Flu Avian Flu Update.... You might want to read this....

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8306

Bird flu 'out of control' in Chinese province

16:28 11 November 2005
NewScientist.com news service

Bird flu special report, New Scientist
The Chinese government says the spread of the deadly H5N1 bird flu in one of its provinces is not under control and has warned of a potential disaster there. There have been three fresh outbreaks of the avian virus in the north-eastern province of Liaoning in 24 hours, and a new suspected human infection.

And the Middle East has now seen its first definite case of H5N1 bird flu. The authorities in Kuwait have confirmed that a migratory flamingo found on a beach died of the lethal strain. They say another bird suspected of having the virus had the milder H5N2 strain.

There have been six outbreaks in the past month in China and the government has responded with mass culls of poultry. The most recent outbreaks, which killed about 1100 chickens, prompted the authorities to cull 670,000 poultry in the areas affected, and place 116 people in quarantine.

The outbreaks are being blamed on migratory birds, but the head of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Beijing said it was possible that they were due to village-to-village spread of the virus.

Counterfeit vaccines
A Chinese agriculture minister has warned that the country faces a “disaster” due to the use of sub-standard – and counterfeit – poultry vaccines. These can mask symptoms of the virus, making control difficult, or even introduce the virus.

Tests on four people suspected to have contracted bird flu are still being carried out, one in Liaoning and three in Hunan province. But the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reports that 121 people from the area in Liaoning who had suspicious symptoms have now been declared not to have the disease by the local health ministry.

The highly pathogenic H5N1 virus has killed at least 62 people in Asia and more than 150 million birds since 2003. In its current form, the virus has killed 50% of people known to have contracted the virus.

Drug production
To date, there are no confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission, but experts fear the virus will mutate into a form that can pass easily among people and spark a global pandemic. After a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, this week health experts unveiled a $1 billion plan to fight bird flu, with assistance from the World Bank.

Vietnam, which has suffered 42 human fatalities – more than any other country – is currently treating two more suspected cases. It has announced that it is to begin part-production of the antiviral drug, Tamiflu, after agreeing a licence with Swiss drug company Roche. It is also planning a bird flu hospital near its border with Cambodia.

The spread of the virus is expected to increase over the northern hemisphere winter – assisted by the region’s widely held practice of keeping backyard poultry, which make large-scale, thorough culls almost impossible. Indonesia, which has suffered five confirmed human fatalities, has rejected a $10 million international loan, saying it wants grant money instead

 

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,16892681%5E661,00.html

Bird flu terror fear
Mark Dunn, Kate Jones and Shaun Phillips
12oct05

Deadly disease could be used as a weapon
COUNTER-terrorism authorities have drawn up plans to defend Australia against terrorists spreading avian influenza.

The National Counter Terrorism Committee has included the use of bird flu strain H5N1 as a weapon in possible terrorism attack scenarios, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock's office confirmed.
"It certainly is factored into the counter-terrorism plan," Mr Ruddock's spokeswoman said.

Australia joins the US and Canada in treating bird flu as a possible "agri-terrorism" weapon against the West.

The H5N1 strain -- the most virulent type of bird flu -- has so far claimed more than 60 lives in Asia.

If the strain mutates into a human-to-human virus, the World Health Organisation has warned millions could die.

A quarantine official said flights from countries that had detected H5N1 were closely monitored.

Thermal scanners for detecting passengers with a fever are on stand-by at Australian airports in the event of a pandemic.

As bird flu fears spread around the world, the Herald Sun can reveal Melbourne Commonwealth Games organisers have taken out insurance worth hundreds of millions of dollars in case the Games are cancelled.

Under the national pandemic response plan, mass gatherings can be cancelled.

Health Minister Tony Abbott's office confirmed Victorian authorities were aware of the potential impact of bird flu.

"It would have to be at a stage in the pandemic where big public assemblies would be very dangerous in terms of spread of infection," spokeswoman Kay McNiece said.

Scientists fear the disease has spread from Asia to poultry in Europe and South America. In developments yesterday:

TURKEY reported bird flu at a farm where 1800 birds died last week.

HUNDREDS of chickens in Colombia were quarantined after health authorities found the first suspected cases of bird flu.

BULGARIAN authorities tested three dead birds for the virus.

SURVEILLANCE in Papua New Guinea has been increased as the wild bird migratory season towards Australia begins.

Sources said the threat of terrorists using bird flu should not be overstated, but counter-terror agencies around the world have factored it into their scenarios.

Al-Qaida is known to have considered agricultural and biological terrorism, including a plot to infect tons of cocaine with a poison and then sell the drug in the US.

Six of al-Qaida's September 11 hijackers had some form of agricultural training and had learned to fly crop-duster aircraft.

Canada's intelligence service, the J2 Directorate, has also warned of the potential for terrorists to use bird flu.

While scientific opinion differs on how easy it may be to use it as a weapon, J2 analysts found the development of a man-made strain capable of triggering a human flu pandemic was possible.

 

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051113/NEWS01/511130340/1001/NEWS

Posted on: Sunday, November 13, 2005
Hawai'i forces take aim at bird flu


By AUDREY McAVOY
Associated Press



Rear Adm. Robert Hufstader, chief medical officer at Pacific Command headquarters, addressed a Pearl Harbor seminar last month. He wants to educate people to guard against a flu pandemic.


SPC. TIM MEYER | Pacific Command public affairs



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CAMP H.M. SMITH — U.S. military leaders in the Pacific have accelerated efforts to prepare for a possible human flu pandemic by stockpiling antiviral drugs and warning troops to be vigilant about cooking poultry and washing their hands.

This week, officials at the Hawai'i-based Pacific Command plan a workshop to test how ready they are to cope with a pandemic that could put them on the front lines of a global outbreak.

They hope the drill will expose deficiencies so they can remedy them before any real-life crisis hits.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff has ordered all the military's nine combat commands to work on anti-flu strategies. But the Pacific Command, with some 300,000 troops around the region, could face a flu challenge more urgently than others.

The highly contagious H5N1 strain of avian flu has killed at least 63 people in Southeast Asia since 2003. The virus hasn't been known to easily jump from person to person, but experts fear that it may mutate and start doing so, possibly triggering a global influenza pandemic. There were three such outbreaks in the last century.

Rear Adm. Robert D. Huf-stader, chief medical officer at the Camp Smith headquarters of the Pacific Command, said he wants to educate people so they can prepare themselves.

Like many health officials, civilian and military, Hufstader wants to avoid inciting panic.

He said the H5N1 strain of avian flu may never mutate into one easily transmissible between humans. Or if it does, it may do so over time and become less virulent.

Still, Hufstader said, the military wants to be ready for an infectious disease outbreak that could kill millions.

Coping with a flu pandemic would be more difficult than responding to last December's Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed or left missing some 230,000 people across 11 nations, he said.

"The tsunami came and happened, and no one could stop it — and then we all tried to pick up the pieces and deal with the aftermath," Hufstader said in an interview. A flu pandemic would be "an evolving thing that we'll try to identify as quickly as possible and work very hard to mitigate."

Hufstader said the military's infectious disease research labs in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Bangkok, Thailand, were part of an international network with the World Health Organization that was trying to quickly spot any H5N1 virus mutations.

It is unclear whether the military would put its hardware to use to help civilians if a pandemic breaks out. Its helicopters and ships, and its ability to move them quickly, give it capabilities not held by health organizations and other government agencies.

After the tsunami, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier reached Indonesia within days of the disaster to deliver food and aid to thousands of victims. The U.S. later sent one of its hospital ships to provide badly needed medical care.

Hufstader said the military is still discussing whether the Pacific Command would have any role in quarantining patients or cordoning off areas where there have been outbreaks.

In the meantime, the Pacific Command has been building up its stockpile of Tamiflu pills, the medication viewed as the best available defense against a possible pandemic. The Pacific Command expects its supply to reach 6 million doses by February, or about one-fourth of the U.S. government's stockpile of 23 million.

Hufstader said leaders have not determined how they will use the drugs. In the event of a human pandemic, however, Hufstader said, nurses and doctors treating flu patients would likely be prescribed doses to protect them against contagion.

Experts say the military may also be given higher-priority access to any vaccine that scientists develop to battle a human mutation of H5N1.

Dr. Robert Kim-Farley, a professor of epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health, said the military's job to defend the nation created legitimate reasons for this and for ensuring that the armed forces had enough Tamiflu.

He said members of the armed forces would have a higher chance of contracting and transmitting the disease because troops live in close quarters in the field. He said many World War I soldiers caught the Spanish flu in the trenches during the 1918-19 pandemic.

The U.S. military could help other countries by dispatching a hospital ship to help overwhelmed local medical personnel, Kim-Farley said. Or it could help transport vaccines to remote areas.

Hawai'i and Alaska are the only states inside the Pacific Command's area of responsibility, which extends from the U.S. West Coast to the east coast of Africa. So the command's role on the home front would be limited.

In general, any assistance that the armed forces may give to state and local governments would also be limited by the law — in particular the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the military from acting as law enforcement.

Although President Bush said after hurricanes Katrina and Rita that he was exploring ways to expand the Pentagon's role in major disasters, there is no consensus in Congress and among governors on how that should be done.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, among the harshest critics of the idea, accused military leaders of being on the path for an "end-run coup."

A flu pandemic, spread rapidly by international travel, may override such concerns, however. Experts say the flu could even take out local police officers, hurting the ability of communities to respond.

"It's conceivable that the scope and scale of this catastrophe, of this disaster, would be one in which traditional lines of involvement of authority might have to be flexible because so many lives could be at stake," said Leonard Marcus, the codirector of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard University.

He said, though, that the first thing the military would have to do in a pandemic is take care of its own.

 

The infected coke could be a good thing AS LONG AS whatever it was infected with wasnt contageous. If it was something comunicable it could be pretty nasty.