Bird Flu - Avian Influenza - news - information

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Another avian influenza case in indonesia

A 22 year old man who sells chickens is the latest person to be infected with the avian influenza virus. Local tests showed that the Jakarta man tested positive for the virus. He was admitted to the main hospital that treats avian influenza victims in the region, on Thursday January 19, 2006.

Hariyadi Wibisono, a health ministry official for the area said, “We have positive results based on local tests on this man. He has a history of high-risk contact as he is a chicken seller,” adding that the man’s condition was improving.

Another avian influenza death in china

The world health organization reported today that another death from avian influenza occurred on Monday January 23, 2006.  The victim, a 29 year old woman surnamed Cao, was the seventh person to die from avian influenza in China since November.

The World Health Organization said the woman died on Monday after falling ill with a fever on January 12. She worked in a shop selling dry goods and added it had no evidence of exposure to diseased birds, but was still investigating the matter. The death is the second in the Sichuan province this month. Authorities are concerned that no outbreaks of avian influenza in poultry have been found in the area’s where the current case as well as others, lived.

Authorities in the area are calling for preventive measures included limiting contact between humans and poultry in markets, as well as better access to water and improved waste management. This brings the total to 7 people who have died in China, since November 2005, of bird flu.

Elderberry wine used to fight avian influenza

Israeli virologist Dr. Madeleine Mumcuoglu is one of the people at the forefront for avian influenza cures. Her treatment, Sambucol, which is already a clinically proven treatment for regular flu and in new in-vitro(def: In an artificial environment outside the living organism) tests, proved effective against avian influenza, is based on elderberries, an old folk remedy for influenza passed on from generation to generation.

Retroscreen Virology, a leading British medical research institute, announced that Sambucol at least 99% effective against the avian influenza virus, H5N1, and in cell cultures significantly neutralized the infectivity of the virus, taken from a strain isolated in Turkey. Another trial is now underway at Hadassah Medical Organization Ein Kerem, which is expected to confirm these findings.

While it is too soon to know if Sambucol can cure avian flu in humans, tests conducted so far are very encouraging.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Bird droppings are long term avian influenza hosts

Studies suggest that the H5N1 virus can survive for 30 days in bird droppings during cold weather (less then 40 degrees Fahrenheit), and at least a week in warm weather(greater then 98 degrees Fahrenheit).  Which is leading some experts to believe that bird droppings alone could account for most of the spread of avian influenza.

Most of the cases so far have come from small backyard flocks chickens. Symptoms vary, but pretty closely match symptoms from the normal flu (if any flu can be called normal). The biggest difference so far is that with the H5N1 strain, those affected have developed pneumonia and multi-organ dysfunction, notably involving the kidney and heart. The incubation period varies from two to eight days sometimes up to 17 where the incubation period for the “normal” flu is around 2 to 3 days. 

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Bird flu infection possible in french woman

A 32 year old french woman is being tested for the the avian influenza virus at a Montpellier hospital. She was admitted on her return from a trip to the Tarsus region of Turkey. Her case was being treated as potential bird flu because of the “symptoms and because the woman saw dead birds while travelling in a country affected by the epidemic,” the ministry said in a statement.

Update 01/22/06 7:00pm est.
Hospital sources in Marseille said that tests show negative results for bird flu, dispelling concerns she had been infected with the potentially deadly virus..

Signs including flu symptoms and breathing difficulties led authorities to test the woman’s nose and throat for any signs of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza. She has been placed in an
isolation ward, where she is receiving antiviral treatments.

Bird flu has been found in 26 Turkish provinces. At least Four people from Turkey have also died from the H5N1 strain of the virus.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Hong Kong reports bird flu case

Hong Kong officials are scouring markets for any infected bird meat after discovering the H5N1 strain of avian influenza in a dead robin. Reseach teams were also scouring the area near and around the area where the magpie robin was discovered. The village, Tai Po, is located in the rural New Territories area bordering mainland China.

A spokesman for the agricultural department said, “We want to remind the store owners to pay more attention to hygiene and avoid direct contact with birds,”. Samples of feces were taken from some birds to test for the Bird flu virus. The Chinese Secretary of Health, York Chow, said that thorough searches for other dead birds in the Tai Po village would continue.

“What we are mostly concerned about is whether other birds have also been infected,” Health Secretary York Chow said. Magpie Robins are very common in southern China. In 1997 the H5N1 strain of avian influenza caused the infection of 18 people, 6 of whom died. This also resulted in the total culling(slaughter and disposal), of all chickens and removal of all chicken meat to try and put a stop to the virus.

The discovery of the bird flu in Hong Kong came as no surprise to some experts. Legislator Kwok Ka-ki said, “I knew it would come sooner or later, we were just waiting for it to happen. It’s unavoidable,”. One of the problems is that eating freshly-killed poultry is a tradition in Southern China, so cages of live fowl, Birds, Turkeys, Ducks etc, are keep at the local markets.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Bird flu the cause of toddlers death

Indonesian officials have confirmed that a toddler, who died this week, tested positive for the H5N1 strain of avian influenza. The boy’s 13 year old sister also died from the same virus last week. Both cases still have to be confirmed by The World Health Organization and other sources outside the country.

The latest victims of avian influenza appear to match the pattern of being infected by the H5N1 strain of the virus. China and Turkey have also reported deaths from bird flu this month. The infections in Turkey this month, 4 so far, bring the virus to gates of Europe and the Middle East.

There are still no signs that the virus has mutated to a strain that can spread from human to human. In all reported cases of Human infection the virus started in birds and was transmitted to humans through touch. In one particular instance in Turkey, a young girl kissed a pet chicken and was infected.

Reports are starting to surface from some researchers that the “Flu Vaccines� being stockpiled by the US and other countries may not be effective against the avian influenza if it fact it does mutate to a human to human transmittable version.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

bird flu death number 6 in China

The Chinese Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday January 18, 2006, that another human death related to the Bird Flu brought the total to six so far. The victim was a 35 year old woman who worked as a poultry butcher, from the Zhoujiaxiand Village of Jianyang City, located southwest of China’s Sichuan Province.

Wei, the victim, showed symptoms of the bird flu on January 3, and was admitted to a hospital on January 10 with fever and pneumonia. Further investigations showed that from December 25, 2005 through January 5, 2006 eight households living in close proximity with Wei, found some of their poultry sick and in some cases dead.

So far the Chinese Ministry of Health has not said whether or not there was an outbreak of avian influenza at Wei’s village. The Sichuan provincial Center for Disease control found the samples taken from Wei were positive for the H5N1 strain of avian influenza.

China’s CDC also found the samples to be infected with the virus. The World Health Organization along with the Chinese Ministry of Health have officially confirmed Wei to have been infected with the H5N1 strain of avian influenza.

Chinese health officials have placed anyone having close contact with Wei under observation, but have so far not reported any other cases of H5N1 in this group. This is the 9th reported case of the bird flu infection in a human in China and the 6th death. An official of the Chinese government announced Wednesday that China will donate 10 million dollars to support the global fight against avian influenza.

So far over 1.8 billion dollars has been collected for the global fight against bird flu at a conference on Wednesday, which was co-sponsored by the Chinese government, the European Commission and the World Bank.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

bird flu vaccine for children being tested at St. Louis university

St. Louis University announced Tuesday it is one of four national vaccine centers that will test a bird flu vaccine for children, a population especially vulnerable to acquiring the flu.

[...]The child vaccine studies follow similar investigations of a bird flu vaccine for adults, and will evaluate the vaccine’s safety and ability to stimulate infection-fighting antibodies in children.

[...]The new bird flu strains are not infecting people in the U.S. at this time, but NIH wants to test vaccines as a precaution, Belshe said.

Source

Monday, January 16, 2006

Bird flu causes bird cull in Japan

Authorities on Monday stated that Japan would cull (slaughter and dispose of), another 770,000 birds after the avian influenza virus was detected at a farm in northern Japan. An H5 strain of the avian influenza virus was detected in some chickens at the Moriya farm in Ibaraki prefecture.

The farm is located about 65 miles (100 kilometers) north of Tokyo. This on top of the hundreds of thousands of birds that have already been destroyed at other Ibaraki farms over the past few months following outbreaks of the H5N2 virus. The H5N2 Virus, while less deadly then it’s cousin the H5N1 Virus, is still considered a serious enough thread to warrant culling.