H5n1 !!!!!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1539591.htm

>> China has confirmed its seventh human infection and third human death from bird flu.

Officials say a 41-year old factory worker died from the disease over a week ago.

The victim, a woman surnamed Zhou, died on December 21.

Like previous human victims of the H5N1 virus in China, she apparently contracted the disease in an area that has not officially reported previous outbreaks among birds.

The Health Ministry says "no H5N1 bird flu outbreak in animals was detected in the area where the new case was reported", the Xinhua news agency reports. >>
 
The anti-viral Amantadine, although widely distributed and used in China to prevent the spead of H5N1 in poultry, has not been effective against the current strain of bird flu virus.

More on the mutation discovered in Vietnam:
H5N1 has already been mutating rapidly in Vietnam, where few chickens are vaccinated. Cao Bao Van, head of the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, told the Vietnamese press this week that 24 isolates of H5N1 from poultry and humans, taken between December 2003 and March 2005, show “significant variation”.

Cao was also quoted as saying a mutation had been observed in the PB2 gene of a virus isolated from a human case in March, which “allows more effective breeding of the virus in mammals”. PB2 codes for part of the polymerase enzyme which replicates the virus.

That mutation, at amino acid number 627 of the protein, changes the glutamic acid of bird flu to the lysine typical of human flu. The change allows the virus to replicate in the human respiratory tract, which is cooler than the bird guts where bird flu normally replicates.

The same mutation has been turning up since 2004 in several isolates of H5N1 from humans and other mammals in east Asia and shows the virus is adapting to mammals while infecting them. It was also a feature of the 1918 pandemic virus, which was a bird flu virus that adapted to humans.
Click to expand...
http://avianflu.typepad.com/avianflu/vietnam/ November, 2005
 
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/051228_ap_migrate_flu.html

>> To date, the virus hasn't been shown to spread from person to person, but many fear that it could mutate into a strain that could, potentially killing millions in a global pandemic.

While the prospect that migrating birds could carry the virus worldwide still worries health authorities, that sort of scenario doesn't appear to be playing out.

“There is more and more evidence building up that wild migratory birds do play some role in spreading the virus, but personally I believe -- and others agree -- that it's not a major role,'' said Ward Hagemeijer, a wild bird ecologist with Wetlands International, a conservation group in Wageningen, Netherlands. “If we would assume based on this evidence that wild birds would be a major carrier of the disease we would expect a more dramatic outbreak of the disease all over the world.''

Reports this summer and fall of the spread of the H5N1 strain strongly suggested wild birds were carrying the disease outward from Asia as they followed migration patterns that crisscross the Earth. The timing and location of outbreaks in western China, Russia, Romania, Turkey and Croatia seemed to point to wild birds en route to winter grounds.

That put places like Alaska, where birds from the Old and New Worlds gather each summer to create what some call an “international viral transfer center,'' on alert that the virus could arrive this coming spring. And from there, species like the buff-breasted sandpiper and others that split their time between North and South America could in theory transport the virus farther afield.

Since the early fall, however, there have been only scattered reports of more outbreaks. The disease has been glaringly absent, for example, from western Europe and the Nile delta, where many presumed it would crop up as migrating birds returned to winter roosts.

That suggests the strain has evolved to specifically exploit domestic poultry, whose short lives spent in tight flocks mean a virus has to skip quickly from bird to bird if it is to survive, said Hon Ip, a virologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis.

That also means that while the virus can pass from domestic to wild birds, the latter may not be suited as transmitters of the strain -- at least so far.

“By the timing of the spread and the pattern of outbreaks within a country and between countries, it does not make sense relative to a role for migratory birds as a means of spreading the virus,'' Ip said.

“It is still patchy -- the pattern of outbreaks -- to really make a very definitive link between migratory birds and the disease,'' said Marco Barbieri, the scientific and technical officer for the United Nations Environmental Program's convention on migratory species in Bonn, Germany. >>>>
 
“There is more and more evidence building up that wild migratory birds do play some role in spreading the virus, but personally I believe -- and others agree -- that it's not a major role,'' said Ward Hagemeijer, a wild bird ecologist with Wetlands International, a conservation group in Wageningen, Netherlands. “If we would assume based on this evidence that wild birds would be a major carrier of the disease we would expect a more dramatic outbreak of the disease all over the world.''

It has spread from East Asian migratory birds to European migratory birds now heading into African. It is spreading easily between birds.

I just heard on the radio today (NPR) that the reason that Tamiflu is not always effective against the flu (two Vietnamese recently died even though they were given Tamiflu) is because Tamiflu acts in a way to slow the virus down, so as to allow the person's own immune system to build up its own immunity against it. Therefore, it sounds like it is worthless unless administered before or imediately after.
 
New Bird Flu Outbreak in China

"China confirmed a new outbreak of bird flu in its southwest province of Sichuan, but the Agriculture Ministry said the situation there was under control. More than 1,800 birds were found dead on December 22 at a farm in Dazhu County, Sichuan province, a statement on the Agriculture Ministry Web site said....More than 12,900 birds at the farm in Liu Jian village, Yang Jia town have since been culled to halt the spread of the virus, the statement said.

China has reported 26 outbreaks in chickens, ducks and other poultry in areas throughout the country since October 19 last year. Authorities have destroyed millions of birds to contain outbreaks and are in the midst of a campaign to inoculate all of China's 5.2 billion poultry....China has reported seven cases of bird flu in humans, three of which have been fatal." http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/conditions/01/04/china.birdflu.ap/index.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a related note: New Developments on How a Virus Invades a Cell:

060104_virus_vmed_2p.hmedium.jpg


"This image shows the structural changes in the F protein that enable viral infection of cells. The F protein exists in two states: one on the virus surface before infection (prefusion, at left) and one after infection (postfusion, at right). The parts of the F protein shown in green on the prefusion form rearrange themselves and come together into a harpoonlike rod at the top of the postfusion form." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10708952/
 
What if people just believe that they have a regular flu? They wont bother or care... I think it's a little bit over-rated. Like sars... It causes alot of cases of anxiety, tho'... :rolleyes:

Wait!... I have a cure for that! :m:
 
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1543218.htm

>> The World Health Organisation is seeking to allay panic following the deaths of three people in Turkey from bird flu, even though it says the disease is now "at the doors of Europe".

The latest person to die in Turkey is Hulya Kocyigit, 11.

She is the sister of Mehmet Ali, a 14-year-old boy who died last weekend, and of Fatma, 15, a girl who died on Thursday.

"The initial hypothesis we are working on is that the children affected had dealt with diseased chickens and were thus infected," she said.

But the experts "will also try to see if we are faced with the first case of human-to-human transmission, which would be the start of a flu epidemic". >>>
 
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4591752.stm

>> Two young children being treated for bird flu in eastern Turkey have been found to have the virulent H5N1 virus.

The children were aged five and eight, a World Health Organisation (WHO) spokesman said.

This week three children from the eastern Turkish town of Dogubeyazit died, of whom at least two were found to have the virulent H5N1 strain.

However, there is no evidence that the disease has begun to spread between humans.

WHO officials trying to reach the affected area, near the city of Van, have been delayed by severe winter weather and are expected to arrive on Sunday.

Twenty people remain in hospital in Van undergoing treatment for suspected bird flu.

Mehmet Ali Kocyigit, 14, and his two sisters Fatma, 15, and Hulya, 11, all died this week.

Tests carried out in a UK laboratory confirmed that Mehmet Ali and Fatma died from the H5N1 strain, which has killed more than 70 in South-East Asia and China.

The children's family kept poultry at their home in Dogubeyazit.

All four children developed symptoms including a high fever, coughing and bleeding in the throat.

Doctors said they had been playing with the heads of chickens who had died of bird flu. >>>>

>> "Right now these new cases in Turkey - they don't elevate the global risk assessment, so we're still in the same pandemic alert phase that we've been in for the last couple of years," Maria Cheng told AP news agency. >>>


Looks to me things are really hotting up, and in the cold

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1543489.htm

>> WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng said the children, a 5-year-old and an 8-year-old, were from the same region where three other children died from bird flu this week.

A Reuters reporter saw chickens still walking on the streets, and some escaping just before they were carried in large bags to be buried alive in pits.

Despite government efforts, residents complain that even after they ask for assistance, chickens are not being taken away for days. Some say they do not have money to pay for trucks to bring poultry to the city centre for culling. >>
 
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4594488.stm

>> .. the virus is now present in the east, north and centre of the country.
Health experts say there is no sign the virus is passing from human to human.
The fact that the virus is now present along the Black Sea coast and central Turkey, as well as in the east, is seen as worrying. >>

This virus seems to love cold weather.....
 
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1546805.htm

>> Scientists say analysis of Turkey's two fatal bird flu cases suggests the potentially deadly H5N1 strain is mutating toward a form adapted to humans.

They say one of two viruses taken from the two cases shows similar mutations to recent Asian flu viruses but the change is probably not enough to make it more dangerous yet.

The research comes as Turkey confirms the H5N1 strain has killed a third person, an 11-year-old girl, whose two siblings have also died from the bird flu in the eastern Turkish city of Van. >>>
 
Yes, we have singular examples of unprecedented viral action that can be used to invalidate and replace all previous knowledge of the flu virus and give us a whole new paradigm where no one knows anything except that it's danger, Will Robinson, and only swift and devastating action by all of the governments of the world against all of the birds of the world will make us safe, whether we need it or not, but we can't take the chance, so kill all of the winged types.

What a crock.
 
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