publicly acknowledged its first human infection.
The 24-year-old man died of pneumonia and was initially thought to have SARS, but the Health Ministry said tests recently performed with the WHO confirmed it was bird flu.
The case raised questions about Beijing's ability to detect new emerging diseases.
Thanks for posting this blam. I don't know if we will ever be able to trust what China says. At least not in my lifetime. *sigh*
That is carefully parsed: "no cases of a contagious disease of unknown origins" can also mean "many cases of a contagious disease with which we are familiar."
The only experience we have with them is that it is a lie, period. And now, the liar is the head of WHO.
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