Klaus Stöhr, head of the WHO's Influenza team, warned that preparedness for flu pandemics must also prepare for the distant future. And epidemiologists point out that a blanket ban on bird imports will fuel the illegal trafficking of exotic birds - already the third-largest black market in the European Union after guns and drugs.There is also, as yet, no sign that the H5N1 strain is swapping genes with other influenza viruses to make it easily transmissible between humans. The army are enforcing a … Flu-associated deaths in children (defined as persons aged 18 years and younger) first became a nationally notifiable condition during the 2004-2005 flu season and are reported through the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS).
“The president said that the threat of a global outbreak should be taken seriously in light of the high number of fatalities that occurred during previous pandemics,” “If history is our guide, there is reason for concern,” said Bush.Further, he called for the military to be ready to enforce travel restrictions, lockdowns, and closings for days and weeks at a time. “So that’s why I put it on the table. What molecular changes would be required to make human-to-human transmission as easily as cat-to-cat? At one street market in Shanghai, a few blocks west of the city's famed Yuyuan Gardens, vendors piled plucked chickens next to stalls of vegetables, fruit and fried insects. The confirmed H5N1 cases in Turkey were on a turkey farm where birds lived outside and could potentially have come into contact with migrating waterfowl. And, if so, whether it is the same H5 strain that has hit Asia.The European Commission has announced a ban on all imports of live birds and feathers from Turkey into the European Union. "Private prescriptions for Tamiflu can cost about $50 in Europe but national governments have purchased stockpiles of the medicine for less. The boy lives in an area with sick chickens, and the woman is known to have visited him there.Indonesia has confirmed 9 cases of human H5N1 infection to date, of which 5 have been fatal.It all begins in Asia. Officials report the cull began just a day after the first dead birds were reported, but locals have told reporters the disease has been killing their birds since September. In 1997, in Hong Kong, 18 humans were infected and 6 died in the first known case of H5N1 infecting humans. The findings appear in the journal Previous research has also shown that the avian flu virus increases production of pro-inflammatory proteins in other cells. And species whose behaviour patterns bring them into contact with human activities, such as mallard ducks, also got a risk boost.This is only an initial assessment, which will need continual refinement, emphasizes Veen. Areas of research to identify the likelihood of rapid or slow evolution to human contagion, or for predicting the greater or lesser likelihood of a rather lethal human-adapted influenza include: And species whose behaviour patterns bring them into contact with human activities, such as mallard ducks, also got a risk boost.This is only an initial assessment, which will need continual refinement, emphasizes Veen. Pressure is mounting on Roche to allow such companies to market generic versions of the drug, though Roche has said it would probably take two to three years for another company to ramp up production of such a drug.In Turkey, more information is currently being requested of the Turkish authorities concerning a second possible outbreak located at the borderline with Iran.The new cases seem to confirm that the virus is being spread by migrating birds, Slingenberg said. ... A dose-response relationship between poultry exposure and flulike illness was noted: poultry in the household (odds ratio, 1.04; 95% confidence interval, 0.96-1.12), sick or dead poultry in the household but with no direct contact (odds ratio, 1.14; 95% confidence interval, 1.06-1.23), and direct contact with sick poultry (odds ratio, 1.73; 95% confidence interval, 1.58-1.89). (The Asian Flu pandemic occurred in 1957-8, and caused millions of cases but much lower mortality than the global "Spanish flu" of 1918-9, which killed over 20 million.)
This time, with more serious flu, matters are different. Pandemics come along every few decades. This brings the confirmed number of cases in Vietnam since mid-December 2004 to 64 cases, 21 of which were fatal.On 16 September, Indonesia's health ministry confirmed that a 37-year-old woman who died in the capital on 10 September was positive for H5N1, bringing the country's death total to four from the disease. But there is no money available for the long-term research that would be required for the development of such a vaccine.Stöhr proposed that European governments should turn as a group to an agency like the World Health Organization to negotiate a single deal with companies for flu vaccines.