H5N1: Influenza detector gene stops virus transmission to humans

Katharine Magor, a U of A associate professor of biology, has identified the genetic detector that allows ducks to live, unharmed, as the host of influenza.

The duck's virus detector gene, called retinoic acid inducible gene -- I, or RIG-I, enables a duck's immune system to contain the virus, which typically spreads from ducks to chickens, where it mutates and can evolve to be a human threat like the H5N1 influenza virus.

The first human H5N1 cases were in Hong Kong in 1997. Eighteen people with close contact to chickens became infected and six died.

Magor's research shows chickens do not have a RIG-I gene. A healthy chicken can die within 18 hours after infection, but researchers have successfully transferred the RIG-I gene from ducks to chicken cells. The chicken's defenses against influenza were augmented and RIG-I reduced viral replication by half.

One potential application of this research could affect the worldwide poultry industry by production of an influenza-resistant chicken created by transgenesis.

The work of Katharine Magor, her U of A PhD candidate Megan Barber, and researchers from the United States (Jerry Aldridge and Robert Webster) was published March 22, in the online, early edition of Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences.

For further information check out the Univeristy of Alberta website

H5N1 Avian Flu: New Outbreak in Romania

A suspected bird flu outbreak has been reported in a remote Romanian village, the Sanitary and Veterinary Authority said Saturday.

Samples of two dead hens were sent for confirmation of the potentially deadly H5N1 virus to the Animal Health Institute in Bucharest and on to the Weybridge laboratory in Britain, the Authority said.

The poultry in the small private farm at a village on the Danube Delta were slaughtered and the area disinfected.

"There is currently no risk of the disease spreading," the Authority said.

Two weeks ago, a bird flu outbreak was reported in the nearby village of Letea close to the Ukrainian border, the first case in Europe for a year.

The previous case in the European Union had been confirmed in March 2009 in a wild duck shot during a hunt near Starnberg, in Bavaria, southern Germany.

Romania was hit by massive bird flu outbreaks in 2005 and 2006, when more than a million poultry were slaughtered.

Avian influenza or "bird flu" is a highly contagious viral disease which primarily affects birds, but on rare occasions can also be contracted by humans and other mammals.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organisation said the H5N1 virus remains a threat to humans, after bird flu outbreaks killed seven people in several countries since the beginning of the year.

H1N1 Pandemic swine flu toll reaches 16,713: WHO

Pandemic H1N1 Swine flu has claimed at least 16,713 lives around the world since it was first uncovered in Mexico and the United States last April, the World Health Organisation said Friday.

The pandemic, which has spread to 213 countries and territories, has since waned in much of Europe and North America, but data indicated that transmission may be increasing in West Africa.

"In Sub-Saharan Africa, limited data suggests that on-going community transmission of pandemic influenza virus continues to increase in parts of West Africa, without clear evidence of a peak in activity," said the WHO. More cases were being detected in Senegal, Ivory Coast and Rwanda, it said.

The A(H1N1) virus was also spreading in Southeast Asia, with transmission "most active in Thailand," added the UN health agency.

H5N1 Avian Flu: Labs Producing Virulent Flu Strains

Engineered hybrids of H5N1 bird flu and H1N1 human flu strains have proven virulent in mice, raising the danger that a natural recombination would be deadly to humans.

For years, researchers have worried that H5N1 avian influenza would mix with human flu viruses, evolving into a form that keeps its current lethality but is far more contagious.

That hasn’t happened in the wild yet but the latest findings, published Feb. 22 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show how easily it can happen.

Mind the Gap
“Fortunately, the H5N1 viruses still lack the ability to transmit efficiently among humans.” However, the virus may soon be overcome this obstacle when it mixes with human flu strains. These are the findings of researchers led by University of Wisconsin virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka. “The next pandemic is inevitable and it will be more devastating than the last.”

Current strains of H5N1 have infected 478 people since 2003, and killed 286 of them. It’s has difficulty transmitting to humans. It requires close contact and exposure to an infected person, bird or animal.

H5N1 in Birds
In birds, however, H5N1 is far more contagious, and here the virus has killed tens of millions of fowl. Fortunately, cases have been concentrated in Africa and Eurasia, but as the swine flu pandemic demonstrated, any flu contagious to humans will quickly spread on a global scale. This is mainly thanks to air travel and the free movement of peoples across state boundaries.

Influenza viruses mutate and swap genes easily, with co-infections turning animals into mobile petri dishes. In 2008, hoping to learn more about how H5N1 might evolve, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention combined it with a common human flu strain.

The researchers engineered all 254 possible variants of hybridisation between the deadly H5N1 avian flu strain found in Borneo, and a, H1N1 human flu virus from Tokyo. They identified three strains that were both contagious and deadly, in mice.

The New Pandemic
A flu virus that kills mice won’t necessarily kill humans, but the results are very disturbing. All three killer hybrid strains possessed a protein taken from the human strain. Called PB2, the protein appeared to help the virus survive in the mice’s upper respiratory tract. As of now, bird flu stays in the lower respiratory tract, where it’s less likely to be casually transmitted.

Although the recent H1N1 pandemic has not proved to be as lethal as originally feared, it certainly exposed how unprepared the world is for new influenza strains. At the same time it also exposed the ability of pharmaceutical companies to frighten the WHO, governments and politicians into spending $Millions to stockpile ineffective vaccines.

Source of Infection
In May, Hong Kong University virologist Yi Guan, best known for finding the animal origin of SARS, was asked by Science Insider about the possibility of H5N1 and swine flu mixing.

“If that happens, I will retire immediately and lock myself in a sealed laboratory", said Guan. "But, historically the Chinese mainland would be the most likely source of such a virus."

Global Alert
Unfortunately, in such a situation, the imposed cover-up by local authorities would mean that the virus will have spread with a high rate of cross-infection and will have escaped globally, even before we are alerted to it's existance. We will not be alerted until it has spread to the Western world and many people have become infected and died.

Lethal Viruses Escape
The other issue is the development of virulent and lethal strains in laboratories and institutions. There has been a sad history of viruses erroneously 'escaping' from pharmaceutical labs and there is no reason to believe that this will not happen in the future, despite due diligence.

Mitigation
Should we live our lives in a bubble? No, definitely not but we should be aware of the dangers we are facing and how these may manifest themselves. Yes, there is a lethal danger from a mutant virus but this danger is greater if the world's health authorities are not communicating properly or collaborating on a global scale and this is something that can be mitigated against.

H1N1: 10,000 Deaths in US from Swine Flu Pandemic

Swine flu has already infected 50 million Americans, killing 10,000, most of them children and younger adults, federal officials reported Thursday.

The new estimates suggest that the flu, also known as H1N1, has spread through 15% of the U.S. population since it was first identified in April. As of Nov. 17, 200,000 people have been hospitalised, says Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's about the same number of people hospitalised during the entire flu season, which usually lasts until May.

At least 7,500 adults 18 to 64 and 1,000 children younger than 18 have died of the disease, Frieden said. In a typical flu season, roughly 80 children die.

"Many times more children and younger adults, unfortunately, have been hospitalised or killed by H1N1 influenza than occurs during a usual flu season," Frieden says.

The analysis marks the government's latest assessment of the H1N1 epidemic. The virus has upended expectations of flu by targeting the young rather than the old. In a typical year, 95% of deaths are in people 65 and older; so far, 95% of deaths have been in people younger than 65.

William Schaffner, a flu expert at Vanderbilt University, says the new estimates reinforce the message that "this isn't an infection to be trifled with or blown off."

Although flu seems to be waning — with just 25 states now reporting widespread activity, down from 48 little more than a month ago — the virus remains highly infectious and may come roaring back, Schaffner says.

Woman with swine flu dies 'after giving birth'

A woman in the UK who had contracted swine flu, died shortly after giving birth prematurely.

The woman, who died in Whipps Cross Hospital, was named by her brother as Ruptara Miah.She is thought to be from Bangladesh.

Abdul Malik told BBC News his sister had used a wheelchair for 15 years after a road traffic accident but had led a normal life and had brought up six daughters. "We are very, very upset as a family. It has really taken me by shock," he said. "We thought she was going to recover."

His sister, the eldest of 10 children, was admitted to hospital three weeks ago with a cough and chest infection, he said. She was treated in intensive care, where she gave birth to a son prematurely, but never regained full consciousness, he added.

The baby is now in intensive care as a precaution

A spokesman for Whipps Cross said: "Whipps Cross University Hospital NHS Trust can confirm that a 39-year-old woman passed away on July 13 2009, and that she was infected with pandemic H1N1. The trust can confirm that she had underlying health conditions. No further comments can be made at this time."

H1N1: The Hidden or Concealed Pandemic

H1N1 swine flu continues to roam the planet. In the US, cases are thought to be in the hundreds of thousands. In Japan, hundreds of teenagers have caught it, despite no obvious connections with Mexico or the US.

Yet in Europe, health authorities are not testing widely for it and are prescribing drugs as though they could still contain it. And in Geneva, health ministers have fought this week to keep the World Health Organization from following its own rules and calling this a pandemic.

There has been a phenomenal mismatch between quite sensible rules about how to declare a flu pandemic, and equally sensible rules about how to respond. The mismatch was wholly predictable, yet somehow no one saw this coming.

The WHO rules for declaring different degrees of flu pandemic threat are based on epidemiology (how the virus is spreading) for good reasons. This is because any new flu virus to which most of the world has little immunity, and which spreads well enough person-to-person to escape its continent of origin, is very likely to go global, and to cause more sickness and death than flu usually does. That is the definition of a flu pandemic.

The virus's ability to spread is what matters. H5N1 bird flu has travelled across Eurasia, mainly in birds, but it hasn't spread readily in people, so it isn't a pandemic.

The Mexican swine flu H1N1, however, has. When it spread across the Americas, the WHO followed its rules and declared it a level 5 situation; one down from a pandemic. When it starts spreading outside the Americas, through "community transmission" - meaning it crops up generally, not just in people who have visited Mexico or New York recently or their contacts - that means it's got a foothold globally.

A flu that can do that is very unlikely to stop there. The WHO rules make that a full-blown level 6 pandemic.

And frankly, that is starting to happen. As I write, the number of confirmed cases in Japan (and that's just people sick enough to see a doctor and get tested) has jumped by 35 in the past 24 hours, to nearly 300, mostly due to that perennial vector of flu, the gregarious teenager. The main cluster started without any known links to the Americas.

In Europe, countries are deliberately not testing cases that could be community acquired, almost as if someone doesn't want to trigger - 'LEVEL 6'

In fact, Britain, Japan and other countries spent this past week pleading with the WHO not to go to level 6 yet, at least while the virus is still causing mostly mild disease. WHO boss Margaret Chan has now agreed to make the call when she sees "more signals coming from the virus itself or the spread of the disease, including severity."

The problem is, countries have pandemic plans that, rightly, prepare for the worst. Until recently we were worried about H5N1 (we still are) and there seemed a good chance that if it went pandemic, it might start off severe, necessitating major controls from the start.

Executive Pandemic Preparation

With the H1N1 swine influenza spreading across the world, it's a good time to discuss and update your pandemic plan. If you do have a plan. If you don't have one, you are putting your organisation at great risk.

There are measures that can help organisations and that will guarantee the continuity of their operations but for organisations with outdated or without pandemic preparedness plans, the first step is for the executive management team to establish 'the policy'; guiding principles for the coming weeks and months which address duty of care responsibility and then to communicate this policy and those decisions, to the workforce.

There are also policies and protocols that can have a strong impact in countering a pandemic emergency.

Organisations should ask themselves the following ten questions:

1. Have you defined reliable information sources that you will monitor for situational awareness in the event of an influenza pandemic?

It is essential to ensure that the information sources you choose are reliable, appreciate nuances and bring a degree of expertise and analysis to these types of events. The information gathered from these sources will be critical for your decision-making process and you want to make good decisions based on the best possible knowledge available.

2. Has top management documented a "policy"? A set of guiding principles that outlines:

• The commitments the firm will make to protect employees and ensure duty of care
• The types of programs the firm will keep in place
• The budget available for planning
• The executive person responsible for implementing these programs

When considering guiding principles during a pandemic, there is a variety of options companies can take. It is important for companies to confirm their guiding principles early on, to control and guide the planning effort.

3. Does the firm have in place a robust Crisis Management & Communications program that will allow executives to make key decisions on a timely basis and communicate messages to both internal and external stakeholders?

Influenza pandemic is a prolonged event and will require management not only to assess and make decisions in response to changing conditions, but to also accurately and effectively communicate these decisions to all necessary parties. Pandemic crisis management requires a completely different perspective, analysis and action-plan than natural disaster crisis planning. The question in pandemic planning, is not how do we pick up the pieces; rather it is how do we live with this emerging situation over the course of the next 18 months?

4. Is there a Business Continuity program in place that documents key products and services that will receive prioritised attention during a time of reduced staff availability?

If only 50 percent of staff is in the workplace on a particular day, which business activities will be conducted and which will be deferred?

Traditional business continuity is based on putting people back to work after sustaining a loss to a building, equipment or other operational systems. Pandemic business continuity planning completely turns this concept on its ear; the building is intact, the systems are functioning but there is a shortage of people. In this scenario, you will have to establish priorities for your reduced workforce and you will have to consider what functions are not absolutely essential to your organization at that moment and defer these functions.

5. Has the firm implemented a robust employee health program that will guide safe workplace protocols, such as facility access, social distancing, and surface cleaning?

In the event of an influenza pandemic, the goal is preventing the virus from spreading. This prevention is applicable for public systems, such as trains and buses, to households and to businesses. Surface cleaning and social distancing both prove effective and can have a major impact. The conventional perspective is that people are universally susceptible to influenza pandemics and we must rely on these approaches to limit contagion.

6. Has the firm documented HR provisions that outline actions employees should take if they become ill and how to handle sick leave and family care issues?

Just as with any other company initiative, people need to know what to do. It sounds so simple, but if you don't provide clear instruction regarding sick leave, employees will show up to work sick and ask whether they should stay or go. You need to remove any uncertainty in the mind of the employee so that they can stay home and get better without risk of spreading the virus to other employees.

7. Are key strategies for remote connectivity of workers backed up by actual IT capabilities in terms of VPN bandwidth and hardware availability?

The 'go-to' solution for many companies during a pandemic is simply to have employees work from home. However, more often than not, there are real IT limitations to this strategy. You need to be realistic and ask whether your existing IT infrastructure can support your entire workforce working from home at once. I can tell you now that the answer will be a resounding 'No'. Business plans need to take into account how the IT systems work.

8. Has the firm prepared guidance for expatriate employees and mobile workers? Does the firm have the ability to re-create travel patterns for employees, to support investigation into risk exposure?

This goes back to ensuring that your sources of information are reliable and establishing your guiding principles. In normal circumstances, the need for travel policies is clear, but you have to determine whether you will restrict all non-essential travel for employees. When considering expatriate employees, you must decide what care you will offer them and at what point will remove them from their current location.

9. Has the firm discussed its pandemic preparedness efforts with key vendors, suppliers and other business partners?

Even the strongest in-house pandemic preparedness program can be rendered worthless if the company has a dependence on a third-party that is compromised. This is true not only for manufacturers, but also for professional services providers. Companies with an outsourced IT call centres or outsourced legal support, etc., could be left without critical business functions if their outsourced operations are compromised.

10. What is the firms position on the procurement and stockpiling of both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical protective measures? If there is a formal program, who is responsible and are all key provisions up to date?

Stock piled Anti-viral treatments are receiving so much attention right now that it is almost tempting to mistake them for a pandemic preparedness program. They are not. You are advised to look closely at your guiding principles, to determine whether these treatments fit your needs and whether you will procure either or both protective measures. The decisions on both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical protective measures will vary from firm to firm and will vary with circumstances.

Remember, a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) normally prepares an organisation for disasters that have a sudden onset but a limited scope, duration and geographic location. A pandemic outbreak by nature is unpredictable, so the plan must be much more flexible.

We know that pandemics are not limited by geographic location. Most pandemics come in waves that can last from four to six months and that absenteeism is the single most serious threat to businesses.

Most official guidelines recommend the following as a starting point:

• Develop communication strategies as well as preventative and mitigating measures. These should include sourcing supplies to protect employees, pandemic monitoring, and employee education.
• Have a documented strategy that deals with a pandemic outbreak in emerging stages (detection, regional outbreak, local outbreak, etc.)
• Have a documented policy and strategy that includes the facilities, procedures, people and systems that are needed to keep your business up and running.
• Don't just have a plan, test it and update it.
  
• Monitor and review the plan regularly to keep it up to date.
• Secure the services of a Pandemic BC expert and take head of good advice.
  

The current H1N1 swine flu is not thought to be the most virulent of pandemics, which is great news but it does give us a 'wake-up' call. Let's dust off those old plans and bring them up to date and don't forget the demand on scarce resources that will occur during a 'real' pandemic outbreak.

H1N1: Egypt pig slaughter prompts religious discourse

Egyptian police have clashed with pig farmers after announcing a cull to allegedly combat swine flu. Egypt has ordered the slaughter of 300,000 to 400,000 pigs as a so called, "precaution" against the effect of H1N1 virus, a move the United Nations said was "a real mistake"

These drastic and extreme measures have been taken by the north African country, although it has yet to report any H1N1 cases. This over-reaction could be due to the fact that Egypt was hit hard by bird flu in 2005/6 or there could be different, more fundamental reasons.

In Cairo, police fired tear gas at farmers and protesters who pelted them with rocks and bottles over fears they had come to seize their pigs. At least ten people were injured in the clashes in Manshiet Nasr, a shantytown on the outskirts of the capital city. Residents burned tyres and rubbish in the street to keep police at bay. Three officers were also injured in clashes with pig farmers in other areas of the capital.

The sad truth is that the H1N1 virus is being spread by people, not pigs. Destroying innocent and valuable livestock and the devastating effect this will have on the owners and their families, is beyond measure. In this poverty stricken area, these people are fighting for their lives.

Some political commentators say that culling swine, which are mainly raised by the Christian minority and viewed as unclean by Muslims, could have different and more sinister undertones, rather than simply being an extremely puzzling and foolish measure to quell rising public panic.

If this is the case, then a more severe backlash will develop over the coming days and weeks. Loosely targeted at the pigs, their owners and their livelihood, it may well plunge Egypt into increased levels of civil disobedience, fueled by bigotry, extremism and political unrest.

Swine Flu H1N1 Level 4: Can business survive this after severe lay-offs

The business world is growing increasingly concerned about a quickly developing H1N1 swine flu outbreak, with cases now appearing all over the world, and hundreds more in Mexico.

This should ring loud alarm bells for IT managers and spur them on to take a close look at the dusty old influenza pandemic plans, developed several years ago in response to a potential bird flu pandemic.

The additional problem that IT managers are facing today, is that following the recent consolidations, layoffs and restructurings, they will have less staff and reduced capability to deal with events. They will also have disjointed and inadequate response plans to correct because the old ones were drafted in more favourable times. People who once took a pivotal role as part of a critical team, may now be on garden-leave, collecting unemployment money or re-assigned to another location or position.

Clearly, it is very important that managers pay close attention to what's going on; the H1N1 pandemic situation is a dynamic event and is still emerging. It has been developing quickly over a short period of time. This is something that needs to be monitored and taken very seriously.

Now, the World Health Organization has raised its threat level to Level 4 in its six-level scale because the swine flu currently has "a sustained limited human-to-human transmission."

While the business world figures out just what this means, the Contingency managers are already pushing and recommending that the business seriously reviews and updates their call lists and decision-making chains. It is essential that they close any gaps and weaknesses in plans caused by recent organisational restructuring and downsizing, in particular.

If an organisation has not developed a specific pandemic plan, then they should do so quickly. Develop one by concentrating on one key factor; making a continuity plan that is business focused and that considers a "significant absence" of employees. Give serious thought about how your business could support its clients and sustain services by the use of tele-working methods and virtual environments, from your employees homes.

The standard model used in pandemic planning is to consider what would happen to a business if 40% of the workforce was absent, for an extended period of time. In this case it would be pertinent to consider a range of options, taking into consideration absentee levels of between 25 and 40%.

The WHO is in the midst of its initial investigations of the illness, and they currently believe that it may not be anywhere near the threat envisaged, specifically if the bird flu became a human influenza pandemic.

Gartner Inc.'s response in 2006 was to suggest stringent measures to IT departments, such as storing 42 gallons of water per data centre worker, enough for a six-week quarantine. Even at the time this was felt to be excessive.

Asked if Gartner was offering any advice in response to the Mexican outbreak, analyst Ken McGee, the author of that Gartner report, said today that it will go into "full-force advisory mode" not when the virus jumps from birds or swine to people, but when it jumps from people to people. So, that will be quite soon then. Worryingly, it does show a slight lack of foresight and planning on Gartner's side, as well as a reactive rather than proactive response.

If nothing else, the Mexican situation will acts as a wake-up call for businesses and clients that need to develop meaningful infectious virus disease-related influenza plans. If you consider this as a meaningful step for you, then the next sensible thing to do would be to have your plans checked and reviewed by a risk and contingency expert. These simple measures are by far preferably to having a 'live' and potentially destructive test being inflicted upon your business by the virus itself, in whatever form it takes. Your choice or no choice.

H1N1: The story behind the pandemic

The H1N1 influenza viruses consisting of a mixture of human, swine and bird strains (H5N1) are not new, they have been found before throughout history of mankind. However, there is a sense in which this virus could be regarded as partly man-made.

Flu viruses contain 8 strands of RNA, which code for 10 proteins. If two flu viruses infect a cell at the same time, new viruses budding from that cell can contain a mixture of RNA strands from the two original viruses, this is a phenomenon called re-assortment. This Recombination, "cutting and pasting", can also produce some evolutionary mixing within RNA strands.

Vaccines such as Tamiflu (Oseltamivir) and Relenza (Zanamivir), are not totally effective against viral strains

It is unusual to be infected by two flu viruses at the same time, and even rarer for one of those viruses to come from another species altogether, but it does happen, especially in pigs, which are susceptible to both human and bird flu viruses. Repeated re-assortments can produce mixtures like that found in the swine flu virus now spreading worldwide.

Again it is not a new phenomenon. There was re-assortment between bird and human flu viruses in pigs in Italy during the 1980s and in the 1990s, a H1N2 swine flu circulating in pigs in the UK was found to be a mixture of swine, human and bird flu strains resulting from multiple re-assortments.

December 2008, the Austrian branch of US vaccine company Baxter sent a batch of ordinary human H3N2 flu, altered so it couldn't replicate, to Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, also in Austria. In February, a lab in the Czech Republic working for Avir alerted Baxter that, unexpectedly, ferrets inoculated with the sample had died. It turned out the sample contained live H5N1, which Baxter uses to make vaccine. The two batches seem to have been mixed in error.

It is not yet clear exactly when and how Mexican swine flu strain evolved, but it could certainly have happened without the help of genetic engineers. Despite this, the swine flu could still be regarded as man-made.

Mounted Policeman in Mexico City sports a facemask

There are now over 6 billion people on the planet, and each year we raise more than a billion pigs and perhaps as many as 70 billion chickens. The result is a paradise for influenza viruses, which can lie dormant for long periods.

The problem is not just the sheer number of potential hosts. The conditions in which animals are kept can favour the evolution of new and deadlier strains.

Par example, in the wild, flu viruses can be self-limiting. The nasty flu strains that make animals too ill to walk or fly are unlikely to spread far. In crowded factory farms, they can spread like wildfire, helped by the global trade in animals and the distribution and transportation of animal products.

Vaccines such as Tamiflu (Oseltamivir) and Relenza (Zanamivir), are not totally effective against viral strains

The intimate interaction of farm workers with animals, especially on small-holdings where pigs, ducks, chickens and children all happily intermingle, also provides plenty of opportunities for viruses to jump species.

Animal vaccines might seem like the answer, but vaccines e.g Tamiflu (Oseltamivir) and Relenza (Zanamivir) that do not provide 100% protection can actually make things worse. Vaccines are not totally effective against viral strains. When there is widespread vaccination, viruses can mutate and spread without any visible disease. Viruses are smart. Ineffective vaccines also create strong selective pressure driving the evolution of new strains that can dodge the immune attack provoked by the vaccine.

Already, attention is turning to the big pig farms in Mexico, and the role they may have played in creating this new strain of swine flu but all intensive pig farming is a 'risk' and 'at risk'.

The undeniable and scary fact is, that we still know so little about flu and what makes it capable of spreading from human to human. This means that analysing and reverse engineering a virus of this kind and developing an anti-virus, would be a huge challenge.

Virulent strain of Influenza virus is released accidentally

Yes, it's possible that this virus was created by a mistake at a research laboratory or a vaccine factory and it is more possible that a virulent strain has been accidentally released into the wild, as has happened many times before and the most plausible explanation is, that this monster is the long-predicted product of our farming system.

H1N1 Pandemic - WHO raises pandemic threat level

World health officials have raised the level of alert about a possible swine flu pandemic, since the virus seems to be spreading regularly from person to person.

The World Health Organization (WHO) upgraded the alert in an http://kenbudd.blogspot.com/2009/04/h1n1-story-behind-pandemic.html in Geneva on Monday evening.

"It's a significant step towards pandemic influenza, but it is a phase that says we are not there yet," said Keiji Fukada of the WHO. "A pandemic is not considered inevitable at this time."

The new H1N1 influenza virus has struck hundreds of people in Mexico, where at least 18 have died, and several dozen people in the US (see Deadly new flu virus in US and Mexico may go pandemic). In the last couple of days, confirmed cases have also been found in Canada, Spain and Scotland.

Six-point scale

WHO officials decided that the new cases and infection patterns warranted increasing their pandemic warning level from 3 to 4, on a six-point scale.

Ever since the scale went into use in 2005, it has stayed at 3 – indicating that most cases of an emergent influenza virus are caused by animal-to-human transmission.

At 4, the infection is spread primarily from human to human. At 5, human-to-human transmission is occurring at multiple geographic locations; while 6 represents an all-out pandemic, which occurs when a virus is new, causes severe disease, and transmits easily enough to be sustained.

Researchers are still studying how efficiently the virus spreads. "The situation is very fluid and it is possible we could move to a higher phase shortly," Fukada said.

H5N1 (Bird Flu) virus - Risky move

IT'S emerged that virulent H5N1 bird flu was sent out by accident from an Austrian lab last year and given to ferrets in the Czech Republic before anyone realised. As well as the risk of it escaping into the wild, the H5N1 got mixed with a human strain, which might have spawned a hybrid that could unleash a pandemic.

Last December, the Austrian branch of US vaccine company Baxter sent a batch of ordinary human H3N2 flu, altered so it couldn't replicate, to Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, also in Austria. In February, a lab in the Czech Republic working for Avir alerted Baxter that, unexpectedly, ferrets inoculated with the sample had died. It turned out the sample contained live H5N1, which Baxter uses to make vaccine. The two batches seem to have been mixed in error.

Markus Reinhard of Baxter says no one was infected because the H3N2 was handled at a high level of containment. But Ab Osterhaus of Erasmus University in the Netherlands says: "We need to go to great lengths to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen."

H5N1 Pandemic Flu - breakthrough research

From my previous article on the H5N1 Pandemic flu virus, you will know that the flu virus constantly alters its surface proteins and constantly mutates into variant forms. This means that we can be infected many times over a lifetime and a flu vaccine made last year has but a short period of effectiveness.

Now studies show that this behaviour is just a decoy to guard the virus's more vulnerable parts; a fact that might enable us to make drugs, or a vaccine, that will work on all kinds of flu, year after year.

Flu's main surface protein, haemagglutinin, looks like a lollipop. Our immune systems mostly produce antibodies to its rounded head, and it is this part that changes every year, making immunity short-lived. But in a large library of human antibodies, Wayne Marasco at Harvard University and colleagues found very few that bind its "stalk", which barely changes at all, either through time or between different flu viruses.

To see if this might provide a way to attack the virus, they produced large amounts of the antibodies that home in on the stalk and found that they cured and protected mice from two kinds of H5N1 bird flu, as well as many other flu families including H1N1 pandemic and ordinary flu. The researchers now want to develop the antibodies as a flu drug, possibly to stockpile for pandemics.

The team also plans to test the stalk antibody as a vaccine, so that people produce more of these antibodies themselves. They suspect haemagglutinin's big head is a decoy aimed to attract the immune system's attention and to stop us making many antibodies to the stalk – a delicate bit of molecular machinery that not be so easy to change to evade our immune attacks. In tests on mice, they found that the flu viruses did not evolve to escape the treatment.

Another benefit is that such antibodies stay effective for more than three weeks when injected into people, and in a pandemic could keep people alive long enough to produce their own antibodies to the virus.

H5N1 Bird Flu - Pandemic preparation?

UK to double pandemic flu drug stockpiles in a futile attempt to prepare for a an epidemic of Bird Flu (H5N1) in the UK. I carried out a research project for the European Space agency in 2006 and published a paper of the findings. I still retain an interest in the subject and my attention was drawn to a recent move by the UK government.

Pharmaceutical vaccines
Tamiflu (Oseltamivir) - 1st line vaccine is ineffective against new strains of emerging bird flu

Relenza (Zanamivir) - common flu vaccine, may dampen down the effects or the symptoms of a flu virus

UK Government statement

The UK has awarded contracts to double emergency supplies of flu drugs, promising to treat ‘everyone who is predicted to fall ill in a pandemic’. The government claims that this makes the UK one of the most prepared countries in the world. This will please the pharmaceutical lobby more than the National Health Authority.

Pharmaceutical lobby

The agreements with Roche and GlaxoSmithKline will double antiviral stockpiles, which are expected to be in place by April 2009. The contracts will deliver an additional 7.6 million treatment courses of Tamiflu (Roche) and 10.6 million treatment courses of Relenza (GlaxoSmithKline). Once the extra capacity is in place, there will be 33.5 million ineffective treatment courses of antivirals, with limited shelf life.

High mortality rates

The government states that without antiviral treatment, estimates suggest that up to 750,000 people could die in the UK during a pandemic. Antivirals will play a key role in the clinical response, reducing the severity of the illness and reducing the chance that complications such as pneumonia will set in.The onset of pneumonia is more likely to be a bacterial infection due to the immune system being seriously compromised and the treatment for bacterial pneumonia is antibiotics.

Current status

There are currently enough drugs for a quarter of the population, but the latest cross-government pandemic plan aims to cope with the worst-case scenario of an infection rate that could hit up to half the UK population. The new contracts awarded by the Department of Health is said to ensure that that aim can be met. Unfortunately that is not the case.

H5N1 mutations

The bird flu virus mutates regularly through its RNA and for it to become a pandemic affecting humans, it needs to develop the capability of crossing the species barrier, from birds to humans. It has yet to do this, as far as we are aware. Bird flu has mutated and crossed from birds to other mammals e.g. mice, rats, cats, pigs, etc. The greatest risk will come if the virus mutates from bird to human, using another mammal as an interim host.

Maybe the UK government know better. Because the bird flu has not yet mutated, it has not yet been forensically examined. Therefore, a matching vaccine has not yet been developed i.e. one that specifically targets, a yet to be mutated flu virus. In average, and with maximum effort, it takes scientists and pharmacologists 6 months to develop a new anti-viral vaccine. So we are still in danger, when the time comes, despite noises to the contrary.

UK Public Health Minister

Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo said:

"The UK is already widely recognised as one of the best prepared countries in the world. The increased flu-drug stockpile means that we should be able to treat everyone who falls ill in a pandemic." I think the key word here is 'treat' not cure. You can treat a broken leg with a band aid but it doesn't help and will not 'cure' it.

Broken umbrella
Dawn continues "Antivirals are an important part of our robust countermeasure strategy and will ensure we respond effectively in the event of a flu pandemic." Nice speech Dawn but a think you had better look behind the pharmaceutical companies' curtains and see the truth for what it is, scary!

Further Information is available from; Roche Pandemic Preparation Toolkit AND GSK Pandemic Preparation page