Flu
Drug-resistant flu viruses increasing worldwide
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In the last decade, new research indicates, the proportion of influenza A viruses that are resistant to a primary influenza drug, adamantane, and its derivatives, has increased markedly worldwide—a trend researchers believe is “a cause for concern.”
Researchers in a second study provide another worrisome observation: flu vaccines are only modestly effective in elderly individuals. Both studies are reported in the September 22nd online issue of The Lancet.
Italy passes decree to prepare for bird flu
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Italy’s cabinet passed a decree on Friday to try to prevent an outbreak of bird flu and be prepared with vaccines if they are eventually needed.
The law will beef up controls on poultry entering Italy and increase veterinary checks in domestic industry with immediate effect.
Indonesia confirms fourth human bird flu death
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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 Organisation 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.
Drugs plug gap as world awaits bird flu vaccine
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Scientists believe they have the know-how to make an effective vaccine against pandemic bird flu; the problem is how to make enough of it.
As avian flu spreads from Asia into Siberia and Kazakhstan, health experts are increasingly focused on the medical challenge of fighting the disease should it “go human” and start to spread easily from person to person.
UN rekindles bird flu migration fears in Europe
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Migrating birds pose a serious risk of spreading avian flu around the world, including into western Europe, the United Nations food agency said on Wednesday, rekindling fears that European experts moved to quash last week.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) told a news conference that parts of eastern Europe, Africa and south Asia were at risk of being infected by the virus in the near term. Western Europe could face such a risk next year, it said.
Poland says EU should help Russia fight bird flu
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Poland called on the European Union to help Russia stop the spread of deadly bird flu, which Polish veterinary services said on Tuesday could be brought to the country by wild birds within weeks.
Fears of a global outbreak of the highly pathogenic strain of bird flu have grown after the virus spread from Asia into eastern Russia and Kazakhstan. Health experts fear it could mutate into a form that spreads from person to person.
China experts say bird flu bigger threat than SARS
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Bird flu now poses a bigger and more worrying threat to people than SARS, medical experts in southern China, the region where severe acute respiratory syndrome first surfaced, said on Friday.
The main reason, they said, was that humans had learned how to effectively control the spread of SARS, but had not done the same for bird flu, which can be spread by wild birds.
WHO hopes drugs will buy time against bird flu
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The World Health Organization (WHO) began on Wednesday to build a first line of defense against a feared global bird flu pandemic with a major drug donation from a leading Swiss firm.
The United Nations agency said a donation by Swiss drug maker Roche of enough of its Tamiflu antiviral drug to treat 3 million people could slow the spread of the outbreak among humans, especially in countries too poor to afford their own stockpile.
Russia to shoot migrating birds to fight bird flu
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Some Russian regions have opened the hunting season early in an attempt to stop the spread of a deadly outbreak of bird flu, media reported on Thursday.
In the regions of Irkutsk, in eastern Siberia, and Penza, in European Russia, local officials decided to open the hunting season for birds early, even though there have been no cases of bird flu in those regions, Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Germany orders 6 million courses of flu drug
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Germany has placed an order for some 6 million courses of Roche Holding AG’s influenza drug Tamiflu to prepare for a potential outbreak of avian flu, the Swiss drugmaker said on Friday.
Germany is one of many countries to place orders for Tamiflu, the antiviral drug which the World Health Organisation recommends countries stockpile in case the H5N1 bird flu virus spreads.
“So far it is six million and discussions are still going on and it is not yet finalised,” a spokeswoman for Roche in Basel said.
Bird deaths in Russian flu epidemic up sharply
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The number of bird deaths in a Russian bird flu outbreak jumped sharply in the past 24 hours but there were no cases of the virus spreading to humans, the Emergencies Ministry said on Wednesday.
The ministry said in a note the total number of bird deaths jumped to 8,347 on Wednesday from 5,583 on Tuesday in an epidemic that has been spreading in Russia’s Siberia since mid-July.
Russian bird flu advances, Kazakhs say virus deadly
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A bird flu outbreak extended its reach in Russian Siberia and spread to Mongolia on Wednesday, and neighboring Kazakhstan confirmed a fowl virus found in the Central Asian state could kill humans.
Officials said no people had been infected so far, but the highly potent H5N1 strain has killed over 50 people in Asia since 2003. Outbreaks in the ex-Soviet bloc raised fears the virus could infect humans and trigger a global epidemic.
Bird flu found in Tibet - OIE
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The deadly bird flu virus has been found in the Chinese region of Tibet, the director general of the world animal health body OIE said on Wednesday.
“We just received the information that bird flu has been detected in Tibet,” OIE director-general Bernard Vallat told Reuters.
Bird flu kills another Vietnamese
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Bird flu has killed another man in Vietnam, taking the number of deaths in Asia caused by the virus to 62, officials said.
The 35-year-old man died in the Mekong Delta province on July 31, a day after he was taken to hospital with a high fever, state newspapers said on Tuesday.
The Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City had confirmed the man slaughtered and ate two chicken that had the H5N1 virus, the Thanh Nien newspaper said.
Russian bird flu epidemic to fade soon
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A bird flu epidemic in Russia is subsiding and should disappear by late August, a World Health Organization official said Tuesday.
But Russian health officials were less optimistic, suggesting birds migrating from the five Siberian regions where the deadly virus has been raging since mid-July could spread the disease as far afield as the United States.
