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

To: Henry Niman who wrote (1566)	4/9/2004 10:08:01 AM
From: Condor	Respond to of 4232

WHO starts process of developing human vaccine to BC avian flu strain HELEN BRANSWELL Canadian Press Tuesday, April 06, 2004 ADVERTISEMENT (CP) - The World Health Organization is starting the process of producing a human vaccine for the H7 avian flu virus ravaging poultry stocks in British Columbia and Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory will be one of the centres working on the project. Dr. Frank Plummer, the lab's scientific director, confirmed Tuesday the Winnipeg facility will be one of at least two labs in the world that will try to develop what's called a viral seed - a genetically modified version of the H7 virus that could be used by commercial vaccine makers should the H7 strain emerge as a pandemic strain. That appears unlikely at this point, but nevertheless national and international health authorities have to prepare for the possibility. It's also good practice for when the next pandemic - believed by influenza experts to be inevitable - comes, Plummer said. "In some ways we're treating it like that," he said in an interview from Winnipeg. "It's part of (pandemic) preparedness." Producing a seed vaccine for an H7 virus requires the capacity to use reverse genetics, a procedure in which the part of the virus which is deadly to chickens is plucked out. Vaccines are grown in fertilized eggs; unless an H7 virus is modified, it would kill the embryos and arrest the process. If all goes well the process should take between four and six weeks, Plummer said. Plummer confirmed the national lab would provide the WHO with samples of the viruses taken from the two people who were infected with the H7 virus in British Columbia. Those samples were sent off to the national lab Tuesday by the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver. WHO pandemic planning guidelines require the organization to commence production on a human vaccine for an avian influenza strain once there is evidence two people have been infected in an outbreak, a spokesperson for the Geneva-based organization explained. "We had to do it. You have two human cases. Zip! It's automatic," said Dick Thompson, communications director for the communicable diseases branch. Thompson admitted the project likely will not proceed with the same level of urgency that surrounded efforts to develop a seed vaccine for the H5N1 strain that has killed 22 of 33 people infected during an extensive outbreak in Asia earlier this year. "Do we feel a sense of urgency about this? Well, no. It just isn't as serious to us as what had happened in Asia, for lots of reasons," Thompson said. "You guys have the resources to deal with this. There's rapid and transparent reporting . . . so you know where the disease is. There's not a lot of argument about how to get rid of the infected birds. You're moving ahead with mass culling which is exactly what should be happening. . . . You have trained workers that are being given the right personal protection equipment." "And so you've got a virus that seems to cause relatively minor disease so far in a situation where there's widespread knowledge and an abundance of resources to deal with the problem." The H7 strain hasn't proved to be as serious a threat to human health as the H5N1 strain, though one person died in a large H7 outbreak in the Netherlands last spring during which at least 89 people were infected. The Dutch outbreak was caused by an H7N7 strain. The two Canadian cases are believed to be a different strain of influenza, H7N3. Confirmation of the neuraminadase or N factor in the human cases will be done at the Winnipeg lab, said virologist Martin Petric of the B.C. disease control centre. Another lab that will likely be involved in the project is the influenza lab at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. "Certainly if we're asked as part of a WHO effort, we're certainly willing to do whatever is needed from us," said Dr. Richard Webby, who is leading an effort there to produce a viral seed for the H5N1 influenza strain. Late last week Thompson revealed that one of three laboratories working to develop a prototype vaccine for the H5 virus had succeeded. A British government lab, the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, will announce this week that it has completed that task. © Copyright 2004 The Canadian Press canada.com

To: Henry Niman who wrote (1566)	4/9/2004 10:09:11 AM
From: Condor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4232

TODAY'S PAPER Avian flu spreads to 2 more farms Workers fall ill, but Ottawa says it's winning the battle to contain disease By MARK HUME AND GLORIA GALLOWAY Friday, April 9, 2004 - Page A6 E-mail this Article Print this Article Advertisement VANCOUVER; TORONTO -- Two additional poultry farms have become infected with avian flu in the Fraser Valley, and more frontline workers are sick, but officials indicated yesterday they think they are slowly winning the fight against the outbreak. "We have completely depopulated the entire high-risk region, which we believe to be the concentrated centre of the infection," Cornelius Kiley of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said at a press conference. Dr. Kiley said officials, who are setting out to kill 19 million birds in the Fraser Valley, have killed chickens and turkeys on all but four of the 20 infected farms and on five of six small backyard operations that tested positive for the H7N3 virus. The federal government said yesterday that it will compensate farmers whose flocks have been killed. "This strategy of eliminating high-risk flocks as quickly as possible will significantly minimize the risk of further virus spread. Accordingly, we should see fewer and fewer cases of infection as the work progresses," Dr. Kiley said. "After the depopulation is complete and all premises have been cleaned and disinfected, we will enter a monitoring phase. "We will place sentinel birds on previously infected premises to make certain that our measures have effectively eliminated any residual risk. "Once we see that no traces of the virus remain, industry can begin to restock their premises. "Right now, we cannot state for certain when our operations will finish. As we proceed, we will gain a better sense of time lines," Dr. Kiley said. An official with the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control said the number of people who had become ill in association with infected flocks had increased to 17, from the initial five, but only two have been confirmed to have avian flu. Those two cases were detected several weeks ago, early in the eradication program, and more stringent safety measures, including flu vaccinations for workers, have been put in place. The people infected had only mild flu-like symptoms and cases of pinkeye. The food inspection agency also announced yesterday that a ban on the export of poultry products from the Fraser Valley is being lifted. Meat from healthy birds can be shipped and sold outside British Columbia and Canada as long as it is clearly identified and not mixed with poultry products from other areas. "In responding to diseases such as this, our primary concern is the protection of food safety and animal health. However, we are also committed to implementing disease-control measures that are no more restrictive than necessary," Dr. Kiley said. "The CFIA's approach continues to be directed by science. And science has demonstrated that this product can be moved safely under certain circumstances." The decision means that hundreds of tonnes of poultry that have been placed in freezer storage can move to markets outside the province. Avian flu has never been transmitted to humans by eating poultry meat or eggs. The virus is killed by a cooking temperature of 60 to 70 degrees Celsius. The B.C. poultry industry, which employs 5,000 people and produces 147 million kilograms of chicken and 59 million dozen eggs annually, is losing more than $3-million a week, largely because of the ban on exporting chickens from the area. In Toronto yesterday, federal Agriculture Minister Bob Speller promised compensation, but said his primary objective is to wipe out the disease. "Our first priority now is to really mitigate this disease and stamp it out," Mr. Speller said after meeting with provincial agriculture ministers at an airport hotel. He refused to indicate how much compensation will be forthcoming or when it will be announced. "Frankly, we don't know the extent of this," Mr. Speller said. "It's really too early to say . . . this is how much it's going to cost." B.C. Agriculture Minister John van Dongen, who was at the meeting, said his government shares the federal goal of containing the disease, but will ensure that Ottawa lives up to its commitment to provide financial assistance. "We have active groups working on the compensation issue," he said. "I think it's very important to recognize that there is a whole range of impacts, including workers who are being laid off in feed mills and processing plants." theglobeandmail.com