Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Biotech / Medical : SARS and Avian Flu -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: maceng2 who wrote (1262)	1/23/2004 8:55:03 AM
From: Biomaven	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4232

Lancet editorial Avian influenza: the threat looms By Jan 20, a fifth person had died of H5N1 avian influenza in Vietnam, according to WHO. The infection source is most likely from poultry rather than from human-to-human transmission. Bird stocks in Japan and South Korea have also been infected with the H5N1 strain. Avian influenza is caused by influenza virus type A, and infects many animal species. A highly pathogenic avian influenza is caused by subtypes H5 and H7 (H is the haemagglutinin protein on the virus surface; N is the neuraminidase surface protein). Wild birds are the main natural reservoir, and are probably the source of infection for other animals. Influenza A viruses are highly labile, because of antigenic drift (small continuous changes in the virus that makes the body's immune system no longer recognise it) and antigenic shift (a rarer but sudden large change in the virus that leads to new combinations of haemagglutinin and neuraminidase proteins). In 1997, 18 people in Hong Kong were admitted to hospital with H5N1 infection, and six died. This outbreak was the first documented example of direct transmission of H5N1 influenza to human beings. In 2003, two Hong Kong residents, after returning from China, developed H5N1 influenza, and one died. In the same year, H7N7 avian influenza, another virulent subtype, broke out in the poultry industry in the Netherlands, and a veterinarian died. Live-poultry markets in Asian countries are a breeding ground for avian influenza. These wet markets, as they are called, are embedded in the food culture of such countries (see Lancet, Jan 17, 2004, p 234-36). The main response to outbreaks of avian influenza is mass culling of poultry, which is now underway in Vietnam. In the 1997 outbreak in Hong Kong, 1·4 million chickens and other poultry--the entire stock--were destroyed. The 1999 outbreak of avian influenza there saw 1·25 million birds culled. The implications for the local and wider human population concern economics and health. Countries and communities that rely on farmed poultry as a food source will be hard-pressed after mass cullings of birds. Farmers will need financial compensation and alternative sources for bird meat must be sought. Because affected countries tend to be from poorer parts of the world, compensation and importation of bird meat will need to be thought of by international donor agencies. For health, what if H5N1 influenza, with its high virulence, becomes transmissible between human beings? Such a catastrophe has yet to occur, but is one of the major fears of infectious disease experts throughout the world. Until the 1997 outbreak in Hong Kong, it had been thought that H5N1 transmission to human beings would require an intermediate such as the pig, whose respiratory epithelium shares sialic acid isoforms with both birds and human beings. The fear is that a strain such as H5N1 might reassort with a human influenza virus to become contagious among people. In view of the high mortality of human influenza associated with this strain, the prospect of a worldwide pandemic is massively frightening. If H5N1 influenza became pandemic in human beings, vaccination is not an option. Traditional influenza vaccines are made by the chick-embryo method, which is slow and limited by the supply of fertile eggs. The H5 and H7 subtypes cannot anyway be made by standard methods, because they are rapidly lethal to chick embryos. Plasmid reverse-genetic technology can be used to make influenza vaccines, but such vaccines have yet to be studied in clinical trials. Antiviral drugs are expensive and not effective enough. Influenza is more contagious than SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome, caused by a coronavirus), so the quarantine measures used to control SARS are unlikely to control influenza. The possibility of a human pandemic with a highly pathogenic avian influenza virus must be taken very seriously indeed. With the latest outbreak in birds in Vietnam, teams from WHO, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization were quickly in country. One thing is clear: given that all new infectious diseases of human beings to emerge in the past 20 years have had an animal source, veterinary science and animal husbandry are as important for disease control as clinical medicine. When funding and resources are allocated, animal experts must not be overlooked. thelancet.com

To: maceng2 who wrote (1262)	1/23/2004 12:04:11 PM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4232

Looks like the dice keep on rolling and its just a matter of time before there's a major medical event discuss.agonist.org

To: maceng2 who wrote (1262)	1/26/2004 2:22:53 AM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4232

dying of the avian flu virus and other illnesses for the last five months. guardian.co.uk Indonesia falls victim to bird flu John Aglionby in Bangkok Monday January 26, 2004 The Guardian Indonesia yesterday admitted that millions of birds in dozens of districts across the sprawling archipelago have been dying of the avian flu virus and other illnesses for the last five months. Officials in the world's fourth most populous nation insisted that no human cases of bird flu had been reported. But independent health experts disputed the government's chicken death figures, saying the death toll was more than twice the official estimate. The director general of animal husbandry in the agriculture ministry, Sofyan Sudarjad, said 4.7 million birds in 51 districts had died since August. About 60% of these had died from Newcastle's disease, which is harmless to humans, while the remainder had been infected with bird flu. "The government is not trying to conceal that avian influenza has attacked millions of chickens in Indonesia," he said. "Besides attacking egg-laying hens, the avian influenza has also attacked [other] chickens, quails and ducklings." If correct, this would mean Indonesia's poultry industry has been affected more severely than Thailand and Vietnam, the two countries where human cases have been detected. A seventh person is sus pected of having died of bird flu in Thailand, and the virus's rapid spread has put the entire region on a health alert. More than 9 million chickens have been culled in Thailand and 3 million in Vietnam. The World Health Organisation warned yesterday that it might take six months to develop a bird flu vaccine as virus samples from all the infected areas would have to be collated before a definitive antidote could be produced. Indonesian chickens first started falling ill in August near Pekalongan, in central Java, Mr Sofyan said. The death toll reportedly peaked in November when 2.6 million died and then fell to 556,000 last month. A crisis team of officials from the health and agriculture ministries has reportedly been meeting for months to coordinate a response, particularly if human cases were detected, but an independent source close to the team said no reports of humans falling ill had been received. "The ministry is usually very open so I don't think that they'd be able or willing to hide it if humans were ill," the source said. China yesterday joined the growing list of countries to ban Thai poultry products. Japan and the European Union, Thailand's two biggest export markets, have already imposed a ban, as have most of its neighbours.