H5N1

2006 already as fatal as 2004 and 2005 combined

Via Bloomberg.com: Human bird flu deaths in 2006 match previous two years combined. Excerpt:

Bird flu killed a 39-year-old woman in Egypt, pushing the number of fatalities worldwide this year to 74, as many as reported in the previous two years combined.

Egypt's Health Ministry confirmed the country's seventh death from the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, the World Health Organization said in a statement yesterday. The woman's infection was diagnosed 18 days before she died on Oct. 30 and was linked to diseased poultry she helped slaughter at her home
on the Nile Delta in September.

Diseased birds increase the opportunities for human infection and provide chances for H5N1 to change into a form more dangerous to people. The virus is reported to have killed a person about every four days this year, more than double the 2005 rate. Millions could die if H5N1 becomes easily transmissible between people, sparking a lethal pandemic.

"As the distribution among poultry populations increases, more humans are getting exposed and these increased human cases and fatalities are a sign that this is an ever-developing situation,'' David Nabarro, the senior United Nations system coordinator for avian and pandemic influenza, said in a telephone interview from Bangkok last month.

Branswell: New bird flu variant not stronger

Via C-News, Helen Branswell reports: New bird flu variant not stronger. Excerpt:

The emergence of a new variant of H5N1 avian flu viruses doesn't appear to raise or lower the risk the virus poses to humans, officials of the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization said Tuesday.

Representatives of the UN agencies charged with animal and human health issues held a teleconference Tuesday to discuss the discovery of the new subgroup of viruses. The new variant, called a Fujian-like virus, was reported Monday in the scientific journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The newly described subgroup of viruses could pose challenges for containing H5N1 in poultry because vaccines being used in China -- where it emerged -- may not protect domestic birds against this variant.

But the pattern of human cases with these viruses is similar to that seen with viruses spreading in Indonesia, or those that caused human infections in Vietnam in 2004 and 2005, said Michael Perdue of the WHO. The variant is responsible for recent human cases in China and Thailand.

"If you look at the mortality rate and the disease, the Fujian-strain infections are no different," said Perdue, a senior scientist with the WHO's global influenza program.

"So there's no reason to lead us to believe that this sublineage is acting any differently than any of the other sublineages in terms of affecting humans."

UK expands bird flu test patrols

Via the Guardian Unlimited: UK expands bird flu test patrols. Excerpt:

Hundreds more outdoor sites will be patrolled for signs of bird flu in Britain, the government announced today as scientists reported the discovery of a new strain of the disease in Asia.

Staff at the country's 304 nature reserves, parks and reservoirs will report any dead water birds to the Department of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs.

The move will expand the existing surveillance area by around 1,200 sq kilometres. It is part of the government's strategy for detecting high-pathogenic strains of the disease in birds.

Repercussions from Fujian

The announcement of a new "Fujian-like" strain of H5N1 is echoing around the world. The echoes are loud in Hong Kong, where avian flu originated. A story in The Standard has a good account of the announcement, including a comment with discouraging implications:

"Although there are no signs of outbreaks, the research indicates that current vaccinations for poultry are ineffective and inadequate," [Dr. Gavin Smith] said, noting that the single vaccine currently used in the mainland is also not enough to tackle the issue.

"The methods of poultry vaccination must be addressed," he added.

I take that to mean that China's enormous efforts to vaccinate its billions of poultry have been largely wasted, and the same may be true for other countries' vaccination programs.

For yet another take on the PNAS article, here's Bryan Walsh on the Time Magazine Health Blog.

The year so far

Reuters has published an updated chronology of bird flu developments since January. Always worth reviewing, if only to see how much has happened in the past ten months.

WHO on the Egyptian death

WHO has published its Avian influenza – situation in Egypt – update 10. Here is the entire report:

The Ministry of Health in Egypt has confirmed the country’s seventh death from H5N1 avian influenza. The 39-year-old woman, whose infection was confirmed on 11 October, died on 30 October.

Of the 15 cases confirmed to date in Egypt, seven have been fatal.

While I am a strong advocate of concise writing, this takes brevity too far.

The Fujian strain

Via Reuters, another story on "Fujian-like" H5N1. This is by Tan Ee Lyn, one of the best flu reporters: H5N1 strain could start wave of bird flu outbreaks. Excerpt:

To test how well vaccinated poultry could stand up to various strains of H5N1, the researchers collected 1,113 blood samples from chickens from Nov. 2005 to April 2006.

Only 180 samples, or 16 percent, tested positive for H5N1 antibodies. They were exposed to 3 strains of H5N1 -- namely the Yunnan, Guiyang and Fujian-like strains.

The antibodies managed to neutralise the Yunnan and Guiyang strains, but had little or no effect on the Fujian virus.

"The market poultry, many of them don't have antibodies against H5 virus and those that do are not well protected against the Fujian virus, which is why we think the Fujian-like virus has been able to grow because other (strains) have been suppressed," [Gavin] Smith told Reuters in an interview.

Meanwhile, to judge by the number of reports in NewsNow (see H5N1 News Gatherers), the Fujian strain has become the big story of the week—even overshadowing the death of the Egyptian woman.

The Jakarta Post blogs

MAny thanks to the readers who got in touch with the Jakarta Post and found out about the paper's server problems...and about its blog. It's clearly a temporary solution, but I've created a link to it in H5N1 Hot Zone Sources.

More on the new flu variant

Via the Globe and Mail, another report on the PNAS article mentioned below: New type of bird flu sidesteps vaccines.

Vaccine-resistant avian flu spreading in Asia

Via Forbes, some unwelcome news: Vaccine-Resistant Bird Flu Spreading in Asia. Excerpt:

A new strain of vaccine-resistant H5N1 bird flu virus has emerged in China and is spreading through southeast Asia, Hong Kong researchers report.

"The implications are that current control measures are ineffective with dealing with the evolutionary changes that H5N1 undergoes," warned Dr. Yi Guan, director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Diseases at the University of Hong Kong and lead author of a report in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The new strain has become dominant throughout the region, replacing other variants of the virus, the report said.

"We think that this virus is likely to have already instigated a third wave of H5N1 infection in this region, as it is already widespread in southern China and has also been detected in other neighboring countries," Guan said.

The reason for the new strain's dominance is that "it was not as easily affected as other strains by the avian vaccine used to prevent H5 infection," the Hong Kong expert said. "What this means is that H5 avian vaccines are not able to prevent infection by this virus as efficiently as they do with other strains of H5N1."

Here is the abstract of the PNAS article. The authors include not just Guan Yi but also Robert Webster and other major researchers. I hope that better-informed persons than I will give this report the analysis it deserves.