H5N1

Canada: Ontario releases "superbug" rates

Via The Star: Ontario releases rates of 'superbugs'. Excerpt:

Up until this year, only hospital administrators and infection control specialists knew the rates of hospital-acquired infections. The public release of key hospital data follows a Star investigation into medical secrecy. 

Anthony Dale, the Ontario Hospital Association's vice-president of policy and public affairs, said publicly reporting patient safety indicators are "absolutely essential to driving improved performance over time" in individual hospitals. Releasing numbers to the public is an extra incentive for hospital administrators, particularly hospital boards, to do better, he said. 

At present, there are two outbreaks of C. difficile in the province – one at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital and one at the Greater Niagara General Hospital. An Infection Control Resource Team, an initiative launched by the Ministry of Health in September, is already at Oakville Trafalgar to help control the outbreak, and the Greater Niagara General has just asked for one to be deployed, said Baker. 

Outbreaks of C. difficile in Quebec led to an estimated 2,000 deaths earlier this decade. And more than 90 patients infected with C. difficile died at Burlington's Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital from May 2006 to December 2007.  

In general, antibiotic-resistant infections, including C. difficile, MRSA and VRE, are on the rise around the world in part due to the overuse of antibiotics. 

Even though Ontario's rates are lower than those in the U.S. and U.K., there is much more Ontario can do to manage antibiotic-resistant infections, said Dr. Allison McGeer, director of infection control at Mount Sinai Hospital. 

"Sixty-one patients is still many more patients with serious MRSA bacteraemia infections in Ontario hospitals than all of us would like to see," she said. 

The number of VRE bacteraemia infections is actually higher this year than it has been in previous years, she said.

Here's the site where you can check the infection rates.

Nigeria: Bauchi state creates bird-flu desk

Via Vanguard: Bauchi creates bird flu Desk. Excerpt:

The Bauchi State Ministry of Health has established a well equipped standard State Desk Office with internet facilities for rapid response to Avian Influenza in the state. 

This was disclosed by the state Commissioner for Health, Aminu Hammayo, at a two-day workshop on Avian Influenza Rapid Response for Local Government Desk Officers on Human Health Component held at Community Resources Centre, Bauchi. 

He stated that the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza strain H5N1, is a serious epidemic prone disease that affects all humans irrespective of their socio-economic status or age saying that it kill faster than  HIV/AIDS virus. 

Hammayo pointed out the spread of H5N1 among birds with occasional human cases is of a serious concern to state government.

South China tightens poultry inspections

Via Xinhuanet: S. China province tightens poultry market inspection after bird flu case. Excerpt:

Agricultural authorities in south China's Guangdong Province tightened inspection over trading markets for domestic poultry after an 82-day-old baby girl was diagnosed in Hong Kong with bird flu.     

No further infections were detected in the province, the provincial agricultural department announced on Wednesday.     

The girl, surnamed Chen, was born in Hong Kong. She had been living in Xiabaishi Village, Nanshan District of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, with her grandmother while her parents were working in Hong Kong.     

The baby fell ill last Monday and was diagnosed as having the H9N2 bird flu strain on Tuesday in a Hong Kong hospital.     

Experts from Shenzhen city's health bureau and disease control center went to the village to investigate. They collected blood samples from the baby's grandmother and eight staff members in a local hospital who had contact with the baby. No virus was detected in those samples.     

Experts also investigated a restaurant near the patient's home that kept live chickens. No virus was found in blood samples from four staff members of the restaurant.

India: Manipur state prepares against H5N1

Via New Kerala.com: Special team of doctors in Manipur to prevent spread of bird flu. Excerpt:

Authorities in Manipur have deployed a special team of doctors to prevent the spread of avian flu from neighboring states. 

With the outbreak of bird flu in Assam recently, efforts have been intensified to spread awareness about the disease to the grass roots level and introduce to prevent its possible outbreak in the State. 

"In the eventuality of the occurrence of this disease in Manipur, our departments have alerted all the members and over and above this all the check posts installed at the borderlines have already been increased. Its surveillance and checking is intensified. Doctors are working round the clock," said Dorendro Singh, Director, Veterinary and Animal Husbandry Services, Government of Manipur. 

Besides awareness programmes, interaction programmes and surveillances are being carried out in full swing. Monitoring of the entry of poultry products from infected areas is also being carried out at strategic points.

Hong Kong/Shenzhen: Toddler recovering from H9N2

The Hong Kong government website, one of my favourite sources, has some good news for the new year: Toddler recovering from avian infection. The whole report:

The symptoms of the two-month-old girl infected with influenza-A (H9N2) are subsiding, the Centre for Health Protection says, adding her parents have tested negative for the virus.   

She is stable and still isolated in Tuen Mun Hospital. Other patients and health workers who might have been exposed to the girl are being examined. None have developed respiratory-infection symptoms so far.

Guangdong health authorities have found a small number of chickens kept in a food premises near the girl's Shenzhen home. Her contacts in Shenzhen and the food premises workers are asymptomatic and under medical surveillance.

CIDRAP posted a good summary of this case on December 30.

Korea and Indonesia look back

It's already New Year's Eve in Asia, and JoongAng Daily reviews a turbulent 2008 in Korea, including H5N1:

The first confirmed outbreak of bird flu this year was at a poultry farm in Gimje, North Jeolla, on April 1. 

Public concern over the spread of bird flu reached a peak when the disease moved closer to the metropolitan area one month later. 

In August, the government declared itself a bird flu “clean zone” after three months without a confirmed case of a human infection. 

A total of 43 confirmed H5N1 outbreaks of avian flu were reported across the nation from April to July, resulting in the culling of 8.46 million birds at a cost of around 264 billion won, which was a sharp blow to the poultry and state zoo industry. 

This year’s outbreak of bird flu was the most serious in Korea with 33 cases of the virulent H5N1 strain that can be transmitted to humans.

The Jakarta Post is more upbeat about Indonesia's year:

There were no devastating earthquakes, tsunamis or volcanic eruptions, and there were no deadly plane crashes, train collisions or sinking ships.

We have had our share of floods but not as severe as was experienced in other parts of Asia. And the bird flu epidemic has largely been brought under control.

Will wild birds bring H5N1 to North America? (updated)

Via the Ottawa Citizen: Wild birds carry avian flu viruses to North America: Report. Excerpt:

Migrating waterfowl may be carrying avian influenza viruses from Asia to the Americas, U.S. government researchers reported on Tuesday. 

They found genetic evidence that some non-dangerous influenza viruses infecting northern pintail ducks in Alaska are genetically more closely related to Asian strains of bird flu than to North American strains. 

"Although some previous research has led to speculation that intercontinental transfer of avian influenza viruses from Asia to North America via wild birds is rare, this study challenges that," said Chris Franson, a research wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, who helped lead the study. 

USGS and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service experts have been testing birds in Alaska for any evidence they may be carrying highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu with them from Asia. 

Writing in the journal Molecular Ecology, the USGS team said they had collected samples from more than 1,400 northern pintails from throughout Alaska and compared any viruses they found to virus samples taken from other birds in North America and eastern Asia where northern pintails spend the winter. 

None of the samples were found to contain completely Asian-origin viruses and none were highly pathogenic. But certain parts of the genes of the viruses resembled Asian strains, they said.

I couldn't find the article in the journal mentioned. But I put a link to its home page, in the hope that the article will turn up on the journal's "early view" page in a day or two.

Update: Thanks to the reader who sent a PDF of the article. Here it is: Download Koehler et al_2008

India: Nagaland on H5N1 alert

Via the Morung Express in the Indian state of Nagaland: No Bird flu yet… but stay on guard. Excerpt:

Even as the Dimapur Municipal Council went on the assault by seizing and destroying poultry products around Dimapur, the department of Veterinary & Animal Husbandry, has assured there are no avian influenza cases in the state as yet. 

But the caution remains, that poultry and related products should not be imported from across the border. 

The department’s director Dr. Y. Yisao Lotha said there is no outbreak of bird flu in the state as yet. He advised the public against spreading rumors to avoid creating unnecessary panic. 

While maintaining that the public is free to consume meat of poultry reared in homes and backyards, the director however, cautioned that by no means poultry and its products should be imported from across the border. 

The director of Veterinary & Animal Husbandry visited the Dimapur District Veterinary office on December 29 in connection with the outbreak of avian influenza in the neighboring state of Assam. The Government of Nagaland, in a subsequent action following the outbreak in Assam, imposed ban on import of poultry and all poultry products. 

During his visit, the director held a review meeting with officials of the Dimapur district at the District Veterinary & Animal Husbandry. Following the meeting, the Rapid Response Team (RRT) accompanied the director, in visiting some poultry farms in nearby villages including the poultry farm at the “under-privileged tribal children home” at Padam Pukhuri. 

The director who was accompanied by District Veterinary Officer Dr. VH Shohe and a team of doctors, interacted with the care taker of the farm and enquired about the health of the birds. 

A press release issued by the District Veterinary stated, that about 1000 birds in the farm were found to be ‘quiet normal’.

Hong Kong: Baby girl has H9N2 avian flu

Via the Hong Kong government website: Probe launched into baby's H9N2 infection. Excerpt:

The Centre for Health Protection is investigating a case of influenza-A virus (H9N2) involving a two-month old girl who lives in Shenzhen. The Hong Kong-born baby is stable in Tuen Mun Hospital.   

Centre controller Dr Thomas Tsang today said the girl was admitted December 22 with a runny nose, vomiting and a cough but no fever. She was discharged the next day and returned to Shenzhen. But she lost her appetite later and was sent to a local doctor for treatment. As her white blood cell count was high, her mother brought her back to the hospital December 29.   

Test results found the presence of H9N2, which is a mild form of avian flu. Guangdong health authorities have been informed of the case.   

The Department of Health will also inform the World Health Organisation, the Mainland's Ministry of Health, and health authorities of Macau.   

"The investigation is ongoing and we want to find the source of the virus," he said. "We are particularly concerned about whether the case is human-to-human transmitted and whether there are other people infected."   

Dr Tsang said the virus is widely spread among birds and poultry in southern China. There were four human cases in the past 10 years and all patients recovered.

Bhutan sets up quarantine stations

Via the Ministry of Agriculture of the Royal Government of  Bhutan: Plant and animal quarantine stations at Geluphu and Samtse. Excerpt:

In his inaugural speech Lyonpo said that quarantine stations are equally important as the army buffer zones in terms of preventing trans-boundary diseases of plant and animals from entering our country. 

He reminded the gathering on the recent outbreak of bird flu in the Indian state of Assam and West Bengal and cautioned against the influx of diseases into the country.