H5N1

Kazakhstan: FluTrackers on outbreak of unexplained cerebral disease

Via FluTrackers, an RT report: Kazakhstan: Outbreak of unexplained cerebral disease. Excerpt:

New cases of the inexplicable disorder, dubbed “Sleepy Hollow,” have appeared in Kalachi, the village in Kazakhstan where every tenth villager, including children, has mysteriously fallen asleep in broad daylight, some unable to wake up for days on end. 

"The ninth wave of the disease has started,” Amanbek Kalzhanov, head of the administration of Esil district, told Interfax. “Yesterday two people – a man and a woman – became sick. Since the outbreak of the disease 120 people have fallen ill." 

According to Kalzhanov, the overall situation in Kalachi, a village in northern Kazakhstan, is under control. The local hospital is fully operational, along with a school, attended by about 40 students.

Finnish researchers zero in on link between Pandemrix vaccine and narcolepsy

Via Yle Uutiset: Finnish researchers zero in on link between Pandemrix vaccine and narcolepsy. Excerpt:

A group of Finnish researchers has scored a world first by identifying a link between the virus component used in the Pandemrix swine flu vaccine and narcolepsy, a neurological disorder which some recipients of the vaccine developed later on. The team found that Pandemrix was prepared differently from other vaccines and that the virus component in the drug was also different. 

According to the University of Helsinki, the team of Finnish researchers has determined the reason why the Pandemrix vaccine increased the risk of developing narcolepsy. The research team was led by Professor Outi Vaarala and the results were published in the San Francisco-based scientific journal Plos One. 

According to the publication, the researchers found that among other things the Pandemrix drug – which has been linked to cases of narcolepsy developed following vaccination – had higher levels of structurally altered viral nucleoprotein than in Arepanrix. Both were drugs approved for immunisation against the H1N1 influenza. 

“The vaccine virus itself has components of the virus. It is also supposed to contain viral protein. There’s nothing extraordinary about that,” Vaarala told Yle. 

“However what is more significant is that given that there were two pandemic vaccines against swine flu – one was Arepanrix, which was used in Canada, and the other was Pandemrix, which was used in Europe – Pandemrix caused narcolepsy. The difference was that Pandemrix had one viral protein in a different form and there was more of it,” she explained.  

Professor Vaarala said that the difference was due to a disparity in how the two vaccines were prepared. She pointed out that Arepanrix did not cause the same narcolepsy cases that Pandemrix did. 

“It’s precisely for this reason that the findings are so interesting. We are the first in the world to report that these two vaccines differ with respect to the viral components and are therefore not the same,” the professor declared.

Finland: New narcolepsy-H1N1 study could open door to more compensation

Via Yle Uutiset: New narcolepsy-swine flu study could open door to more compensation. 

Olli Vesanen, a high school student in the south-central city of Jyväskylä, has been suffering from the sleeping disorder narcolepsy since 2009.  

He says it's been difficult to keep up at school as he often suddenly drops off to sleep in class. At home, he sometimes slumps over while practicing his guitar. 

Olli is one of some 150 recipients of narcolepsy benefits, most of them children and youth. More than three million euros in benefits have been paid out to patients whose illness has been linked to a swine flu inoculation drive nearly five years ago. 

New findings due this spring 

Most applicants face long delays before their benefits are approved -- and about 50 applications have been rejected or are still pending. But those denied compensation may have a second chance this spring after completion of a study by the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). 

It is trying to determine the link between the H1N1 vaccine Pandemrix administered in Finland and the debilitating sleep disorder. At present, compensation can only be sought if symptoms began within eight months of receiving the swine flu jab. But THL officials say that time period may be extended depending on the findings of the study. In that case, rejected applications will be reconsidered.

Sweden: Flu-jab narcolepsy due to brain damage

Via The Local.se: Flu-jab narcolepsy due to brain damage: study. Excerpt:

Scientists believe they have found the cause of the narcolepsy cases uncovered after Sweden's inoculation drive against swine flu. The jab may have set off an auto-immune response that caused brain damage.  

The Pandemrix vaccine likely "fooled" the brain to attack cells in the brains that regulate sleeping patterns. The cells in question produce a protein called hypocretin, which regulates whether a person is awake or asleep.  

Sweden offered its citizens the vaccine against swine flu during the epidemic in 2009-2010, which claimed between nine to 31 Swedes' lives. Experts at the time said they feared the disease would be as big a killer as the Spanish flu in the late 1910s when an estimated three to five percent of the world's population succumbed. 

Since the inoculation drive, however, more than a hundred Swedes - many of them teenagers - have developed narcolepsy. 

The Swedish Medical Products Agency (Läkemedelsverket) ordered a massive study to determine if the vaccine had any connection to narcolepsy. It compared 3.3 million vaccinated Swedes with 2.5 million who were not vaccinated. 

"We can see that over the whole study period we have 126 cases of those vaccinated getting narcolepsy," Ingemar Person, professor behind the study, said in a statement on Tuesday. "There were 20 cases among those not vaccinated. We're talking about a threefold increase in risk." 

The scientists at the Stanford School of Medicine have now said that a part of vaccine had some similarities to parts of hypocretin that trigger the immune system. The scientist said that the ensuing reaction meant the body's own immune system could not see the difference between the hypocretin and the parts of the flu virus that the body was meant to attack. 

The end result: The body attacked the part of the brain that regulates sleeping patterns.  

"We have long thought that auto-immune diseases don't afflict the brain, but that is obviously not correct," Stanford researcher Emmanuel Mignot commented the study. 

Narcolepsy is a chronic nervous system disorder that causes excessive drowsiness, often causing people to fall asleep uncontrollably, and in more severe cases to suffer hallucinations or paralysing physical collapses called cataplexy. 

Sweden was not alone in facing narcolepsy cases after the jab drive. In Finland, 79 children aged four to 19 developed narcolepsy after receiving the Pandemrix vaccine in 2009 and 2010, while in Sweden the number was close to 200, according to figures in the two countries released last year. Sweden has more than nine million citizens, while Finland has some five million - making the cases approximately proportionate to population size.

Thanks to Lucie Lecomte for referring me to the article in Science Translational Medicine.

Canada: A flu connection to narcolepsy?

Via CTV News: Sleeping Sickness: A W5 investigation into the sudden rise in childhood narcolepsy. Excerpt from a long, disturbing report:

It's a medical mystery. Why are children all around the world developing severe narcolepsy -- a rare sleeping disorder with no known cure? 

It is a question that Christine and Ian pondered after their perfectly healthy daughter developed symptoms, shortly after being hospitalized with a flu like infection in 2011. 

Makenna was once an alert and active young girl but now she falls asleep without warning.. 

Her parents took Makenna off her medication temporarily to show W5 the effects of the disorder. As they play a board game in the kitchen, her head starts to bob and then Makenna face hits the table. 

Then there is a bizarre related symptom called cataplexy, which also affects her. Makenna suddenly loses muscle control and collapses when she laughs or feels strong emotions, something that happens to the eight-year-old several times a day. 

When her mother hugs her, Makenna simply drops. She's awake but paralyzed. Her parents make it safe for her to have these symptoms at home, but out in the world, it's a different matter. 

"We do a lot to keep her safe, but I worry about her when she is on her own," said her mother, Christine, who asked W5 not to reveal their last name or home town to preserve their privacy. 

"We had to take her out of swimming, if she had an episode she would quickly drown. All of those things you do every day, walking down the stars, what if she loses her legs and just goes limp?" said her father Ian. 

Makenna is now on several medications to keep her alert during the day, so she can take part in school and gymnastics. But this bright articulate girl wonders what lies ahead. 

“What kind of job am I going get? And if I am going to be able to drive or not, and how will I handle a baby, if I can even have one,” said Makenna.

The report goes on to describe another child with similar symptoms, and then says Makenna was vaccinated against H1N1 during the 2009 pandemic, and more than a year later contracted a "severe flu-like infection." Four weeks later her symptoms began.

Evidently this is a worldwide problem, and one that deserves close attention. We have a bad habit of forgetting influenza cases, whether the victim survives or not.