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To: Tommaso who wrote (37698)	8/3/2005 6:46:29 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Respond to of 110194

Tommaso, I was just posting an article to you about the bird flu. Since that has been a topic here. Maybe it gets here, maybe it doesn't. I wish you well. Maybe you can put it on ignore. <G>

To: Tommaso who wrote (37698)	8/4/2005 8:38:10 AM
From: Jim McMannis	Respond to of 110194

Flu could infect half world's people in year WHO in talks to stockpile antiviral drugs in case of global outbreak Ian Sample, science correspondent Thursday August 4, 2005 The Guardian An outbreak of flu in rural south-east Asia could spread around the globe in three months and infect half the world's population within a year, unless strict measures to contain it are introduced, scientists said yesterday. The warning comes from researchers who used computer models to investigate what would happen if the avian flu virus, which is currently rife among poultry in areas of China, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, mutated into a form that spread easily among humans. Scientists believe it is only a matter of time before the virus, known as H5N1, mutates to become more infectious to humans, possibly by swapping genes with the human flu virus. "This is the event we're all scared might happen at any time," said Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London and the leading author of the study. "We'd be faced with an event worse than the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic." The avian flu virus has killed more than 50 people in Asia, more than half of those who have been infected. Almost every death was traced back to the person coming into contact with infected poultry in the countryside. The Spanish pandemic of 1918 is believed to have claimed up to 40 million lives worldwide. Professor Ferguson's team modelled the spread of a mutated avian flu virus among 85 million people living in Thailand and a strip of neighbouring countries. After watching how quickly the virus spread around the globe, they tested various strategies for containing an outbreak. "Until now, the idea of stopping an outbreak hadn't been investigated," he said. If an outbreak was detected in its infancy, with less than 50 people infected, models show it could be contained by administering antiviral drugs to the 20,000 people closest to those infected, the researchers report in the journal Nature today. Combined with other measures, such as shutting schools and workplaces, it would take around 60 days to contain the outbreak, with the number of cases totalling no more than around 200. To deal with the worst case scenario of an avian flu outbreak, the scientists called for an international stockpile of 3m courses of antiviral drugs to be set up, ready to be deployed anywhere in the world within a few days of an outbreak being detected. A spokeswoman for Roche, which manufactures the antiviral drug Tamiflu, confirmed that the company is in talks with the World Health Organisation about building a stockpile of the drug, but refused to give further details. The WHO already has 120,000 courses of Tamiflu, but with Britain and France each waiting for orders of 15m courses from Roche, the company will have to decide which takes priority. Prof Ferguson's research is reported alongside a second study published online today by the US journal Science, which modelled an outbreak of flu among half a million people living in Thailand. Ira Longini and his team at Emory University in Atlanta also found that antiviral drugs could be used to contain an outbreak by giving them to healthy people closest to those infected. Flu vaccines, even relatively poor ones, would also help quash a nascent outbreak, he said. According to Professor Longini's model, 100,000 courses of Tamiflu would be enough to prevent a flu outbreak becoming a pandemic as long as the virus had a "reproductive number" - the average number of people each infected person goes on to infect - of no more than 1.6. Measles, one of the most infectious diseases has a reproductive number of around 15. Typically, each person infected with flu infects two others. Prof Longini said the creation of an international stockpile of drugs should take precedence over orders from individual countries. "The WHO should get priority ... and the richer nations should chip in, because it's in their interests to stop it before it reaches their shores," he said. Creation of the stockpile is just the first hurdle. The WHO, in conjunction with the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, will have to tread carefully with governments to ensure the policies are adopted and that outbreaks are spotted quickly enough. A scientist close to the programme said: "The big issue is surveillance. If these models are right, and there may be problems with them, the outcome depends on getting an early warning of an outbreak."

To: Tommaso who wrote (37698)	8/4/2005 9:44:52 AM
From: Jim McMannis	Respond to of 110194

Grad Student Believes Wood May Replace Oil Wed Aug 3,11:08 PM MOSCOW, Idaho - A University of Idaho graduate student believes the answer to the world's crude oil crisis grows on trees. Juan Andres Soria says he has developed a process that turns wood into bio-oil, a substance similar to crude oil. news.yahoo.com The process — in which sawdust and methanol are heated to 900 degrees Fahrenheit to create the bio-oil — is already drawing some interest from energy and wood product companies, Soria said. "But because it's quite novel, there's a bit of reserve," he said. Soria is testing his theory with the help of Armando McDonald, associate professor of wood chemistry and composites in the University of Idaho's College of Natural Resources. Though the idea may sound far-fetched, Soria and McDonald say the theory has precedent in nature — coal is the result of trees being subjected to high amounts of heat and pressure. "We're trying to speed up the process," McDonald said. "Rather than doing it in millions of years, can we do it in minutes?" So far, Soria's research has focused on sawdust from Ponderosa pine trees, although he said any variety of tree could be used, including fast-growing varieties like those being cultivated for wood pulp. Only about 2 percent of the mass is lost in the heating process, he said. After the bio-oil is produced, he separates it by boiling points, or grades. So far, he said, he's identified oil grades that could someday replace gasoline, tar, glues and resins that make things like lawn furniture. Ponderosa pine sawdust is only the beginning, Soria and McDonald claim. Next, they will begin testing to see if they can get bio-oil from pine needles and bark. The two are doing the research without grant money. Soria plans to use the research in his dissertation for his doctorate. If the private sector likes the idea enough to back it financially, Soria said he could put together an industrial-size bio refinery in five years. Still, he said, the bio-oil isn't likely to be an immediate competitor to crude oil. Crude oil currently costs about $60 a barrel, and bio-oil will only be competitive when the cost of crude oil reaches $80 a barrel, Soria said