H5N1

India: B2B H5N1 scare spreads to Kendrapada, kites reportedly found dead

Via Odisha Today.com: Bird flu scare spreads to Kendrapada, kites reportedly found dead. Excerpt:

Kendrapada (Odisha):  After the death of crows in Kendrapada district, now kites have found dead at Kendrapada district triggering an alarm of possible bird flu in the district. 

If sources are to be believed as many as four kites were reportedly found dead on Saturday at Mahipal area under Kendrapada township area. Later, locals being panicked informed the Chief District Veterinary officer. 

The animal husbandry unit later rushed to the spot and seized the dead kites and sent two samples of the dead kites to Animal Disease Research Institute (ADRI), at Fulnakhara to ascertain the reason behind the death of the birds. 

Notably, within last one month, hundred of crows have reportedly been died in the district. Even, the personnel of animal husbandry have also sent 17 samples of dead crows to the ADRI to conduct test to ascertain the reason behind the mysterious death of crows. 

According to CDVO of Kendrapada, Dr. Debabrata Banarjee, H5N1 virus have  not been detected   among the 17 samples of dead crows that were sent to ADRI for examination recently. As a result, the animal husbandry officials are optimistic that the death of  kites might  not be due to bird flu. 

Though, so far none of the poultry farms, winter migratory birds, crows or duck population have reportedly been infected with bird flu virus, but in a precautionary measure, we have sounded an alarm in the whole district, said Banarjee.

Haiti: New drinking water system at Jacmel prison

Via HaitiLibre.com: Drinking water system at the Jacmel prison. Excerpt:

Of a capacity of 20,000 liters per day, a water treatment by ultrafiltration, has been installed at the Jacmel prison. Funded by the Section Community Violence Reduction (CVR) of the Minustah, to the tune of U.S. $70,000, and set up by the NGO Life Giving Force (LGF), this facility will help to provide drinking water, continually and in the long term, to the administrative staff and inmates, and thus contribute to reduce significantly the risk of contamination by waterborne diseases. 

The project is part of the fight against the spread of cholera in the Southeast department, including through the installation of such devices, in Multipurpose Centres of seven communes of the Southeast and in some detention centers in the country [Grand-Gosier, Belle-Anse, Marigot, Cayes-Jacmel, La Vallée, Bainet and Côte-de-Fer].

India: B2B H5N1 resurfaces in Odisha

Via Zeenews.com: Bird Flu resurfaces in Odisha. ("Odisha" is the new spelling for the state of Orissa.) Excerpt:

Bhubaneswar: Avian influenza resurfaced in Odisha with the detection of H5N1 virus in a bird at a farm of Central Poultry Development Organisation (CPDO) here. 

The bird flu virus has been detected in the state capital after culling took place at Keranga in Khurda district and Betanati in Mayurbhanj district last month, Satyabrata Sahu, secretary in fisheries and animal resource development department, said. 

CPDO, a central government organisation, had sent sample of some fowls to High Security Animal Disease Laboratory (HSADL) in Bhopal after some chicken died at the poultry farm here. 

The Bhopal-based central laboratory confirmed the detection of bird flu virus in a sample to the central government which in turn informed the state government. 

Sahu convened an emergency meeting to discuss the matter with officials of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC). 

At least 10 rapid response teams (RRT) have been formed and officials are put on high alert to keep a close watch on the surrounding area, an official said. 

However, the state government is awaiting permission for culling of birds here, Sahu said.

H5N1 controversy: "Scientists behaving badly"

Via the Observations blog at Scientific American, another account of the Great Debate last Thursday night:  Schism over H5N1 Avian Flu Research Leaks Out. Exerpt:

Scientists behaving badly, in my experience as a journalist, often suggests a lack of either evidence or of consensus in the field. In December the NSABB recommended that specific details be edited out of scientific papers authored by Fouchier and colleagues (submitted to Science) and Kawaoka and colleagues (submitted to Nature). (Scientific American is part of the Nature Publishing Group). Ever since, hardly a week has gone by without multiple commentaries from all points of view in various scientific journals about both the NSABB’s recommendation and the underlying research. 

Meanwhile, Fouchier’s and Kawaoka’s papers have languished in publishing limbo. Panelists Barbara Jasny (a deputy editor at Science) and Veronique Kiermer (executive editor at Nature) said they are still trying to figure out how to publish a scientific paper without a section on data and methods. Indeed, one panelist wondered whether an experimental paper without data and methods can even properly be called a scientific paper? Others at the event estimated that between 250 and 1,000 people had already seen the full contents of one or the other submitted papers.  

After the formal discussion was over, I spoke with panelist Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. Racaniello confirmed my impression that the discussion generated more heat than light, and disagreed with the NSABB member’s main claim: “Osterholm said that all the virologists he knows recommended against publication. Well, all the virologists I know think differently. There’s a lot of scare involved.” 

Stayed tuned for more fireworks.

Pakistan: New worries about H5N1

Via Dawn.com: Bird flu may be rearing its ugly head again. Excerpt:

ISLAMABAD: Eight peacocks have died in Lahore mysteriously. While the cause is still being investigated, fears that it could be some strain of bird flu are being suppressed. 

The fears in the agricultural sector and poultry are confirmed from the recurrences in past few months of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) in in India (where thousands of birds have been culled), Bangladesh (that culled 50, 000 chickens), China (where a death in January from the deadly H5N1 has been confirmed) to across Iran (in September 2011) and as far down in Indonesia and Australia. 

Experts with the agriculture and poultry sectors fear that Pakistan’s Rs300 billion poultry industry faced certain threat of the pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N1) that knew no borders and could spread. 

What makes Pakistan vulnerable to the deadly virus is the absence of any surveillance system to detect, monitor and control the virus that has mutated into more than 260 different forms from spreading in farm chickens. 

Following H5N1 outbreak in 2005, the avian influenza surveillance launched at the Animal Sciences Institute, NARC at the National Reference Lab for Avian Influenza (NRLPD) was another casualty of devolution. The surveillance work at NRLPD helped control further spread of avian influenza and eventually eliminated it by July 2008. However, the early warning programme was terminated in June 2011 under the 18th Amendment.

Documents available with Dawn show that the government had allocated over Rs1.18 billion for control and prevention of bird flu. 

Experts associated with the agriculture sector and poultry industry believed that all the efforts could go to waste if the programme was not activated and if any new case of H5N1 occurred.

WHO: Yellow fever in Cameroon and Ghana

WHO has published a Global Alert and Response: Yellow fever in Cameroon. Excerpt:

In December 2011, the Ministry of Health of Cameroon notified WHO of a yellow fever outbreak in the North Region of the country. 

A total of 23 cases, including 7 deaths, have been reported to have occurred since October 2011 in Guider, Bibemi, Gaschiga, Lagdo, Mayo Oulo and Golombe districts. These cases were identified as part of the surveillance system, with fever and jaundice within the 14 days of onset. 

At least 13 cases from six health districts were laboratory confirmed at the Institute Pasteur of Cameroon by IgM ELISA test, which was followed by the seroneutralizing test (PRNT), the most specific test for yellow fever, and by differential diagnostic for dengue and West Nile Virus conducted in the WHO regional reference laboratory for yellow fever, the Institute Pasteur of Dakar, Senegal. 

WHO country office has been working with the government/health authorities in the outbreak field investigation to confirm the cases and assess the extent of the outbreak. 

GAVI Alliance, UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and the International Coordinating Group on Yellow Fever Vaccine Provision (YF-ICG) are supporting a reactive mass vaccination campaign which aims to cover over 1.2 million people in 8 health districts considered at high risk, namely Guider, Bibemi, Gaschiga, Lagdo, Mayo Oulo, Garoua I Garoua II, and Golombe.

And thanks to Arkanoid Legent, who reads more carefully than I do, and who noted WHO's post on yellow fever in Ghana as well.

CIDRAP: Live debate airs major divisions in H5N1 research battle

Via CIDRAP, Robert Roos writes: Live debate airs major divisions in H5N1 research battle. Excerpt:

In opening the discussion, Jasny said Science's editors recognized early that Fouchier's paper had biosecurity implications, so they convened a group of experts, including some NSABB members, for advice. At the same time, the National Institutes of Health, which funded the study, also brought the paper to the NSABB's attention, she said. 

Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, an NSABB member, said the board set up a working group to consider the two manuscripts and brought in outside expert advisors, including Robert Webster,PhD, of St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis and James Curran, MD, MPH, of Emory University. The working group spent "hundreds and hundreds of hours" discussing the problem, leading to unanimous support for the recommendation to withhold the details of the studies. Osterholm is director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, which publishes CIDRAP News.

Arturo Casadevall, MD, PhD, the other NSABB member on the panel, said he initially thought the studies should be published in full, "but as a result of the deliberative process, I changed my mind." He is a professor of microbiology and immunology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y. 

When panel moderator Ian Lipkin, MD, later asked Casadevall if any other NSABB members changed their minds during the discussions, he declined comment other than to say there was a long deliberative process. Lipkin is a professor of epidemiology and of neurology and pathology at Columbia University. 

Both Osterholm and Casadevall emphasized they were speaking as individuals and not on behalf of the NSABB.

For more on the debate, see the Nature News Blog.

India: B2B H5N1 detected in Bhubaneswar

Via The Times of India: Avian influenza detected in Bhubaneswar. Excerpt:

BHUBANESWAR: The bird flu virus has struck Bhubaneswar, spreading panic among dealers and consumers of poultry products here. The High Security Animal Disease Laboratory ( HSADL) of Indian Veterinary Research Institute ( IVRI) in Bhopal confirmed detection of the dreaded disease on Friday after testing samples sent by the Central Poultry Development Organisation (CPDO) here. 

CDPO's farm is located behind the Kalinga Stadium in Nayapalli area in the heart of the city. "We have declared an area spread over three-km radius off the epicentre (the farm) as alert zone and ordered ban on movement of poultry birds or related products into the area or outside," commissioner, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, Vishal Dev, told TOI. 

BMC convened a meeting to discuss the issue and decided to forthwith initiate all preventive and precautionary measures. Official sources said CPDO had sent three samples for testing to the Bhopal laboratory after some birds died in its farm in the last week of January. 

"Of the three samples, at least one has tested positive for the H5N1 virus which causes bird flu or avian influenza," an officer disclosed. 

Detection of bird flu in Bhubaneswar comes on the heels of the government undertaking culling operations at Keranga in Khurda district and Bahanada in Betanoti block of Mayurbhanj district to prevent the spread of the virus. 

Official sources said culling was expected in the CPDO farm and adjacent areas, but orders were awaited from the Centre.

WHO says TB in Russia displays highest known drug resistance

Via Vaccine News Daily: WHO says TB in Russia displays highest known drug-resistance. Excerpt:

The World Health Organization recently announced that tuberculosis cases found in Moldova, Belarus and Russia display the highest levels of drug-resistance known. 

The WHO, however, said that its data remain somewhat incomplete. Africa and India are thought to have higher TB rates, but were not included in their entirety in a newly released study. Experts said that rates of multi drug-resistant TB remain unknown or are unclear in many parts of the world, according to USA Today. 

Research published in Bulletin, the WHO’s medical journal, reported that in some places in Russia, 29 percent of new TB cases are drug resistant. 

Rates of MDR-TB in Minsk, Belarus, are thought to be approaching 50 percent of cases, but the WHO warned that reliable surveillance data is lacking, a situation it called “highly worrisome,” USA Today reports. 

The TB situation in Moldova is becoming increasingly more troubling. WHO research found 65 percent of previously untreated TB patients are infected with strains that are resistant. 

The WHO’s Global Project on Anti-tuberculosis Drug Resistance Surveillance was launched in 1994 and has generated what the WHO considers to be the most reliable TB drug-resistance estimates available for 127 countries.

 

More on Europe's deep freeze

Via Spiegel Online: Rising Death Toll: No End in Sight for European Deep Freeze. Excerpt:

Amid reports of record low temperatures across the Continent, many countries reported that natural gas deliveries from Russia had been reduced. Ukraine denied Russian accusations that it had used more than its share of the fuel, but the tone was reminiscent of gas disputes between the two countries in years past. So far, European officials have reportedly been able to compensate for the gas shortages with domestic supplies. 

Western Europe has also seen freezing temperatures and a handful of related deaths. Italian officials on Thursday reported a homeless man had died of exposure in Milan. In Germany, a homeless man in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt was found dead on Thursday, after an elderly woman in the neighboring state of Lower Saxony had succumbed on Wednesday. Warmer temperatures are unlikely in the coming days, though, the German Weather Service reported. Traffic along European rivers has also been hampered by ice.

Authorities cancelled ferry service on the Elbe River in northern Germany this week, while at least three ships were reportedly stuck in ice along the Danube River, large sections of which have frozen over in Bulgaria. 

But in the Netherlands, frozen rivers would be more than welcome. In Amsterdam authorities have banned boat traffic and shut down water pumps along some canals in hopes that ice will become thick enough to allow for ice skating. 

If this happens, the country will be able to hold a speed skating tournament known as the Elfstedentocht, or "11 Town Tour," for the first time since 1997. The tour's 200 kilometer (125 mile) route links 11 towns across the northern part of the country and has only been held 15 times since the first event in 1909.