H5N1

The official report on Exercise Winter Willow

Via UK Resilience: Exercise Winter Willow. Excerpt:

The Government's response to a human flu pandemic was tested in Exercise Winter Willow.

The exercise fully tested the UK's ability to manage the effects of an influenza pandemic by playing out the decision-making process at national, regional and local levels, when there are widespread cases across the country. A human flu pandemic would occur when a new flu virus, to which people had little or no natural immunity, emerged.

The biggest exercise of its kind to study the response of the NHS, local authorities and Government Departments to pandemic flu-- it was an excellent opportunity to evaluate the planning presumptions, policy and operational procedures across Government and the NHS. The findings of Exercise Winter Willow will then be fed into the overall pandemic flu preparedness plan.

The full report is available on the site as a 22-page PDF.

An online novel about bird flu

An Australian writer, Darryl Mason, is posting an online novel on a blog, a few chapters a week. It purports to describe the aftermath of a horrendous pandemic that's left just 300 people alive in Sydney. I make no promises whatsoever for its quality, but here's the link to ED Day - Dead Sydney: Chapter One - Silence In The City.

Indonesia: The man who broke the bird flu taboo

Via the Jakarta Post, a very interesting profile of a Balinese whistleblower: Ngurah Mahardika: Breaking the bird flu taboo. Excerpt:

Earlier this year, while officials were in denial and avoided publicly speaking about the possible outbreak of bird flu in Bali -- fearing too much publicity could put the island's tourism industry at risk -- virologist from Denpasar-based Udayana University Ngurah Mahardika was the lone voice brave enough to be blunt about it.

After conducting extensive research, funded by the Agriculture Ministry from 2005 to 2006, he forewarned the island-province of possible human deaths, after discovering human viruses of the H5N1 strain present in Bali. In his research he came across the daunting discovery that the virus in Bali had crossed over to mammals, such as pigs, dogs and cats.

He became somewhat unpopular on the island, which at the time had just begun to recover from the aftermath of the terrorist bombings of 2002 and 2005.

Bali's government officials and politicians not only dismissed Mahardika's findings, but also criticized the validity of his research.

Despite his skeptics' doubts, and claims that his lab did not comply with bio-security standards, Mahardika was confident with his findings.

Some six months after issuing his warning, a bird flu outbreak in poultry spread across the island -- from Bali's southern Jembrana regency, to west Klungkung regency and the capital city, Denpasar.

Bali's first human victim of the bird flu virus died on Aug. 12, with a second death on Aug. 21, increasing the nation's death toll to 83 out of 105 cases -- the highest fatality rate from H5N1 in humans in the world.

"There was political apathy," he said. "This is the social cost of our ignorance".

WHO criteria for accepting positive PCR test results of H5 infection in humans

Thanks to the reader who tipped me off to an important change in WHO criteria for accepting positive PCR test results of H5 infection in humans from national reference laboratories.

This change has one immediate effect: the addition of five new human H5N1 cases in Vietnam since last May, four of whom died.

Manipur: Post-outbreak confusion

Via Kangla Online, an editorial from the Imphal Free Press: Bird Flu Confusion. Excerpt, re-paragraphed:

The bird flu epidemic has officially been declared over for a fortnight now. The day the declaration was made on August 14, newspapers in even Imphal carried pictures of people relishing free chicken meals distributed at the veterinary and animal husbandry department office complex courtesy some poultry farmers in celebration of the end of what was a big business threat to them all.

Official notification on the day also announced that poultry meat brought in from outside the five-kilometre culling zone with epicentre at Thangmeiband, would be allowed to be sold.

And yet, a few days ago, poultry meat centres in and around Imphal were hauled up by the police for selling the meat. What exactly is going on?

True there were some fine prints which said among others that only dressed chicken meat and not live fowls could be brought in. There was also another clause forbidding sale of eggs unless they are from outside of the culling zones. Just how it was to be determined eggs from outside Imphal and those from Imphal was however not explained.

But fine prints and sub-texts and footnotes are read only by researchers and avid followers of any particular news event, not by ordinary folks, to which class a majority belong. So when the police hauled up the poultry meat vendors the other day, it was in all respect a case of undue harassment and not law keeping.

Should it not have been obligatory on the part of the government to ensure that the message of the latest status and orders regarding the matter reach the public? Should not the campaign against the dreaded flu have included a post-culling publicity to brief ordinary folks of the dos and don’ts until the threat of the virus has been totally eliminated? Should this campaign not have been a little more sustained than a simple press release to the media for a single day?

The government has a full-fledged publicity department, so why could it not have been pressed into service to do some field publicity? Some poster campaigns as well as attractive and visible advertisements could have also been used to forward such a campaign.

Waste not, want not

Via The Daily Mail in the UK: Home Office draws up plans for reusing coffins in case of a flu pandemic. Excerpt:

A deadly flu pandemic sweeping Britain would force local councils to dig mass graves outside cemeteries and reuse coffins at crematoria, a Home Office report reveals.

Funeral parlours and crematorium staff would have to work around-the-clock seven days a week, while funeral services would be reduced to the most basic "no-frills" ceremonies without hymns or eulogies to save time.

Doctors and coroners would be dragged out or retirement to help cope with the numbers of dead.

Even benefits offices would have to take on extra staff to handle the numbers applying for cash hand-outs to cover funeral expenses and as family breadwinners die.

The grim predictions form part of a Home Office consultation to help plan the practical steps needed to deal with a pandemic.

The document warns that an outbreak could cause 650,000 'extra' deaths over a four month period, and adds: "History and science suggest that we are very likely to face influenza pandemics this century."

You can download a PDF of the report on the UK Resilience website. And I've put a link to the Resilience site in the H5N1 Government Sites list.

More on Mae Hong Son

I posted on this earlier today; now The Irrawaddy has more details: Bird flu tests underway in Karenni refugee camp. Excerpt:

More than 200 poultry died early this week in Mae Surin, a Karenni temporary refugee camp in Mae Hong Son, causing officials to suspect a bird flu outbreak and cull other birds, according to the camp's health department.

Two people in the camp were reportedly ill.

Luca, the health department director, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday, “There were some incidents like this last year when some poultry died, but this year the number is increasing. So, we're really concerned about this, and we're working hard to prevent an outbreak.”

District public health, livestock and security officials entered the camp on Thursday to cull more poultry and conduct tests to determine if the birds were infected with the H5N1 virus. About 4,000 refugees live in the Mae Surin camp, located in Khun Youm District opposite Karenni State in Burma.

A refugee living in the camp said the birds began dying during the past three days. Two women in the camp were also sick, so the deaths were reported to Thai officials, according to a report in the Thai newspaper Post Today on Thursday. 

It's also worth checking The Irrawaddy for reports on the recent demonstrations in Burma. These appear to be the most serious protests against the junta in a decade, and they've been going on since the middle of the month. One result could well be more refugees in Thailand's camps.

Philippines: Bird flu surveillance starts in 3 Ilocos Norte towns

Via Inquirer.net, a Filipino news source: Bird flu surveillance starts in 3 Ilocos Norte towns. Excerpt:

The Provincial Veterinary office (PVET) has identified wetlands in the towns of Pagudpud, Paoay and Bangui as surveillance areas for migratory birds.

Provincial veterinarian Loida Chee said migratory birds had been sighted in large swamps in the village of Saud in Pagudpud, at the Manayon marshland in Bangui, and at the Paoay Lake since December last year.

“Migration season normally begins in September and they leave our area around April or May. We expect thousands of migratory birds to flock toward our area because of its proximity from Taiwan and other Chinese territories,” she said.

Migratory birds have been tagged as natural carriers of the avian influenza virus or bird flu.

The PVET has reactivated the provincial avian influenza task force in line with the bird-flu preparedness of the province.

Egypt: New poultry scare, but it's not H5N1

Via Al-Ahram Weekly: New poultry scare. Excerpt:

The H7 strain of the bird flu virus has been detected in Egypt for the first time.

Nine migrant birds, all of them ducks, tested positive for the virus when 6,432 samples were taken from the approximately one million birds that annually migrate over Al-Manzalah Lake in the Sharqiya governorate from central and eastern Europe.

The recently identified H7 strain is thought to pose little risk, certainly in comparison with the virulent H5N1 strain of the virus.

The H7 strain samples are now being tested at both the Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP) and Naval Medical Research Unit (NAMRU) laboratories in order to determine the N subtype. Avian Influenza has 16 H and nine N subtypes. Only viruses of the H5 and H7 subtypes comprise the pathogenic form of the disease though not all H5 and H7 subtypes cause severe disease in poultry.

Abdel-Rahman Shahin, spokesman at the MOHP, explains that the H5 and H7 viruses are usually introduced to poultry in a low pathogenic form. It is only after several months that they mutate into highly pathogenic strains. The appearance of the H7 strain is therefore a cause for concern.

The virus has been known to infect humans but is less virulent than the H5N1 strain. Shahin also warned that Egypt must remain alert for yet other strains of the virus given that it lies on major bird migration routes.

The constraints of technology

I just clicked through the Hot Zone Sources link to KOMNAS FBPI, and got this message:

Bandwidth Limit Exceeded

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

My first thought was: Uh-oh...has some kind of bad news broken out, with everyone swarming an official Indonesian source?

My second thought: No, they've just got a poky old server that can't handle anything beyond routine traffic.

And my third thought: In a real, no-kidding pandemic, all those business-continuity fantasies of telecommuting to work will evaporate. Servers will pack it in all over the planet, especially those supporting government agencies and public-health sites.

Or am I being too pessimistic?