H5N1

Thailand reports three new possible human cases

A reader has sent me a story in Xinhua: three more suspected human cases in Thailand.

Three more suspected bird flu patients have been reported in Thailand's eastern Chacherngsao Province, all are children aged between three to 11 years old, reported the Thai News Agency Saturday.

The three patients, two girls aged 11 and three and one four-year-old boy, whose families raise chickens, were admitted to a hospital in the province's municipal area earlier this week.

They all showed bird flu-like symptoms after chickens in their families died suspiciously.

I haven't been able to find confirmation in any English-language Thai media, but we may hear more later this weekend.

A conference on avian flu

Many thanks to the reader who sent me the link to the Council on Foreign Relations' Conference On The Global Threat Of Pandemic Influenza.

It's the transcript of a day-long conference last Wednesday, where a number of well-known persons including Laurie Garrett and Michael Osterholm looked at:
•Where we stand now
•Containment and control
•The US government's role
•The business community's role
•What would the world look like after a pandemic?

The transcript is quite long, and worth reading in its entirety.

A hospital prepares

Today's Globe and Mail has a magnificent article about Salvation's army: the people working at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital who are dealing with the routine challenges of caring for sick people while also preparing for a pandemic they know is coming.

Where else but a hospital would highly educated human beings sit in a room respectfully arguing about who does and who does not have the right to be protected against an influenza epidemic that could kill 30 million people, even as that flu is gearing up to sweep across China and into the lives of the people in the room? Where else on earth but in a hospital, with its fearless logic and tightly bound emotional range, would it be possible for a doctor to say in all seriousness that he should be protected against the flu, whereas his daughter — to say nothing of yours, buster — should not be?

Sometimes the Globe ticks me off enormously, but this time it did us all a service.

Branswell: H5N1 found in Manitoba isn't the Asian form

Helen Branswell reports on two wild ducks in Manitoba that have tested positive for what you might call "H5N1 Lite." It's not the Asian strain, which is the one we have to worry about.

The H5N1 viruses were isolated from two ducks as part of a first-ever cross-country surveillance program aimed at taking a snapshot of what flu viruses wild ducks in this country are carrying.

H5N1s have been found previously in North America, mostly recently in domestic poultry in Michigan in 2002, Evans said.

Avian influenza experts concurred with the assessment of the Canadian officials, noting H5N1 viruses from North American lineage have typically been far milder than their distant Asian cousins.

"We've got 32 years of surveillance work that says these North American strains in wild birds in the past have never been a threat," said Dr. Richard Slemons, of Ohio State University, a leading avian influenza expert who isolated an H5N1 virus in a mallard in Ohio in 1986.

The brighter side of this problem is that we're learning a lot more about viruses in general and H5N1 in particular.

Past gives few clues for predicting pandemics

Via canada.com, here's a good article: Past gives few clues for predicting new flu pandemic. It offers a concise summary of H5N1 since 1997, in the context of earlier pandemics.

Away for the day

I'm taking an all-day workshop today, so I won't be able to post anything until late this afternoon (Pacific time). CBC Radio continues to cover the H5 story in the Fraser Valley, but without many details. Use the link two posts down to see whatever the latest is on the story. And thanks for your patience.

$100m to fight bird flu

Thanks to the reader who sent the link to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald: Australia is allocating $100m to fight bird flu.

Some of the money will go to international agencies like WHO (which, I expect, is currently hiring lots of people), as well as to APEC-sponsored activities like simulation exercises.

The story also confirms my suspicion, posted here yesterday, that Howard's APEC speech was a thinly disguised attack on China's reticence in reporting honestly on the avian flu situation.

More on H5 in the Fraser Valley

Here is the canada.com report on H5 found in a domestic duck in Abbotsford, British Columbia.

After breaking the news just before 5 pm, CBC Radio at 5:30 said it was H5N1. This appears to have been an error; the claim hasn't been repeated. We'll know in a day or two just what kind of virus we're dealing with.

Regardless, it's likely to cause severe harm to the BC poultry industry. It will also have political repercussions. We're probably just weeks away from a federal election, and our preparations for pandemic flu will doubtless become a campaign issue. The provincial government will also scramble to demonstrate that it's done all it can. And since Abbotsford is very close to the US border (and to farms just across that border), it will be a much bigger issue in the US as well.

But we still have far too little real information.

H5 in British Columbia?

CBC Radio has just announced (5:00 pm PST) that a duck in Abbotsford, east of Vancouver, has tested positive for H5. It's not known if it's H5N1, but it's not good news at all. As I write, the CBC British Columbia site has nothing on the story, but check the link later tonight.

Calm words in the Persian Gulf

The Peninsula, an English-language news source in Qatar, reports that Bird flu strain is unlikely to lead to global outbreak. The story describes a presentation in Qatar by Dr. Ravi Mamtani, a professor of clinical and preventive medicine at New York Medical College.

Mamtani sees H5N1 as currently limited in its virulence, but warns that it can still mutate into a much more dangerous form.

Dr Mamtani also said popping Tamiflu pills without reason does not protect a person against the dreaded Avian Influenza. The first dose of such a anti-viral medication has to be taken within 48 hours of contracting the disease for positive effects, he added.

In recent weeks, several residents of Qatar have hoarded Tamiflu pills with the hope of defending themselves against the H5N1 virus, in the unlikely event that bird flu appears in Qatar. Some had also bought the pills to send them home to their relatives in the Indian subcontinent and the Far East, where the drug is currently unavailable. The situation has forced the Ministry of Public Health to regulate sales of the world’s sole known anti-viral, a research product of Swiss firm, F Hoffmann La Roche.