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

To: caly who wrote (3960)	1/24/2007 12:18:08 PM
From: JMarcus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4232

Official: End to bird flu is years away Threat of human pandemic persists as long as virus infecting birds Reuters Updated: 7:49 a.m. PT Jan 22, 2007 GENEVA - The world is years away from stamping out bird flu in poultry, and the threat of a human pandemic will remain until it does, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. Addressing the U.N. agency’s 34-state executive board, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said that in the past three years the H5N1 bird flu virus had proven virulent. “As long as the virus continues to circulate in birds, the threat of a pandemic will persist. The world is years away from control in the agricultural sector,” she said. Since the disease re-emerged in 2003, there have been 267 infections in humans, mostly in southeast Asia, and 161 deaths. Nearly half the fatalities occurred in 2006 alone, Chan said. Although the disease remained primarily an avarian disease, it had lost none of its virulence when it did jump to humans, with the death rate in 2006 touching 70 percent compared with 60 percent over the three years. The WHO has long warned that the virus, which first erupted in 1997 in Hong Kong, could trigger a global pandemic if it mutates into one capable of being passed on easily between humans. So far virtually all human cases have involved close contact with infected birds. Chan, who took over as head of the Geneva-based agency earlier this month, said that it was impossible to predict when, if at all, such a mutation could take place. “Influenza viruses are notoriously sloppy, unstable and capricious. It is impossible to predict their behavior,” she told the board, which meets twice a year. “The message is straightforward: we must not let down our guard,” she said. Bird flu is high on the agenda for the board’s eight-day meeting, which will also discuss infectious diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis as well as chronic sicknesses like diabetes and heart disease, and agree a 2008-2009 budget. Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. URL: msnbc.msn.com

To: caly who wrote (3960)	2/2/2007 11:28:23 AM
From: caly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4232

Bird flu can infect people via upper airway: expert By Tan Ee Lyn Fri Feb 2, 6:51 AM ET HONG KONG (Reuters) - Leading scientists in Hong Kong have found that the H5N1 bird flu virus can infect cells in the upper airway of humans and need not penetrate deep in the lungs to cause infection. A study by scientists based in the United States in 2006 suggested that H5N1 could not infect people easily because it had to first lodge itself deep inside the lungs, where it binds more easily to certain receptors called the alpha 2-3. But in an article published in the January issue of the journal Nature Medicine, scientists from the University of Hong Kong found that the virus could infect the nasopharynx, an area behind the nose and above the soft palate, and the throat. "On the earlier hypothesis, the virus has to go deep into the lungs to infect anybody but our research suggests that is not the case. The virus can get a foothold in the upper respiratory tract, it doesn't have to get deep down into the lungs," microbiology professor Malik Peiris told Reuters late on Friday. Using discarded human tissues, Malik found both upper and lower human respiratory tracts could be infected by the virus. "Even in the upper respiratory tract (where) the alpha 2-3 receptor seems to be lacking, the H5N1 can still infect the cells ... so it raises the question of whether there may be other receptors the virus is using and highlights the point that further study is needed." However, he said there was no reason to panic. "It is still not able in most cases to establish infection and has not been able to transmit human to human (efficiently). It doesn't change that situation as such," said Peiris, who has studied the H5N1 since 1997, when it made its first known jump to humans in Hong Kong, killing six people. The virus re-emerged in late 2003 and has become endemic in several places in Asia. It has since infected 270 people around the world, killing 164 of them, according to latest figures from the World Health Organization. It has flared up again in recent months, spreading through poultry flocks in Japan, Vietnam and Thailand, killing six people in Indonesia and claiming its first human life in Nigeria. Although it remains a bird disease, experts still fear it could kill millions once it learns how to pass efficiently among people.