H5N1

Monday update for October 30

Here's the SciDev.Net bird flu update: 30 October.

After this morning's news from Egypt (see below), the peace and quiet of last week seem like a long time ago.

Branswell: Flu viruses don't constantly evolve to outwit immunity

Here's the Helen Branswell story I mentioned earlier today, via CBC.ca: Flu viruses don't constantly evolve to outwit immunity: study. Excerpt:

The idea that influenza viruses are always changing in a bid to outsmart the human immune system may not be entirely accurate, suggests a study that may help make flu shots more effective.

The work, by U.S. scientists, suggests flu viruses evolve in a pattern of fits and starts, perhaps spurred by a competition between the two circulating types of influenza A that infect people, H3N2 and H1N1.

The finding, if confirmed by other researchers, could offer clues on how best to select the influenza strains that go into the annual flu shot, in particular in the years when H3N2 is undergoing the major changes that precede a bad flu season.

"Our hope is, one, we could do a better job of being ready for those big changes, which is important because a lot of people get sick those years," said David Lipman, the senior author of the paper, which was published in the Oct. 26 issue of the online journal Biology Direct.

It might also help scientists predict whether the avian influenza strain H5N1 is evolving in a way that should set off alarm bells, said Lipman, the director of the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information, one of the National Institutes of Health.

Seventh Egyptian dies of bird flu

Via Reuters: Seventh Egyptian dies of bird flu. Excerpt:

An Egyptian woman died of bird flu on Monday, bringing the total number of human deaths in Egypt to seven, the state news agency MENA said.

The victim was a woman from the Nile Delta town of Samanoud who had slaughtered and handled domestic poultry, it said. It was the first human death in Egypt from the virus since May.

The agency had earlier identified the woman as 39-year-old Hanan Aboul Magd, who was admitted to hospital with a high temperature and respiratory trouble on Oct. 4.

She moved to a specialist hospital in Cairo on Oct. 12 and was receiving Tamiflu, the standard treatment for the deadly virus, MENA said.

It said people with whom she was in contact have tested negative for the H5N1 virus, which first appeared in Egypt in February and caused great damage to the poultry industry.

I've been offline almost all morning, but NewsNow shows this story has spread rapidly. Perhaps some other report discusses the unusual length of time of this case. Most human H5N1 cases seem to resolve themselves in a week or two. This poor woman had to fight for almost a month.

Update: Here is the CIDRAP report on the case.

Technical circumstances...

...beyond my control have made blogging awkward this morning. Until TypePad sorts itself out, I'll have to hold off on posts with links in them. In the meantime, visit SciDevNet for the regular Monday-morning update. Helen Branswell has a new report out—you should be able to find it at the Globe and Mail, CBC.ca, and eventually C-Health. Thanks for your patience.

Technical circumstances...

...beyond my control have made blogging awkward this morning. Until TypePad sorts itself out, I'll have to hold off on posts with links in them. In the meantime, visit SciDevNet for the regular Monday-morning update. Helen Branswell has a new report out—you should be able to find it at the Globe and Mail, CBC.ca, and probably C-Health. Thanks for your patience.

India: Tamiflu helped avert outbreak of bird flu

Via the Times of India: Tamiflu helped avert outbreak of bird flu. Excerpt:

The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus that hit India in February 2006 was sensitive to Tamiflu, the drug which many governments including India used to ward off a deadly bird flu pandemic.

Genetic and DNA sequencing of the virus collected from Jalgaon and Navapur by scientists from Bhopal's High Security Animal Disease Laboratory, has revealed that the virus contained several types of amino acids - glutamic acid, asparigine, histidine and arvinone - that made it sensitive to Tamiflu.

This, scientists say, helped India avert a possible transmission of the deadly H5N1 virus from birds to humans.

Scientists B Patnaik and C Tosh, who have completed sequencing the genes HA1 and HA2 of the virus and studying the 10 proteins, specially HA and NA present in the virus, told TOI that "timely administering of Tamiflu to those who were quarantined on suspicions of having been in contact with H5N1 virus infected birds, helped us avert the transmission of the virus to humans. DNA analysis of the virus has shown it to be highly sensitive to Tamiflu".

Really quiet

I've spent much of this Sunday morning going through as many flu-news resources as I can, with very little to show for it. Even the industrious toggle-texters at CurEvents.com Flu Clinic don't have much to show for their latest surveys of media in Bahasa Indonesia: a suspect case of B2B or B2H here and there, but nothing confirmed.

The absence of a story is a story too, and I'd feel better about the quiet if someone in WHO or CDC—even the ministries of health in Indonesia and Thailand—would publicly announce a drop in suspect cases.

Thais prepare for a return of H5N1

Via the Bangkok Post: Bird flu likely to re-emerge in cold, wet. The real story is at the end of the excerpt:

A re-emergence of the avian influenza outbreak is likely as the country is entering the cold season while fowls are in poor health due to widespread floods, Livestock Development Department chief Yukol Limlamthong has warned. ''The poultry population is in a weak condition as a result of the flood disaster, which could make them contract the virus easily,'' said Dr Yukol.

The department's bird flu prevention units have started to spray disinfectant in poultry farms across the country, focusing on flood-hit provinces, he added.

The agency normally stepped up bird flu prevention operations around year-end because the deadly virus is found to spread well in cold weather.

However, this year's operation has to be more stringent than previous years due to the weak condition of the fowls.

Nirundorn Aungtragoolsuk, chief of the department's animal disease control bureau, said authorities working on bird flu prevention were preparing to seek cabinet approval to revive the National Committee on Avian Influenza, dissolved in the aftermath of the coup d'etat.

The committee is in charge of drafting and supervising the national policy on bird flu outbreak control and prevention.

Comprising experts and officials from various agencies, it was chaired by the ousted deputy prime minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit.

Unbelievable: The army just dissolved the flu committee and forgot about it? This is the kind of thing that gives military coups a bad name.

Preparedness and a flu epidemic

The New York Times op-ed about face masks (see below) has inspired some responses: Preparedness and a Flu Epidemic (5 Letters). While they reflect a wide range of opinion, they're also unusual: H5N1 has so far inspired very few letters to the editor.

Are flu vaccines a waste of time?

Via CTV.ca, a Canadian TV network: Report casts doubt on flu vaccine effectiveness. Excerpt:

With flu season upon us, a controversial editorial in the British Medical Journal is warning that the flu shots many Canadians get every fall may not be as effective as we believe.

Across the world, health agencies recommend the use of inactivated flu vaccines, or vaccines containing dead flu viruses, to protect the population from seasonal outbreaks of influenza.

But because influenza viruses mutate from year to year, argues vaccine expert Dr. Tom Jefferson, it's difficult to study the precise effects of the widely-prescribed vaccines.

In fact, Jefferson says there's evidence proving these vaccines have little or no effect on things such as hospital stay, time off work, or even death resulting from influenza and its complications -- especially in elderly people.

Jefferson makes his arguments in a controversial report titled "Influenza vaccination: policy versus evidence," published in volume 333 of the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

I can't find the report mentioned, but a Google search tells me that Dr. Jefferson has been promoting this view for at least a decade. I have no idea how right he may be, but it's always interesting to overhear what the grownups are arguing about.