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Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) — An outbreak of avian flu in India’s West Bengal state is “serious” and the virus has spread rapidly to many districts, the World Health Organization’s representative said.

The outbreak is the 10th in India since the H5N1 avian influenza virus was first reported to have killed poultry there in February 2006. No human cases have been recorded in India.

India has the capacity to handle the situation as the “fundamentals of planning are sound,” S.J. Habayeb, the organization’s representative in the South Asian nation, said in an interview conducted over e-mail.

The disease has spread to more districts in West Bengal, taking the total number to nine, Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said in New Delhi today. “We are trying to control the situation.”

The government has stepped up culling, with the total number of chickens killed almost doubling to 414,597 today from the 242,200 reported yesterday, according to the agriculture ministry. India confirmed the disease among poultry in the state on Jan. 15.

As many as 116,203 chickens have died from the virus, the ministry said in the release. Samples from six districts have tested negative. About 258 teams have been deployed for culling and surveillance operations in West Bengal, the ministry added.

`Backyard Culling’

“The main problem we are facing is culling in the backyards,” Anisur Rahman, West Bengal’s animal resources minister, said in a telephone interview from the state capital of Kolkata, also known as Calcutta. “In other places, where the disease was reported, the farmers carried their poultry to a central farm in a village. Here, volunteers have to go to each house and convince farmers to do the culling.”

The teams, working in the villages, have gone up from 400 to 650 today, Rahman said.

“Culling is going on at a rapid pace,” he said. “At the same time, we are faced with a situation where poultry is being tested positive from new areas which are far-flung.”

The virus is known to have infected 351 people in 14 countries since late 2003, killing 219 of them, the Geneva-based World Health Organization said on its Web site two days ago. Indonesia has the highest number of fatalities, with 97 deaths.

Millions could die if the H5N1 virus develops the characteristics of seasonal flu and begins spreading easily between humans through coughing and sneezing.

Early signs of the disease range from fever and coughing to diarrhea and vomiting, researchers said in a Jan. 17 report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Original article…

Officials in the Indian state of West Bengal say that the bird flu epidemic has spread to two more of the state’s 19 districts, taking the total to nine.

They say that the spread of the H5N1 virus means that even more chicken and duck will have to be killed than was originally estimated.

On Monday officials said that around 2m birds would need to be culled - a figure that will now rise.

Health experts have warned that the outbreak could get out of control.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu is regarded as highly pathogenic and can also cause disease and death in humans.

However, most human victims have contracted the disease through close contact with affected birds.

There is little evidence that the virus can be transmitted easily between humans.

More…

- “There is little evidence that the virus can be transmitted easily between humans.” Many scientists studying the H5N1 virus feel that the virus could be one or two mutations away from developing a form that would travel easily from human to human - similar to what happened in 1917 when the Spanish Flu swept the world and killed millions.

- See: &

- I’ve published before on the potential for global problems as a result of pandemics. Previous posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

- Such pandemics are just one of the elements in the Perfect Storm Hypothesis.

- Especially worrying is the potential for an outbreak of Avian Bird Flu. This virus (H5N1) currently infects humans only very rarely and usually only after very close contact with infected birds. But, the scientists have been saying for several years now that just a single mutation in the current virus could give it the ability to move easily from human to human. The flu pandemic that swept the world in 1917/1918 was just such an event wherein an avian virus mutated so that it could easily infect humans and the result was more people died in the resulting pandemic than died in WWI.

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WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US military has begun to plan for a possible avian flu pandemic that could kill as many as three million people in the United States in as little as six weeks, a Pentagon planning document said.

The Defense Department’s “Implementation Plan for Pandemic Influenza,” which was posted Wednesday on a Pentagon website, lays out guidelines and planning assumptions for US military services and combatant commands.

Possible scenarios include US troops being called in to put down riots, guard pharmaceutical plants and shipments, and help restrict the movement of people inside the country and across its borders.

The plan envisions fast moving, catastrophic waves of disease that would overwhelm health facilities and cripple the ability of state and local authorities to provide even basic commodities or services.

“A pandemic in the United States could result in 20-35 percent of the population becoming ill, three percent being hospitalized, and a fatality rate of one percent,” the document said in a section on “planning assumptions.”

A human-to-human outbreak of avian flu was most likely to occur outside the United States and may not be contained effectively, it said.

“A pandemic outbreak will last between 6-12 weeks and multiple pandemic waves will follow,” it said.

If a pandemic influenza starts outside the United States, it will enter the US at multiple locations and spread quickly to other parts of the country, according to the report.

A vaccine for the specific strain of flu would not be available for distribution for a minimum of six to nine months after a human-to-human outbreak had been clinically confirmed, it said.

Transportation within states or internationally will be restricted to contain the spread of the virus, and communities may voluntarily close schools and limit public gatherings.

“Quarantine and other movement restrictions, especially if the restrictions are involuntary, will have minimal effect on the spread of the disease due to a very short incubation period and the ability of asymptomatic individuals to shed the virus,” the document said.

“Military and civilian medical treatment facilities will be overwhelmed,” it said.

It said the military will be called on to evacuate non-infected people from areas abroad that are having problems, and to help allies.

But the guidance said the US military’s top priority would be to preserve the operational effectiveness of the Defense Department and its forces around the world.

Additionally, the Defense Department will develop a plan to ensure the continuity of operations of the US government and be prepared to support civilian authorities with medical supplies, airlift and security forces.

A key military role will be to distribute medical supplies and medications and provide security for the production and shipment of vaccines on orders of the president.

“When directed by the president, DoD will provide support to civil authorities in the event of a civil disturbance,” the document said. “DoD will augment civilian law enforcement efforts to restore and maintain order in accordance with existing statutes.”

The military also may assist civil authorities in “isolating and/or quarantining groups of people in order to minimize the spread of disease during an influenza pandemic,” it said.

To the original:

- thanks to Kevin at The Cryptogon for this story.

New strains of the flu virus are showing resistance to drugs that experts had hoped would slow the spread of any pandemic, research suggests.

Tamiflu is viewed as the best weapon currently available against a flu pandemic, and is being stockpiled by governments including the UK’s.

But Japanese researchers found evidence of emerging resistance to Tamiflu, and a second drug Relenza.

The study is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Experts have warned that a flu pandemic could claim millions of lives around the world.

There is concern that the H5N1 strain of the virus - known as bird flu - could mutate to gain the ability to spread easily from person to person.

At present the virus, a type of the A strain of flu, does not have this ability, although it has killed 170 people since 2003. These were mainly poultry workers, who came into very close contact with infected birds.

More…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s first vaccine against bird flu is even less effective than previously thought, according to Food and Drug Administration documents released Monday.

In clinical trials, the two-shot series appears to provide protection to just 45 percent of adults who received the highest dose of the Sanofi Aventis SA vaccine.

An earlier, interim analysis of the same study of the vaccine suggested it sparked a protective immune response in 54 percent of patients, when measured 28 days after getting the second shot. The New England Journal of Medicine published those results in March 2006.

The FDA released the more recent results, contained in company and agency documents, ahead of a Tuesday meeting where it will ask a panel of outside experts to review the vaccine. The agency isn’t required to follow the advice of its advisory committees, but usually does. The vaccine is the first against the H5N1 influenza strain to seek FDA approval.

More…

HOLTON, England (Reuters) — Russia and Japan banned British poultry imports as Britain pressed ahead with a cull of 160,000 turkeys after the nation’s first outbreak of a deadly strain of bird flu in farmed poultry.

Workers wearing white protective suits, black gloves and masks loaded the turkeys into crates to be gassed following the discovery of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian flu on a farm at Holton in eastern England run by Europe’s largest turkey producer, Bernard Matthews.

Farm workers were offered anti-viral drugs and restrictions were imposed on the way birds are housed or moved in a wide area surrounding the farm.

The outbreak had an immediate impact on Britain’s poultry industry, the second largest in the European Union after France.

Russians officials said Moscow would ban British poultry imports from Tuesday to prevent the spread of bird flu. Japan also banned British poultry imports while Ireland barred the import of poultry from Britain for “gatherings and shows”.

The European Union’s top health official said he was optimistic the bloc would be able to control bird flu this year despite outbreaks of the H5N1 strain in Britain and Hungary.

But EU Health and Food Safety Commissioner Markos Kyprianou added: “The virus is still around. We should never feel that we are safe.”

The H5N1 virus has spread into the Middle East, Africa and Europe since it reemerged in Asia in 2003 and outbreaks have now been detected in birds in around 50 countries.

It remains largely an animal disease, but can kill people who come into close contact with infected birds. It has killed 165 people over the past four years, a 22-year-old woman in Nigeria being the latest confirmed victim.

Sixty-three people have been killed in Indonesia, the country worst affected.

Scientists fear the virus could spark a pandemic in which millions die if it mutates into a form that passes easily from person to person.

More…

- The H5N1 Avian Flu Influenza virus is a latent plague just waiting to break out if and when it mutates into a form which can easily jump from human to human. I’ve written about this here: , and . So, any iinsights into how it works and how it can be subverted is great news.
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Science Daily — As public health officials around the world keep a nervous eye on the spread of avian influenza, the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) has uncovered a key step in how the influenza virus causes infection.

Yan Zhou and her team have discovered how a crucial pathway that supports the influenza A virus’s ability to reproduce itself is activated, a finding that could pave the way for new drugs and vaccines.

The paper will appear in the January 2007 issue of the Journal of General Virology and recently has been given advance on-line publication.

“The work we are doing will be applicable to all influenza viruses, including influenza A virus subtype H5N1,” said VIDO Director Lorne Babiuk.

More…

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart can truly be considered to be a ‘lost book‘. An excellent piece of prescient of Science Fiction now largely forgotten, it envisions an Earth suddenly depopulated by a plague (think H5N1 Bird Flu, for example).

What amazed me more than anything else in this book, were the number of themes that Stewart touched on which were obviously known in 1949. The flammability of the forests as a result of our ‘management’, the boom and bust cycles of predator and prey, the likelihood that man’s growth would overrun the planet’s ability to sustain him, the increased probability of plagues as population density increases.

It is a wise and sad book all at once. In these days, when so many people are still in deep denial of the coming problems (see the Perfect Storm), it reminds us that the writing has been on the wall for a very long time indeed.

In the book, Stewart’s main character, Isherwood Williams, makes much of the fact that of the very few people who survived, very few of them have any talent or inclination to think beyond the immediate and they will rarely consider the future and the longer term consequences of today’s decisions.

Nothing’s changed. The evidence for and the information about the coming problems are laying out in plain sight but because they refer to things in the future and things that are far away, very few of us are interested. And like a great flock of sheep advancing upon a cliff and chewing on the grass just in front of our nose, we will go over the edge - and nearly everyone will be utterly surprised.

If you are interested in the coming problems, I recommend this book highly. You can file it in your collection of books on the coming apocalypse under ‘P’ - for poignant.

A global flu pandemic could kill 62 million people, experts have warned.

The 1918 pandemic claimed 50 million lives, and experts in The Lancet predict the toll today would be higher than this, despite medical advances.

The world’s poorest nations would be hardest hit, fueled by factors such as HIV and malaria infections, the Harvard University researchers believe.

Yet developing countries can least afford to prepare for a pandemic, which needs to be addressed, they say.

Killer strain

Lethal global flu epidemics tend to occur three or four times a century.

Some scientists believe a new one may be imminent and could be triggered by bird flu.

So far there have been only 258 cases of the latest strain of avian flu, H5N1, recorded in humans.

But the fear is that this strain could mutate and spread quickly and easily between people, triggering a deadly pandemic.

More… and

- One of the potential elements of the Perfect Storm is a pandemic like the one that swept the world in 1917. The current Avian Flu Virus, H5N1, could, with just another mutation, learn to jump from human to human instead of from bird to bird and ignite such a calamity. In the face of this possibility, the news in this article is good, indeed. They may have found a way to defang flu viruses in general.

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PARIS (AFP)—Biochemists in the United States believe they may have found the Achilles heel of the H5N1 virus—and not just of the bird flu pathogen but of a wide range of other influenza strains.

The potential target is a long, flexible protein tail which is essential for virus replication, they report on Thursday in Nature, the weekly British science journal.

The so-called nucleoprotein (NP) plays its role after a virus has hijacked a host cell and subverted it into a virus-making factory.

The NPs come together in small rings, stacking up one atop the other to form a column. The virus’ RNA genome twists around this column before being shipped out of the cell in copies that go on to infect other cells.

The team, led by Yizhi Jane Tao of Rice University in Houston, Texas, believe the weak point is the tail’s loop.

Just a single mutation in the amino acids comprising the loop is enough to prevent the NPs from forming the building blocks.

More…