Bird Flu - Avian Influenza - news - information

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Indonesian woman tests positive for bird flu

Jakarta - A 37-year-old woman has tested positive for bird flu in Indonesia and is being treated in a hospital on the outskirts of the capital, a Health Ministry official said on Tuesday.

The case comes after a 14-year-old boy tested positive for bird flu at the weekend, the country’s first new infection in almost two months.

Joko Suyono, an official at the ministry’s bird flu center, told Reuters the woman from Serpong town in western Java had bought a live chicken and slaughtered it at her house, but it was unclear whether this was the cause of the infection.

He said the woman had been taken to a hospital in Tangerang, west of Jakarta, after she suffered high fever and breathing difficulties on January 1.

“The test results came last night and showed she is positive with bird flu,” Suyono said.

Source: Reuters

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Boy hospitalized with bird flu, health official says (Indonesia)

JAKARTA (AP): Local tests confirm that a 14-year-old boy hospitalized in the Indonesian capital has been infected with the H5N1 strain of bird flu, a senior Health Ministry official said Sunday.

The results of tests conducted by the Health Ministry showed Saturday that the boy, identified only as Randy from Kalideres, West Jakarta, contracted H5N1 after coming into contact with adead duck, said I Nyoman Kandun, the ministry’s Director General of Communicable Disease Control.

The boy was last week admitted to a hospital in the city of Tangerang, on the western outskirts of Jakarta, suffering from a fever and labored breathing, and was transferred Friday to the Persahabatan hospital in Jakarta, Kandun said.

“His condition is deteriorating,” Kandun said, adding that the boy had been hooked up to a ventilator.

A day before falling sick, Randy had come into contact with dead ducks, burying by hand scores of his birds that had suddenly died, he said.

There was no confirmation of the infection from the World Health Organization. The UN health agency has, since the middle of last year, acknowledged the accuracy of the Indonesian labs working with a Jakarta-based U.S. Navy lab affiliated with Centerfor Disease Control in Atlanta.

Randy’s infection has yet to be confirmed by the World Health Organization, which has recorded 74 human H5N1 infections in Indonesia since late 2003, of whom 57 have died. The UN agency says 157 people have died of the virus around the world since theoutbreak began.

Source:: AP

Health Ministry announces new bird flu therapy for humans (Vietnam)

HA NOI — The Ministry of Health yesterday proclaimed a new therapy for type A H5N1 flu or bird flu on humans, replacing the earlier guidlines on treatment initiated in November 2005.

The new therapy is based on World Health Organisation’s (WHO) 2006 instructions on clinical diagnosis and treatment of type A flu H5N1 and suggestions from domestic and international medical professionals.

The ministry’s Medical Treatment Department said there were some modifications in the new therapy from the former one, including diagnosis and treatment. Three military hospitals and one in HCM City have been newly included in the list of designated medical units providing treatment for bird flu patients.

In a bid to reduce the mortality rate and after-effects for child patients, the new therapy describes methods on dealing with respiratory and organ deterioration with specific instructions on using respirators, medicines and care periods, the department said.

The therapy would soon be launched at clinics and hospitals nation-wide.

The ministry said that no new case of bird flu in humans was found in the country since November 14, 2005, although infections in poultry were found late last year.

To date, bird flu was found in 34 communes and wards in 15 districts of three localities in Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta, including Ca Mau, Bac Lieu and Hau Giang. These localities were carrying out additional vaccinations on poultry.

Though bird flu has not spread to the north, many provinces in the region have urgently adopted preventive measures to cope with bird flu infections in poultry.

Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Animal Health Department have continued to issue warnings over the high risk of bird flu reoccurrence in the northern region, particularly before and during the Tet (lunar new year) festival.

Story Source:: Vietnam News

Friday, January 05, 2007

Hong Kong steps up checks after bird flu infection

HONG KONG: Hong Kong said it’s stepping up inspections after a bird was found with H5 avian flu in the city’s fashionable shopping district of Causeway Bay.

One wild bird, a Scaly Breasted Munia, tested positive for the H5 subtype of avian influenza and five others were negative. The bird was found on Dec. 31 and preliminary tests were completed Wednesday.

“We suspect the infection came from migratory birds,” Assistant Director of Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Thomas Sit Hon-chung said at a briefing in Hong Kong Thursday. The risk of human infection is low, though authorities must stay vigilant, he said. Sit wasn’t able to confirm whether the bird was infected with the deadly H5N1 strain.

The government will intensify inspections of backyard poultry and along the city’s borders and markets, Sit said. Hong Kong tested 11,000 wild birds last year and 17 were found positive for an H5 avian flu subtype, he said.

Source: International Herald Tribune

Japan to stockpile prototype bird flu vaccines for 10 mln people

Japan plans to buy prototype bird flu vaccine solutions for up to 10 million people, a news report said Wednesday, amid concerns that the country lacks an adequate stockpile of drugs to fight the virus.

The Japanese government will earmark 4.5 billion yen (US$37.9 million) in its supplementary budget for the fiscal year ending March 31 to build up the stockpile, Kyodo News agency reported, citing unidentified Health Ministry officials.

Four Japanese vaccine makers are expected to complete production of two types of prototype vaccine for 10 million people by around February, Kyodo cited the officials as saying.

Manufacturers cannot produce an actual vaccine until a flu outbreak has occurred, so they are creating a stopgap prototype vaccine based on samples of the H5N1 strain of the virus detected in Vietnam in 2004 and in Indonesia in 2005, Kyodo added.

Health Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment Wednesday evening.

Preparing for the worst, Tokyo planned to have enough of the anti-flu drug Tamiflu for 25 million people under a program set up in December 2005. The program, however, set no timetable for reaching that target, government health officials say.

Under the plan, the central government was to stock enough Tamiflu for 10.5 million people, and local governments would have stocks for another 10.5 million people. Stocks available in the market would cover an additional 4 million people.

Stocks, however, are still short of those targets.

The central government had Tamiflu for 7.5 million people and local governments had planned to buy enough for another 5.25 million people by March 2007, Health Ministry officials said in late November. That would cover only about 60 percent of the amount called for under the plan.

The officials did not know whether stocks available on the market had reached the target.

Source: AP

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Vaccine for H5N1 Avian Influenza Enters Human Trial

The first human trial of a DNA vaccine designed to prevent H5N1 avian influenza infection began on December 21, 2006, when the vaccine was administered to the first volunteer at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD.

Scientists from the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the NIH Institutes, designed the vaccine. The vaccine does not contain any infectious material from the influenza virus.

Unlike conventional flu vaccines, which are developed by growing the influenza virus in hens’ eggs and then administered as a weakened or killed form of the virus, DNA-based vaccines contain only portions of the influenza virus’ genetic material. Once inside the body, the DNA instructs human cells to make proteins that act as a vaccine against the virus.

VRC Director Gary Nabel, M.D., Ph.D., together with a team of scientists from the VRC recognized the potential for employing new vaccine technology against influenza, a disease for which effective vaccines have long been made, but for which the reliability of supply and manufacturing capacity has been problematic. Dr. Nabel and his colleagues previously have shown the DNA vaccine approach to be effective against influenza viruses in animal models, including highly pathogenic viruses such as the H5N1 strain and the H1N1 virus that caused the deadly 1918 pandemic.

The DNA vaccine used in this study is similar to other investigational vaccines evaluated by the VRC that hold promise for controlling other viruses, such as HIV, Ebola, SARS and West Nile.

“An effective H5N1 influenza vaccine would provide a potentially life-saving advance against a global health threat,” notes NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. “More broadly, development of this DNA vaccine technology has the potential to improve our production capacity for vaccines to prevent seasonal influenza and other diseases.”

“This influenza vaccine trial is further evidence of the ability of the NIAID Vaccine Research Center to rapidly translate basic research into potential products,” he adds. “Our accelerated effort to understand and find new solutions to pandemic influenza is part of the NIAID commitment to respond to new emerging infectious disease threats and to improve public health preparedness.”

Highly pathogenic avian influenza A viruses, specifically H5N1, have emerged in the past decade, causing widespread sickness and death in domestic and wild bird populations. As of December 27, 2006, 261 laboratory-confirmed human cases of H5N1 had been reported to the World Health Organization, resulting in death of more than half of infected individuals.

While human cases remain relatively rare and are largely the result of direct virus transmission from infected birds, a few cases of human-to-human transmission have been reported. The severity of disease and the potential for human-to-human spread has provided a major incentive to accelerate developing a human vaccine for avian influenza.

With the spread of avian influenza virus, new strains have emerged, including clade II viruses in Indonesia and elsewhere that have drifted genetically from the initial strains detected in Southeast Asia. With this study, the investigators hope to learn whether new technologies, such as DNA vaccines, can provide protection against such viruses.

“This vaccine is aimed at newer strains of the H5N1 virus that currently pose a threat in Indonesia and represents an example of our ability to respond to shifting viruses with modern technology,” says Dr. Nabel.

The study will enroll 45 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 60. Fifteen will receive placebo injections and 30 will receive three injections of the investigational vaccine over 2 months and will be followed for 1 year. Volunteers will not be exposed to influenza virus.

The vaccine contains no infectious material, and the virus was not present during any stage of the manufacturing process, notes Julie E. Martin, D.O., principal investigator of the study. “It is impossible for the vaccine to cause infection,” she adds, “because it employs new technology known to safely stimulate broad immune responses.” NIAID researchers will measure immune responses to the vaccine, assess its safety, and compare its potency to more traditional vaccine approaches.

Source: National Institute of health

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Bird Flu Viruses Unlikely to Endure Water Treatment, Study Says

Jan. 3 (Bloomberg)—Bird flu viruses are unlikely to survive sewerage and drinking water treatment systems, making it doubtful contaminated feces could infect plant workers and spread through tap water, scientists at Cornell University said.

The researchers studied a low-pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza virus, which they said resembles the lethal H5N1 strain circulating in Asia and Africa. Water treatments, including chlorination, ultraviolet radiation and bacterial digesters killed the microbes, said Araceli Lucio-Forster, a microbiologist at Ithaca, New York-based Cornell.

The finding may reduce concerns about drinking water as a mode of infection during a pandemic. World health officials say the H5N1 flu virus, which has killed 157 people since 2003, may spark a global outbreak if it mutates to become as infectious to humans as seasonal flu.

``You have some 50,000 treatment plants in the U.S., and all these operators that run the plants were concerned that if there were an influenza outbreak and everyone were sick, is it going to come into the plant and infect them and others?’’ Dwight Bowman, a professor of parasitology at Cornell and co- author of the study, said yesterday in a prepared statement.

It is unknown if H5N1 is more resistant than H5N2 to procedures used by the water management industry, Lucio-Forster said. H5N2 was used as a surrogate virus because it can be studied in lower-level biosafety facilities, she said.

Given the similarities between the two viruses, if H5N1 entered the water treatment system, ``the virus should be inactivated, which means treated water may not be a likely source of transmission,’’ Lucio-Forster said.

Scientists are tracing the pathways by which a pandemic influenza virus could spread to identify potential risks.

Source: Bloomberg

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Vietnamese family tested negative for bird flu

HANOI, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Four members of a Vietnamese family who were suspected of having bird flu after eating sick chickens have been tested negative for the deadly disease, health officials said on Tuesday.

“All required tests were conducted thoroughly and they did not have bird flu,” a doctor at Nam Can Hospital in the southern province of Ca Mau said.

Ca Mau, along with Bac Lieu and Hau Giang, is one of three Mekong delta provinces where thousands of ducks and chicken have been slaughtered since Vietnam’s latest bird flu outbreak was spotted on Dec. 11.

There have been no human infections confirmed since the emergence of the H5N1 virus outbreak, the first in Vietnam since August.

Agriculture officials said the risk of recurrence elsewhere in the country was high due to wild bird migration and poultry smuggling.

The government has ordered animal health authorities and police to tighten control of poultry transport, especially in the provinces bordering China. It is particularly concerned about the disease spreading during the Lunar New Year festival when poultry consumption rises.

Source: Reuters