IT'S NOT THE BIRD FLU VIRUS INDONESIAN VILLAGERS FEAR, IT'S THE "MAGIC"

LOCALS CLAIM "BLOOD CURSE" WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR SEVEN DEATHS

At least seven members of the same family have died from the bird flu virus in the Indonesian village of Kubu Simbelang. World Health Organisation officials rushed to the village to try and contain the spread of the virus, which they now appear to have done successfully.

But during their visit, the officals discovered the work involved in stopping future outbreaks may not be all that they had planned for. In the village, locals now fear 'curses' killed their friends and neighbours, instead of the bird flu virus, and are wary of taking the anti-viral Tamiflu that WHO officials have been distributing.

A fascinating story from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that gives vast insight into how the largest bird flu death cluster, thus far, has affected one small village in Indonesia :

Some neighbors insist, however, that bird flu is not to blame. They are convinced black magic is at work, that ghosts now haunt their quiet Christian community of about 1,500 people.

Many are too scared to even pass by the family's houses, and some who live nearby are awakened by nightmares that they will be the next to die.

"We are so afraid just to step into that house," said a 37-year-old woman who identified herself only as Sembining. "We can't tell what we're afraid of - we're just afraid."

"I think the family was cursed," she said. "It must be, because if it's bird flu, why only their family? Their blood?"

As their neighbors started dying, confusion and mistrust prompted villagers to stop cooperating with officials. Many refused to give blood samples, fearing they would later fall ill and suffer the fate of their neighbors.

The case has been a powerful lesson for WHO officials in understanding the importance of early communication and education.

"We're seeing what problems we're going to run into on the ground," WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said. "We're learning with every step."

Jules Pieters, manager of WHO's rapid response and containment group in Geneva, said it is clear that people familiar with the culture, language and customs of this area should have been involved earlier to help villagers understand what was happening, how to protect themselves and the importance of allowing treatment if they develop symptoms.

Instead, many people who were never scared of doctors before are now terrified of them.

"We are afraid to be sent to an isolation room. You know an isolation room is a slaughtering room - a room for the people who want to die," said villager Caranta Perangin-Angin. "Therefore we are afraid of (letting doctors) take blood. Taking the blood, for me, symbolizes going to die."

...some villagers began associating Tamiflu, the chief drug to treat bird flu, with death because members of the infected family - most of whom were given the medicine too late to help - were dying after taking the pills.

Interesting piece here from the LA Times on how Darwin's theory of natural selection may play against the breakout of a human bird flu pandemic :

The H5N1 virus faces several barriers in jumping to and transmitting among humans. The most important is its ability to replicate in and adapt to human tissues, specifically the upper respiratory tract (not in deep lung tissue, where it now seems to grow). In the windpipe, the virus would be more likely to spread in a cough or sneeze, infecting other humans.

Some mutant strains have appeared repeatedly and independently in different humans infected with the bird flu virus. In one patient in Turkey, about half the H5N1 strains detected appeared to be viruses that had adapted to humans. But...the changes were a dead end — the victim died without passing on the disease.

(The process of mutation-adapatation) is probably how pandemics begin. The World Health Organization recently proposed a plan to move experts and resources to any area afflicted with clusters of viral infection; a plan that, given this evolutionary logic, makes eminent sense. At the beginning, viral adaptation to a host is slow. A disease just beginning to transmit is controllable. Surveillance, flexibility, willingness to impose or undergo quarantines, along with international cooperation, will be necessary to stop pandemic flu...

W.H.O. CONFIRMS 35TH BIRD FLU DEATH IN INDONESIA

WHO WARNS DRUG MAKER TO PREPARE SHIPMENTS OF TAMIFLU TO INDONESIA

WORLD BANK WARNS BIRD FLU PANDEMIC IS COMING

From Day Traders :

A new World Bank report has warned that the world population is heading towards the possibility of human bird flu pandemic, while the enormous health gap between rich and poor countries persists.

It also says that healthcare systems worldwide are struggling to cope with sharply rising costs as countries scramble to deal with the HIV/AIDS crisis, media sources reported Friday.

BIRD FLU DEATHS ESCALATE IN INDONESIA

W.H.O. QUARANTINE ZONE EXPANDS

MORE OUTBREAKS IN POULTRY - RUSSIA, NIGERIA, ROMANIA

UPDATE : The World Health Organisation continues to deny there is a bird flu pandemic underway in Indonesia, claiming the rising tide of deaths and infections are "localised" and not spreading.

Another four suspected deaths in the last few days, but WHO is pushing the line that one of the most respected labs in the world for confirming the presence of H5N1 in samples (located in Hong Kong) is misreading the data, or that the samples collected have been contaminated.

One of the strangest possible sources of infection we've heard of so far is that of an Indonesian man who worked as a shuttlecock maker, which uses feathers from poultry. There is no confirmation that the man may have been infected from simply handling feathers, but it is already being floated in various media as a potentiality.

There is also more talk of a genetic vulnerability to the H5N1 virus in humans. Meaning that a number of people can be exposed to someone dying of bird flu, but only those with the genetic disposition will catch the virus and get sick themselves.

This may lead to a mandatory DNA screening program if this theory pans out and there is a way of reading DNA to pick up the genetic anomaly.

Very, very curious indeed.


H5N1 has now killed the 18 year old brother of a West Java girl who also died of the same bird flu virus. They are reported to have died within hours of each other less than 24 hours after they were admitted to the Hasan Sdikin hospital in Bandung.

The WHO quarantine zone enforced around the village of Kubu Sembelang, in North Sumatra, where seven members of the same family died from bird flu has now been expanded to take in more than 50 people.

WHO officials claim that more than half of those quarantined are now on Tamiflu and none have shown symptoms of being infected with H5N1. The only people inside the quarantine zone who are not on Tamiflu are pregnant mothers, babies and small children.

A WHO official told Reuters, "What we're finding out the longer our team stays up in that area is that there are many, many outbreaks in chickens that always go unreported. Just in the past couple of weeks, they have found a couple of outbreaks of chickens dying in various villages in that area.

WHO now believe the virus was picked up by at least one family member from chickens because they have no other explanation for how else the family would have come to be infected.

WHO won't yet raise the Global Pandemic Alert level from Phase 3 to Phase 4 because no other humans who came into contact with the infected family members have shown signs of being infection.

Phase 3 translates as Human Infection : Rare Human To Human Transmission

Phase 4 translates as Human Infections : Small Clusters With Limited Human To Human Transmission, but during which the spread is highly localised.

There is good reason for the World Health Organisation to be reluctant to go with Phase 4.

When they officially confirmed that seven members of the same family had died of the bird flu virus, the Indonesian currency plummeted and stocks in airliners and travel companies plunged on fears of a pandemic cutting into airline industry profits, and of a general weakening of the Indonesian tourism industry due to decreased tourists, scared off by fears of the virus.

ROMANIA : At least 70 outbreaks of bird flu in chickens, and on poultry farms, in some 13 counties have now been confirmed by WHO. Some 35 more outbreaks are suspected and awaiting confirmation.

NIGERIA : The northern state of Kano has reported an outbreak of bird flu amongst poultry in at least one district. 16,000 bird have been destroyed on one farm to try and halt the spread to other farms.

RUSSIA : Three regions in Siberia have reported a total of eight villages reporting avian influenza in poultry and domestic birds.

Since February this year, more than 1.1 million birds have died from the virus in Russia, and more than 300,000 have been culled.

INDONESIA : SICK MAN SOUGHT HELP FROM WITCH DOCTOR WHILE ON THE RUN

W.H.O. DISEASE TRACKERS CHASED DOWN THE MAN TO REMOTE VILLAGE

MAN DIED IN THE ARMS OF HIS WIFE, ON THE WAY TO HOSPITAL

From Bloomberg.com : Dowes Ginting died of bird flu this week in the arms of his wife in the back of a jeep as he was taken to the hospital. For three days he had evaded doctors seeking to test him for the virus that killed him and at least six of his Indonesian relatives, including his son.

The movements of Ginting, a thin, boyish looking 32-year-old who grew limes, chilies and tomatoes in a northern mountain village of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, are part of a health probe that's attracting international attention. He and his relatives -- a brother, two sisters, two nephews, a niece and his son -- represent the largest reported instance in which avian flu may have been spread among people, investigators say.

The World Health Organization says the Sumatran incident may mean the H5N1 avian influenza strain is becoming more adept at infecting humans, not just birds. Scientists are monitoring outbreaks like the one in Sumatra for signs the virus is evolving into a form capable of killing millions.

"It's a good example of what the beginning of a pandemic outbreak might look like,'' said Ira Longini, a biostatistician at the University of Washington in Seattle.

"You would expect familial or hospital-based outbreaks and clusters.''

The WHO's disease-trackers are especially interested in the whereabouts of Ginting before he died to determine whom he risked infecting. He may have caught the virus from his son, who probably was infected by an aunt. This would be the first evidence of a three-person chain of infection, said WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng in a telephone interview.

Cheng said investigators have yet to identify an infected animal as a source of the outbreak.

Health officials' difficulty tracking down Ginting for the three days leading to his death suggests that Indonesia may have trouble containing a human outbreak that might jump from affected villages to the rest of Southeast Asia.

The Sumatra cases are being traced back to Ginting's 37-year- old sister, Puji, who worked selling limes at the Tiga Panah market about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from her home in Kubu Sembelang.

She developed symptoms on April 27 and died of respiratory disease on May 4, according to the WHO. No specimens were obtained before her burial, and the cause of her death can't be confirmed, the agency said in a May 18 statement.

A preliminary investigation indicates that three of the infected family members -- Puji's two sons and another brother -- spent the night of April 29 in a small room when the woman was coughing frequently, the WHO said in a May 23 statement.

Other infected family members lived in adjacent homes. All the confirmed cases can be directly linked to close and prolonged exposure to a patient during a phase of severe illness, the WHO said in its statement.

It's less clear how Ginting's son was infected,

Ginting helped care for his 10-year-old son at the Adam Malik Hospital in Medan up until the boy's death on May 13, the WHO said. Two days later, after returning to his home in Kubu Sembelang, Ginting began coughing.

Ginting was examined three days later by local health-care workers, who observed avian flu-like symptoms. The WHO's Grein recommended on May 18 that he be isolated and treated in the hospital with the Roche Holding AG antiviral drug, Tamiflu.

Instead Ginting fled local health authorities and sought care from a witch doctor...

Disease trackers located Ginting late on May 21 in a nearby village. Blood samples and swabs of his nose and throat for viral particles were taken that day and flown to a laboratory in Jakarta. Ginting died the following day after tests confirmed he had H5N1, the WHO said on May 23.

Ginting's actions and the local reaction to the deaths have health officials worried about how to contain outbreaks should the virus become contagious among people. Some residents of Kubu Sembelang said they resented the rapid assessment by some government officials that there was avian flu in the village.

Investigators also are following 33 people known to have been in contact with infected family members, Cheng said. Some of the people are taking Tamiflu to prevent the disease, she said. No other suspected cases had been reported, she said.


VILLAGERS QUARANTINED IN NORTH SUMATRA AFTER SEVEN DEATHS

From Forbes.com : "More than 30 people have been asked to quarantine themselves so far in a North Sumatran village hit by bird flu outbreak, officials said.

"People who had close contact with any of seven relatives who have died since last month in the village are being monitored for signs of illness...

"A day after another WHO spokesman, Peter Cordingley, said the UN body was 'stumped' about the original source of the infection, Thompson said that contact with an infected bird is now considered the likely cause.

"Cordingley had on Wednesday described the outbreak as 'the mother of all clusters', but Thompson stressed there is evidence that the virus has not mutated into a form that could be more easily spread from humans to humans.

"The WHO has sent a 10-member team to Kubu Sembelang village, Karo District, to identify those who had close contact with the family. So far more than 30, including more relatives, have been traced and asked to quarantine themselves."


DELAY INVESTIGATIONS MEAN POSSIBILITY OF HUMAN-TO-HUMAN TRANSMISSION IN INDONESIAN CLUSTER CASE TO REMAIN A MYSTERY

From The Australian : Delays in the investigation of the world's largest outbreak of bird flu may prevent health officials from ever knowing if human-to-human transmission of the disease killed six members of the same family in Indonesia.

A team of the world's leading avian flu experts has arrived in the remote village of Kubu Sembelang in North Sumatra to investigate the deaths, which occurred during the past three weeks.

However, the director of the World Health Organisation's Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne, Ian Gust, said most of the evidence would already have been destroyed.

"We've found with the investigation of clusters in the past that by the time the investigators get there, it's too late," he said yesterday. "Any infected birds that might have been around have gone or been killed.

"You can't take the adequate samples and you'll never know the cause, and that's a problem."

Indonesian health officials were not responding quickly enough to potential cases of the disease, Dr Gust told The Australian.

"Indonesia is still struggling with it. Vietnam, which had a very serious problem with bird flu, has essentially brought it under control by very vigorous health measures, whereas Indonesia is still getting lots of outbreaks in birds and lots of cases in humans," Dr Gust said.

Infected poultry has been the source of the majority of human infections worldwide. However, the WHO suspects human-to-human transmission may have caused up to half a dozen previous clusters in recent years.

.....there (is) no effective test to confirm human-to-human transmission.

INDONESIA : "THE MOTHER OF ALL (BIRD FLU) CLUSTERS"

WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION ADMITS TO POSSIBLE HUMAN-TO-HUMAN TRANSMISSIONS

DENIES PANDEMIC-READY VIRUS MUTATION HAS OCCURRED

WORLD MARKETS BEGIN TO REACT AS THOUGH PANDEMIC HAS BEGUN

The World Health Organisation's regional spokesman for Indonesia gave a chilling interview to From Voice Of America in which he called the bird flu outbreak that killed seven members of the same family "the mother of all clusters".

When members of the same family, or neighbours in a small village, become infected with the bird flu virus, the WHO refers to these outbreaks as "clusters", and while the most recent Indonesian 'clusters' are significant, Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand also also suffered 'clusters' during human bird flu infections and deaths in 2004 and 2005.

But the WHO spokesman, Peter Cordingly, admitted the Indonesian family toll of seven deaths out of eight known infections was the largest 'cluster' yet seen in one location.

Cordingly liked the phrase "mother of all clusters" enough to use it three times in the one interview, and emphasised the significance of the Indonesian outbreaks.

He also refused to rule out the possibility of human-to-human transmission of the virus, as scientists couldn't find a link to avian influenza infected birds in the latest deaths.

From Voice Of America News :

"For the first time now we have people dying from this virus but we can find no source of infection outside their own family," he explained.

"No dead chickens, no dying chickens, basically no animal source at all around them. So we're in a zone we've not been in before which is a large cluster and we don't understand it."

There is good news, however. Tests on samples taken from the infected show the virus is not mutating.

"....it shows no sign of the ability to transmit more easily between chickens and humans and no sign of any ability to transmit more effectively from human to human," he said.

A mutation of the H5N1 virus, where the virus meets a human influenza virus and then 'blends' to form a far more infectious new strain, is regarded by scientists around the world as the trigger for a pandemic.

Reuters is reporting that health experts are desperately trying to track down anyone who might have come into contact with any of the seven members of the Indonesian family now confirmed to have died from the H5N1 virus.

When they find such persons, they are immediately put onto the anti-viral medication Tamiflu, regarded as the most effective way of stopping the virus from spreading through the body, though it is not a vaccine that will guard against initial infection.

WHO sent in something of an emergency response team to the North Sumatran village earlier this week where the family members became infected and died. The US dispatched a shipment of Tamiflu to Indonesia to up their stockpile.

The WHO team is now watching the surrounding villages for outbreaks of the virus.

While there was no known contact with infected birds or animals for the family members, it has now been established that they had slaughtered and cooked chickens and a pig for a feast held on April 29.

Apparently the WHO team is having trouble getting the North Sumatran locals to allow testing on their chickens and pig stocks. Should the virus be found in any animal, the standard procedure thus far has been to install a quarantine that can stretch for miles, and all birds, or pigs, within the high-quarantine zone are slaughtered.

Poor villagers, with limited food supplies, would naturally not want to have such animals killed and the carcasses torched.

Compensation may come from the Indonesian government, but during outbreaks earlier in the year, many farmers who lost their entire stock of chickens complained that local corruption stopped them from recieving any compensation at all.

CAN YOUR GENES MAKE YOU MORE LIKELY TO DIE FROM BIRD FLU?

Reuters also reports : This large cluster meanwhile has re-ignited interest in a theory expounded by a growing number of scientists that genetics might predispose certain people to being infected by H5N1, which remains essentially a disease of birds.

Some people who survived H5N1 have been found to have more of a type of receptor cells along their respiratory tracts that avian flu viruses like to bind to -- which in theory would explain why some humans might be more susceptible to H5N1.

Such a genetic trait would also explain why cluster cases have invariably involved blood relations, and never husbands and wives.

"It appears that familial susceptibility amongst certain races, certain cultures and certain groups of people appear to be having a play in the pathogenesis and behaviour of this virus when it jumps from one species, like poultry, to humans."

NEW 'CLUSTER' SUSPECTED IN INDONESIA

TWO INFECTED, ONE ALREADY DEAD

From The Jakarta Post : One of two new suspected bird flu patients from the same family in Bandung, West Java, died Tuesday, leading to speculation that a new cluster has surfaced.

The two, a 10-year-old girl and an 18-year-old man, were admitted to Hasan Sadikin Hospital in Bandung on Monday evening, but the girl's condition worsened and she died at 2:50 p.m on Tuesday.

The siblings, residents of Cileunyi in Bandung regency, exhibited symptoms associated with bird flu and had known contact with dead chickens.

"They had high fevers and lower respiratory infections, which made it hard for them to breathe."

Indonesian health authorities have now identified five 'clusters' around the country.

UPDATE : Canada.com reports that WHO will not raise their alert status from Level Three as there is no proof that the H5N1 virus is being transmitted easily from person to person in Indonesia, following the 'cluster' of at least seven deaths in the same family.

"All confirmed cases in the cluster can be directly linked to close and prolonged exposure to a patient during a phase of severe illness," said a WHO statement. "Although human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out, the search for a possible alternative source of exposure is continuing."

The last of the family to die was a father who had cared for his dying ten year old son. WHO believes this close contact allowed the H5N1 virus to pass from the son to the father.

Three other family members who died had spent the night of April 29 sharing a small room with a woman who was the first in the family to die. She was reported to have been coughing frequently throughout the night, which may have passed the H5N1 virus to the next three victims.

Now doesn't that all sound like the bird flu virus has spread fairly easily throughout the family, based on their proximity to those already sick with H5N1 infection?

WHO may be playing it safe, fearing that raising the Alert Level from Three to Four (on a scale of One to Six) may trigger panic, not only locally, but on the global stockmarkets, though you would hope these kind of concerns wouldn't figure into their decisions, when early alerts will be the key to stopping the spread of pandemic bird flu.

Just the mere the possibility that human-to-human transmissions in Indonesia had taken place hit the markets hard, as you can read in the stories below.

Bird Flu Transmission Fears Hit UK Stockmarkets

Asian Markets Take A Tumble, Indonesian Rupiah Drops 10%

European Share Market Resumes Fall On Bird Flu Fears

IS THIS IT? IS THIS HOW THE PANDEMIC BEGINS?

MAN DYING FROM BIRD FLU VIRUS GOES ON THE RUN IN INDONESIA FOR THREE DAYS

DIES ON THE WAY TO HOSPITAL

Buried way down in this informative, concise update on the human bird flu virus deaths in Indonesia and Iran, we found some very important information.

(It is important because if the man involved turns out to have been infected with a pandemic form of the bird flu virus, then it may already be spreading rapidly through at least one region in Sumatra, Indonesia)

Just over a week ago, a 32 year old Sumatran man watched his ten year old son die from bird flu.

He was interviewed at his home by unknown health officers (presumably locals) on May 17. He had a high fever and was given traditional treatment.

On May 18, the man refused treatment, and quarantine, at a local hospital. He was prescribed the antiviral Tamiflu. Then he fled his village.

He was found sometime on May 21, samples were taken from the man and he died on his way to hospital on May 22. The tests to see if he had been infected with the H5N1 virus were declared positive yesterday.

For at least 72 hours, this man was on the run and was dying from the H5N1 virus, which he presumably caught from his son, or one of the other five members of his family who died from the virus the week before.

Neither the man, or any other member of his family, are believed to have had contact with sick or dead birds.

There has been no official word yet on just where this infected man travelled, and with whom he had contact during those three days on the run.

Should it turn out that the man was carrying a form of avian influenza that can spread more easily, and more rapidly, between humans, then we might be looking at the first week of the long-dreaded human bird flu pandemic.

The World Health Organisation has stated that the virus can be spread from human to human during close contact, closer than strangers or neighbours may interact.

Where human deaths have occurred in Indonesia before, involving members of the same family who had no contact with infected birds, the presumption has been that in caring for the sick, when the virus can "live" outside the body for hours, the other family members have become infected simply by their proximity to the infection.

The World Health Organisation has a little publicised 'Pandemic Alert', comprising of six levels. It is currently set at level three. This indicates "a new flu virus subtype is causing disease in humans, though not yet spreading efficiently and in a sustainable way among people."

Thirteen people have died from the bird flu virus in May alone.

According to Bloomberg.com : Limited human-to-human transmission can't be ruled out as the cause of illness in seven members of an Indonesian family with avian influenza this month, Indonesia's Ministry of Health said yesterday. Six of the people died. Investigators haven't found infected poultry or pigs near where they lived.

Officials from the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention joined local authorities last week on the Indonesian island of Sumatra to try to pinpoint how the people became infected with H5N1 in the past month. Virus samples isolated from infected family members are also being analyzed.

With no animal identified as yet as the source of infection, this cluster raises the suspicion of human-to-human transmission. It warrants further urgent investigation, especially of people who may have come into contact with the infected people.'

Two-thirds of the 200 or so people around the world who have been infected with the H5N1 virus have died shortly afterwards. This points to the strong likelihood that pandemic bird flu would be an extremely deadly virus, to which humans have no natural immunity.

The H5N1 virus has killed two-thirds of those confirmed to be infected this year, prompting fear that a pandemic form of avian flu would be extremely lethal.

People have no natural immunity to H5N1.

Boy May Have Passed Deadly Flu To Dad

A Plan For Flu, Without The Fear

World Health Organisation Shocked By Sudden Death Of Pandemic Bird Flu Chief

DON'T BELIEVE THE BIRD FLU HYPE, SAY SKEPTICS

From The Houston Chronicle : For months, the warnings have been relentless: Bird flu could jump species and kill tens of millions of people, a pandemic to rival the 1918 Spanish flu. Economies would collapse and governments risk catastrophe if they don't put together elaborate contingency plans.

Not everyone is convinced, however.

"It's a great story, a disease that can wipe out mankind as we know it," says Dr. Gary Butcher, a University of Florida veterinarian specializing in avian diseases.

"Fortunately, the facts are contrary to what's being reported. This disease is going to fizzle out, be forgotten in the near future and be replaced by another 'potential worldwide threat."

That view may have received a boost last week when the United Nations' chief pandemic flu coordinator confirmed that the flu virus known as H5N1 largely has been contained in the Asian countries where it first hit.

Public health officials were quick to warn it would be premature to declare victory.

Contrarians such as Butcher say (the hype) is all a bit much, considering that some experts doubt the current lethal form of the virus will ever jump to humans.

Bird flu, they argue, is just the latest in a line of overhyped scares that include anthrax, West Nile virus, smallpox and SARS, which taken together claim a mere fraction of the lives lost every year to, say, pneumonia.

One reason some remain unconvinced of the new virus's potential transmissibility is because it has infected so few people to date. Since 1998, hundreds of millions of chickens in Asia have been infected with the virus. Millions of people lived with the diseased birds, but, as of last Friday, 217 had become infected. Of those, 123 died.

Some critics see a different "agenda" behind the public concern about bird flu funding. Butcher says President Bush's $7.1 billion flu pandemic plan means a bonanza of grant money for researchers and the justification of the budgets and existence of agencies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the World Health Organization.

Some mostly just wish the money wasn't being directed so single-mindedly to the new virus.

With nearly 150 different strains of flu viruses with the potential to cause a pandemic, New York University School of Medicine internist Dr. Marc Siegel said he'd like to see more effort aimed at general pandemic preparation, such as developing better methods for making vaccines, and less given to panic-inducing rhetoric.

The whole story is worth a read.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM BIRD FLU

The Harvard Health Letter has a few suggestions on how you can reduce the chances of your good self becoming infected with the bird flu virus, should a pandemic outbreak occur.

Actually, these suggestions apply to the prevention of all flu viruses, and we don't know yet whether the avian influenza is the worst, or just one of the many, that could cause a pandemic flu death toll that outstrips the annual flu-related death toll of well over one million people.

The Harvard Health Letter suggests the following :

- Get a regular flu shot this fall. It won't protect you from bird flu, but it will reduce your risk of getting regular flu and bird flu at the same time.

- Don't count on antiviral medications. Some experts say there is "no credible evidence" that these drugs help against bird flu, and their use may create resistant strains.

- Wash your hands regularly.

- Stay away from birds and their droppings.

- Stock up on water and nonperishable groceries.

It is remarkable just how few Top Tips there really are. The most important ones, as with those listed above, are very simple, and very easy to follow. And the majority of the population of a country like the United States following, and sticking to, those guidelines could actually vastly decrease the potential of a pandemic flu virus.

After reading hundreds of articles and papers on bird flu prevention, and communicable virus prevention, you simply cannot go past "wash your hands regularly" as one of the key ways to avoid becoming infected with a whole host of viruses that pass easily between humans.

We habitually touch our faces, rub our eyes, eat some food with our hands, all ways in which an active virus we've picked up can be transferred to the mouth, or the bloodstream via the eyes.

Part of the pandemic flu guidelines now being discussed amongst businesses large and small across the US is how they will be able to guarantee safety for their workforces during pandemic flu outbreaks.

Two suggestions in particular stand out. The first is that co-workers would not be forced to work within less than three to five feet of each other. The second was that face-t0-face contact would be kept to a minimum and this would include no handshaking.

We may find, however, that as insurance companies crunch the numbers on bird flu, and general flu viruses, they will quickly realise that millions are lost each year from workers being off due to general flu viruses and that simply installing permanent guidelines about face-to-face contact and handshaking could reduce the total number of lost work days significantly.

No more handshaking in a possible future? Very likely. Either that or people will carry small packets of pre-treated tissues to wipe off their hands after each contact.

US SENDS EMERGENCY SHIPMENT OF TAMIFLU TO "ASIA"

The United States has sent an emergency shipment of the anti-viral medication Tamiflu to Asia, said US Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, to help the region prepare for an outbreak of pandemic bird flu.

Leavitt would not reveal how many courses of the anti-virals has been sent, or where they were going to, but it seems pretty obvious that after the familial cluster outbreak in Indonesia - that killed six family members in eight days - that this is where the Tamiflu is heading

Leavitt revealed this information during the World Health Organisation annual assembly, where pandemic bird flu prevention is at the top of the agenda.

Washington has committed more than $US330 million for at-risk countries to prepare for a bird flu pandemic, and to act towards its prevention.

Leavitt also revealed that the US is on track to meet its goal of securing 75 million courses of Tamiflu which would be used to treat 25 percent of the US population in the event of a human pandemic.

In amongst this latest news, there is a swirl or reports across the world's media reporting a storm of conflicting information. Pandemic fears? Or pandemic averted? Human to human transmission now a reality? Or does the WHO deny this is possible for now?

Take your pick :

More H5n1 Infectoins And Deaths In Indonesia

WHO Says No Evidence Bird Flu Virus Has Mutated

Indonesia Cannot Rule Out Human To Human Spread Of Virus

Massive Intervention Needed In Bird Flu Fight

IRAN BELIEVED TO HAVE HAD ITS FIRST TWO HUMAN BIRD FLU DEATHS

FIVE FAMILY MEMBERS INFECTED, THREE REMAIN SERIOUSLY ILL

From the Sydney Morning Herald : Tests in Iran on the bodies of a brother and sister who died after falling ill with pneumonia-like symptoms showed they had the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, an Iranian medical official said.

The two - a 41-year-old man and 26-year-old woman - were among five members of the same family who became sick after returning from a trip to the town of Marivan, close to their home in the northwestern city of Kermanshah.

The three surviving relatives were in hospital and one of them remained dangerously ill, the official told Reuters.

Final confirmation tests are being completed outside of Iran, but the results are expected to show avian influenza as the cause of death.

Members of the same family all coming down with H5N1 are termed 'familial cluster infections' in the WHO parlance. Though the wording for this can vary, it means the same thing : one member of the family picks up the virus, and quickly infects those in the closest promixity, usually members of their family.

It is the 'familial infections' that make the blood of bird flu watchers run cold.

When infected people have not been around already infected poultry farms, or when they haven't had close contact with infected birds, and when other members of their family become rapidly infected and die, it doesn't look good at all. Such activity gives all the appearances of one member of a family picking up a form of bird flu that is transmissable between humans, and then they pass it on to those they have the most contact with.

Indonesia has also just experienced a cluster of familial infection, with six members of the same family dying rapidly, in less than eight days.

Iran had its first outbreak in poultry in February. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iraq all have reported human deaths resulting from bird flu infection, and these countries are all neighbours with Iran.

WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION CALLS CHINA A 'WEAK" LINK IN THE BATTLE TO STOP GLOBAL BIRD FLU PANDEMIC

From Canada.com : China's ability to detect H5N1 avian flu in poultry flocks across its vast geographic expanse remains a weak link in efforts to contain global spread of the virus and lower the risk it poses to mankind, the World Health Organization's top representative in that country suggests.

"We do not think that there has been enough emphasis on the animal surveillance side to do that in China," Dr. Henk Bekedam told The Canadian Press in an interview.

"Somehow the animal surveillance system in China is unable to detect the circulating H5N1 (virus). And that is troubling."

Bekedam commended Chinese authorities for their commitment to the enormous undertaking of trying to vaccinate the billions of domestic chickens, ducks and geese across their country.

But he said using vaccination to tamp down levels of circulating viruses requires even more rigorous surveillance in the animal sector. That's because spread is harder to spot when commercial poultry die-offs, which have served as a large-scale alert system, stop occurring.

"What we know from diseases in general is that at the moment you vaccinate, you shouldn't become relaxed on the surveillance part - you have to raise the bar because it becomes far much more difficult to actually detect," he said from Beijing.

"I accept it's an enormous challenge. It's very difficult. But at the end of the day I still believe that's the part where the system in China looks weak."

HAS THE LONG FEARED BIRD FLU MUTATION ALREADY OCCURRED IN INDONESIA?

From Consumer Affairs : World Health Organization officials are increasingly concerned that a thus far unexplained outbreak of the bird flu virus could mean that a long-feared scenario has been borne out -- that the virus may have mutated so that it can be passed from one human to another.

The concern began with reports that seven members of one family in a remote Indonesian village had come down with the disease. (see stories below)

Doctors were immediately troubled by the fact that there had been no outbreaks of the disease among birds in the region. To date, all of the more than 200 people infected with the virus have gotten it from contact with a diseased bird.

Health authorities hoped that their investigation would disclose a common contact among the seven infected people. So far, that contact has not been found.

At this point, health officials say they cannot rule out that the seven infected family members passed the virus to each other.

Scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have joined their WHO colleagues on the scene to continue the probe.

Unless they can find a connection among all seven family members with one or more diseased birds, they say they may be forced to conclude that a mutation has occurred.

NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

CHINESE VICE-PREMIER NOT OPTIMISTIC ABOUT BIRD FLU SITUATION

UNITED NATIONS : WE NEED TO DOUBLE FUNDING TO FIGHT BIRD FLU

ROMANIA : 25 BIRD FLU OUTBREAKS CONFIRMED, 26 MORE SUSPECTED

DENMARK : REPORTS FIRST BIRD FLU INFECTIONS IN POULTRY

NIGERIA : BIRD FLU OUTBREAK SUSPECTED ON AT LEAST ONE FARM

ROMANIA : FOUR SUSPECTED OF HELPING TO SPREAD BIRD FLU VIRUS

RUSSIA : H5N1 VIRUS DISCOVERED IN SIBERIAN POULTRY


BLOOD FROM A 'SPANISH FLU' SURVIVOR COULD LEAD TO HUMAN BIRD FLU VACCINE

A 92-year-old woman who survived the Spanish flu in 1918 has given 10 vials of her blood to medical researchers who are trying to develop more effective vaccines against bird flu.

Horsch's blood will be part of a catalogue of blood and bone marrow samples being compiled by Sea Lane Biotechnologies, a San Francisco company that hopes to track changes in the virus that might help develop better vaccines.

"We're looking at the different human responses to the various flus over the course of history," said Michael Horowitz, general counsel for the company.

The goal, Horowitz said, is to obtain samples of antibodies produced by the survivors that allowed them to fight off the infection and then zero in on the most effective ones.

BIRD FLU FATALITY RATE RISES TO 64% GLOBALLY, BUT HITS 78% IN INDONESIA

From Bloomberg.com : "Bird flu has killed 64 percent of those people known to be infected with the virus this year, according to World Health Organization statistics, with the number of fatalities since Jan. 1 surpassing 2005 levels.

"At least 47 of 73 people known to be infected with the H5N1 strain of avian influenza are reported to have died in the first five months of this year, the WHO said on its Web site yesterday. In 2005, 41 of 95 -- or 43 percent -- died.

"Health officials are worried the lethal H5N1 virus may mutate into a form that's easily spread among people, touching off a pandemic similar to the one that began in 1918 in which as many as 50 million people died.

"In Indonesia, where the rate of fatalities among H5N1 patients is 78 percent, officials are investigating a suspected 33rd death in the country."

INDONESIA'S CLUSTER OF HUMAN INFECTIONS RAISES SERIOUS DOUBTS ABOUT PANDEMIC CONTAINMENT PLANS

Interesting thoughts in this story on a cluster of deaths in the Indonesian village of Kubu Sembelang, where at least seven members of a family became infected with the bird flu virus, and six of them quickly died, and how the World Health Organisation's plans to cope with pandemics may be ruined by the realities of the ground.

....WHO could contain an emerging pandemic if it discovered the virus was spreading among people within the first 20 human cases or within seven to 21 days of the start of transmission.

People in the area where the virus was spreading would be given antiviral drugs to keep them from falling ill, and the area would be effectively cut off from the rest of the world. Depriving the virus of new human hosts would be like starving a fire of oxygen, hence the shorthand many in scientific circles use to describe the containment strategy - the fire blanket.

The WHO keeps a sharp eye out for clusters of cases, which could signal that H5N1 is changing in ways that make it easier for it to jump into and between humans.

MEMORIES OF THE 1918 'SPANISH FLU' HAUNTS A 21ST CENTURY WORLD ON THE BRINK OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC

A remarkable piece from Toni Reinhold detailing her grandmother's memories of the last time a bird flu virus grew into a human pandemic - the 'Spanish Flu' of 1918, or 'The Grip' as it was known then - and its impact amongst the burroughs of New York City.

My grandmother lived through the Great War, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War Two, the cultural revolution of the '60s and three decades beyond.

There was little that could threaten her nerve but until the day she died, Marie Starace was afraid of two things. One was lightning. The other was "The Grip" -- the deadly flu that wreaked havoc on the Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood where she was born and raised.

"It was a terrible thing. So many people died from the grip when I was a little girl that it seemed like every family lost someone," my grandmother told me.

"It was heartbreaking to see mothers crying for their children. Some of them lost two and three children. I'll never forget one woman crying in my mother's arms because she lost her children and her husband."

"Some people went out in the middle of the night to get the undertaker because they didn't want it to get around that someone in their house had died from the flu. They were afraid of being reported to the Health Department and quarantined."

In 1918, word of the illness in Europe was carried to Brooklyn's shores by troops returning from the battlefields of World War One and seamen who helped breathe life into New York City's ports. It was suspected that some of them carried the flu as well.

"Momma would make soup and bring it to the sick," Granna told me. "A lot of them were very poor and the war didn't help. We didn't have so much but she did the best she could."

The Grip caused high fevers, headaches, coughing, pain, and a pneumonia so virulent that it left people struggling for breath until they suffocated. Death came quickly by many accounts.

"They had a hacking cough and raging fevers," Granna said. "But they couldn't go to hospitals even if they wanted to because they were filled up. And they died so fast."

"It seemed like there was a black wreath on almost every door," my grandmother said of the markers of loss.

"So many people died that they ran out of space for the dead. Bodies were put on ice inside horse-drawn trucks that came around to pick up the dead. There were hardly any funerals. I don't know how they could have had that many funerals. And besides, people were afraid to go to church."

By a number of accounts, bodies piled up as morgues ran out of space and the supply of coffins dwindled. At a time when wakes for the dead were often held at home, funerals were restricted to only minutes to limit people's exposure to each other.

"No one really knew what to do. No one knew how to treat it. What could anyone do? You couldn't stop living," Granna said.

In 1918, 4,514 people in Brooklyn died from influenza from a population of 1,798,513, according to almanacs published in 1918 and 1920 by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper. Thousands more had been infected but survived.

The whole story is definitely worth a read.

WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION WARNS OF HUMAN TO HUMAN BIRD FLU SPREAD IN INDONESIA

SIX MEMBERS OF SAME FAMILY DIE IN LESS THAN EIGHT DAYS

CANADIAN DOCTOR CLAIMS PANDEMIC FEARS "OVERBLOWN"

The day after the World Health Organisation warned of the possibility that bird flu had begun to spread human-to-human (the first stage of the much feared pandemic), news came that six members of the same family had died in Indonesia of the H5N1 virus in less than eight days.

What makes this particularly troubling for the virus watchers is that there was no indication that local poultry was already infected, which has usually been the way the virus has reached humans - from close contact with infected birds.

But in Canada, a respected health professional said the fears of a human pandemic were overblown, and that the billion dollars set aside to fight a pandemic virus outbreak, that hadn't yet happened, would be better spent on underfunded health care emergencies that already existed.

In other bird flu news, a New Zealand virologist claims that when the H5N1 virus has infected people and tests have been taken, the results have shown bird flu is unlike any virus ever seen before, and that it can spread through the human body via the bloodstream. Very unusual indeed.

In the United States, fears of how the avian influenza virus could destroy the multi-billion dollar poultry industy has seen the federal government draw up plans where entire states would be quarantined, in the event of multiple outbreaks on farms.

HUMAN PANDEMIC FEARS WAY OVERBLOWN CLAIMS

FRIED CHICKEN MORE DANGEROUS THAN BIRD FLU INFECTED CHICKENS

$1 BILLION FOR PANDEMIC, $250 MILLION TO FIGHT CANCER

CANADA : It would be better to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars being allocated to fight a human bird flu pandemic to where it is needed most urgently, the front lines of public health where threats already exist.

This is the advice of Dr. John Blatherwick, Vancouver's medical officer of health.

Dr Blatherwick thinks the threat of a human bird flu pandemic is so low that, "I wouldn't put it on anybody's radar."

"When you put a billion dollars against something like this, it's disproportionate to the threat ... The greatest danger that chickens pose is the fried type, that people continue to eat and get fat on."

Smoking and the fact not enough people in Canada wear seat belts pose far great public-health issues, he believes.

From Canada's National Post : "Federal and provincial health ministers met this past weekend to co-ordinate their pandemic planning, agreeing among other things to boost Canada's national stockpile of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu to 55 million doses, from 16 million.

"The Conservative government's first budget, unveiled this month, devoted $1-billion over five years to pandemic readiness, compared with $250-million for a new cancer-control strategy.

"...H5N1 bird flu first killed a human nine years ago this month -- and still has not adapted itself for person-to-person transmission."

"'There really is not a good scientific basis for believing that we are in imminent danger of a severe pandemic, which is basically the line we are being given by the World Health Organization and a lot of other pundits,' said Dr. Richard Schabas, a former chief medical officer of health in Ontario.

"He believes the microbiology discipline has for the past decade fallen under the influence of ideas championed in The Coming Plague. The 1994 book by award-winning American journalist Laurie Garrett argued that man-made changes to the Earth's ecology -- from war in Africa, to shrinking Amazon rain forest and widespread injection-drug use in America -- had left humans dangerously vulnerable to a vast array of infectious diseases.

"But Ms. Garrett's fears have proven largely unfounded, as threats ranging from Ebola to Lassa virus and SARS have been vanquished relatively easily, argues Dr. Schabas, now medical officer of health for Hastings and Prince Edward Counties in Ontario.

CLAIM : BIRD FLU VIRUS CAN SPREAD THROUGH THE HUMAN BLOOD STREAM

MASSIVE ORGAN FAILURE RESULTS

UNLIKE ANY HUMAN FLU VIRUS EVER SEEN BEFORE

From Stuff.nz : ...Thai researchers have discovered why H5N1 is so deadly – the virus can travel in the bloodstream of victims spreading it beyond the respiratory system where flu is usually contained, causing a system-wide collapse.

In the past blood was considered poisonous to flu viruses.

Christchurch virologist Lance Jennings said no human influenza had ever been known to spread through the blood. "This is unique."

However, H5N1 was unusual in being an avian influenza virus which had infected humans.

...last year a Vietnamese boy...suffered encephalitis when H5N1 spread to his brain...

...researchers said the discovery of H5N1 in the blood posed new challenges for treating bird flu patients.

The virus' ability to spread through the body "clearly illustrates the severity of infection" but did not make it any more likely to be transmitted between people...

INDONESIA : FIVE MEMBERS OF SAME FAMILY DIE FROM BIRD FLU IN LESS THAN A WEEK

The Jakarta Post is reporting that five members from the same family have died from bird, all within less than six days.

"The five are part of a large family in Tanah Karo village on Sumatra island in which eight people are suspected to have contracted the virulent H5N1 bird flu virus.

"Four died from the disease earlier this past week, according to local tests, and a fifth was confirmed on Sunday, said Nyoman Kandun, head of the Health Ministry's office of communicable disease control.

Samples from the patients have been sent to a World Health Organization-accredited lab."

UNITED STATES : BIRD FLU AND NATURAL DISASTER FEARS SPAWN BOOM TIME FOR 'SURVIVALIST' STORES

There is a rapidly growing trend in the US today, spurned on by President Bush's repeated warnings about bird flu and further natural disasters, coupled with a widespread belief that if a bird flu pandemic hit the US then "you're on your own", which sees millions of Americans stockpiling freeze-dried food, water and camping supplies.

Disaster preparedness stores, usually large warehouses stocked floor to ceiling with bulk-buy boxes of everything from toilet paper and first aid kits to long-life batteries and candles to freeze-dried bacon and eggs, are doing huge business.

Some disaster preparedness stores are reporting sales increases for March rising by some 600 per cent and seven figure takings.

Such stores fear the bird flu pandemic, not only for the widespread death toll, but for the panic-buying and subsequent chaos that is expected to swamp these businesses.

Read a story about this here

WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION WARNS OF POSSIBLE ARRIVAL OF HUMAN-TO-HUMAN BIRD FLU IN INDONESIA

BUT NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS BIRD FLU IS ON THE WANE IN SOUTH EAST ASIA

Ireland OnLine: "Indonesian and World Health Organisation officials today were investigating eight suspected human bird flu cases, four of them fatal, in a district on Sumatra island.

"WHO spokeswoman Sari Setiogi in Indonesia said tests on villagers’ blood samples in northern Sumatra’s Tanah Karo district had yet to be completed.

"Nyoman Kandun, head of the Health Ministry’s office of communicable disease control, said the samples have been passed on to a WHO lab in Hong Kong for confirmation.

"He said the possibility of human-to-human infection 'could not be ruled out.'

Kandun said all of the suspected victims were part of a large family, with most living near each other in the same village.

“'We have found negative signs of bird flu in all the livestock near where the families live, and now investigators are trying to further check livestock such as chicken, ducks and pigs there,' he said."

From the New York Times : "Even as it crops up in the far corners of Europe and Africa, the virulent bird flu that raised fears of a human pandemic has been largely snuffed out in the parts of Southeast Asia where it claimed its first and most numerous victims.

"Vietnam, which has had almost half of the human cases of A(H5N1) flu in the world, has not seen a single case in humans or a single outbreak in poultry this year. Thailand, the second-hardest-hit nation until Indonesia recently passed it, has not had a human case in nearly a year or one in poultry in six months.

"Encouraging signs have also come from China, though they are harder to interpret.

"These are the second positive signals that officials have seen recently in their struggle to prevent avian flu from igniting a human pandemic. Confounding expectations, birds making the spring migration north from Africa have not carried the virus into Europe."

"According to the World Health Organization, China said it had outbreaks in 16 provinces in 2004. In 2005, it reported outbreaks in only 12 provinces, but one in November was so large that 2.5 million birds were culled to contain it.

"After that, the Agriculture Ministry announced that it would vaccinate every domestic bird in China, which raises and consumes 14 billion chickens, ducks and geese each year. The official news agency reported about the same time that a fake flu vaccine, possibly with live virus in it, might have spread the disease."

BIRD FLU CULLS AND FEARS SPUR SALES OF BUSH MEAT IN IVORY COAST

RATS, HEDGEHOGS, ANTELOPES, RODENTS AND MUSHROOMS FILL THE VOID

Markets in Abdijan, Ivory Coast, are seeing a surge of sales in interest in 'bush meat', as fears of infected chickens and widespread culls have reduced poultry to an expensive rarity for locals.

Ivory Coast veterinary authorities have confirmed the presence of the much-feared and deadly H5N1 virus in the region, and a two year old girl is now ill with bird flu, the first human infection in the sub-Saharan area. The virus has been found in seven West African countries, so far.

So chicken is out for millions and rodents, snails, antelopes and crunchy-fired hedgehog is in.

Mushroom sales are booming as well, which dieticians say is a good thing indeed, as mushrooms make a good substitute for chicken and eggs.

In some areas, demand for chicken is one third what it was a few months ago. Instead of going out of business, poultry farmers and market vendors are turning to the alternative meats to stay alive, and in business.

"There is a kind of obsession about bird flu," A Chadian sociologist told Reuters, "but some people are still eating chicken, saying that only God can end a man's life on earth. That's African fatalism,"

Go here for the full report from Reuters.

CHINA, EU, INDONESIA, RUSSIA ENABLED QUARANTINE ZONES AROUND BIRD FLU INFECTED FARMS

THE UNITED STATES IS CONSIDERING QUARANTINE ZONES FOR ENTIRE STATES

THEORIES OF BIRD FLU SPREADING VIA POULTRY FARMS AND INDUSTRY, AND NOT SOLELY BY MIGRATORY BIRDS, NOW BEING TAKEN SERIOUSLY

The US Department of Agriculture has plans to enact state-wide quarantine zones should there be severe, multiple outbreaks of the bird flu virus on poultry farms.

State wide quarantines would be initiated in the event of multiple outbreaks, and would apply to all poultry farms within the states selected. This quarantine zone would, following the methodologies used to contain outbreaks in the EU and England, restrict the movement of all people in the state wide zones, not just poultry farm workers.

The aim of this would be to totally restrict the movement of poultry birds, people, vehicles and equipment, so that the virus could not be carried into other farms, in other states.

This is a sure sign the US is, quietly, taking very seriously the theories that it is the movement of people and vehicles between poultry farms that have helped to spread the virus across China, Russia, the EU and Indonesia, instead of the "on the wing" theory, where the virus spread via migratory birds.

Recent studies have shown migratory birds did not bring the virus to Africa, as predicted, and other regions of the world, including Australia.

Permits for people, vehicles and equipment to leave and enter poultry farms, and the state wide quarantine zones, would be restricted until intense cleaning and disinfection measures had been taken.

Go here for more on this

INDONESIA : THREE MORE SUSPECTED BIRD FLU VICTIMS DIE

MORE IN HOSPITAL FOR TREATMENT

From Xinhua : "Three suspected bird flu patients have died in Indonesia's North Sumatra province during the past week, all were the residents of a same village in Karo regency, a newspaper reported Thursday.

"The province's Bird Flu Prevention Team also announced three other suspected bird flu patients are currently being treated at Adam Malik Hospital in the provincial capital of Medan, said The Jakarta Post.

"The three dead victims reportedly had eaten chicken together, and several days later they experienced breathing problems and high fever.

"North Sumatra Health Office chief Fatni Sulani was quoted as saying the office was investigating the cases and had sent blood samples from the three to Jakarta for testing.

" The World Health Organization has confirmed 25 bird flu deaths in Indonesia. "

UN TO LAUNCH WORLD CRISIS CENTRE FOR BIRD FLU

From NoticiasInfo.com : "A UN crisis management center to coordinate international efforts against the spread of bird flu will be opened within a month, a top official with the US Agriculture Department said Monday,” reports The Associated Press.

The center at the Rome-base Food and Agriculture Organization will dispatch response teams to countries where bird flu is detected in animals and will channel aid, experts and equipment to areas where they are most needed, said Ron DeHaven, administrator of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

The department, together with the US.Agency for International Development, has allocated $4.2 million to help get the center going. The Americans were urging other countries to pitch in, DeHaven said after talks with UN officials and government representatives from around the globe.

“It will take eight months for the center to be fully operational, employing 40-50 people and with a projected 3-year budget of $28 million, DeHaven said. Creating the management center is a key step in combating bird flu in animals and is the best way to reduce the risk of the deadly H5N1 strain mutating into a form capable of causing a human flu pandemic, he said. …

“FAO's crisis center will keep a list of world experts on animal health, dispatching them to breakout areas to help local officials decide what measures to take, such as culling or vaccination of poultry. Financial aid for the fight against the virus is expected to come from the $1.9 billion pledged at a Beijing donors conference in January. …”

EGYPT HEALTH MINISTRY CLAIMS BIRD FLU LOCALISED TO POULTRY BREEDERS

From IRIN News : "CAIRO, 8 May 2006 - Human deaths caused by the potentially pathogenic avian virus H5N1 have resulted mostly from exposure to infected fowl kept domestically, according to a health ministry statement issued following a meeting of the Supreme National Committee to Combat Bird Flu.

"The statement read : 'There were 11 cases that resulted from domestic breeding. Only two cases have been the result of labour in poultry farms'."

"Avian flu was first reported among birds in mid-February, while the first human death occurred a month later. Out of 13 reported human cases, a total of five have died, the ministry statement noted.

"Most recently, a 27-year-old woman from Menoufiya province, 80 km north of Cairo, died on 4 May after receiving unsuccessful treatment at a Cairo hospital. According to the ministry, the woman, who was infected following close contact with diseased birds, reported her case to the authorities too late for treatment to be effective.

"'She did not undergo medical checks following exposure to infected birds until the disease had entered its late stages,' the health ministry statement read.

"At present, infections among poultry have been recorded in 20 of Egypt�s 26 governorates. When an infection is found, all poultry within a 1km radius is culled..."

BIRD FLU ON THE WING? NOT A CHANCE

CLAIM: THREAT OF VIRUS SPREADING THROUGH MIGRATING BIRDS IS FALSE

ATTENTION TURNS BACK TO BUSINESS PRACTICES OF POULTRY FARMS

From The New York Times : "ROME, May 10 — Defying the dire predictions of health officials, the flocks of migratory birds that flew south to Africa last fall, then back over Europe in recent weeks did not carry the deadly bird flu virus or spread it during their annual journey, scientists have concluded.

"International health officials had feared that the disease was likely to spread to Africa during the southward migration and return to Europe with a vengeance during the reverse migration this spring. That has not happened — a significant finding for Europe, because it is far easier to monitor a virus that exists domestically on farms but not in the wild.

"In thousands of samples collected in Africa this winter, the bird flu virus, A(H5N1), was not detected in a single wild bird, health officials and scientists said. In Europe, only a few cases have been detected in wild birds since April 1, at the height of the migration north.

"The number of cases in Europe has fallen off so steeply compared with February, when dozens of new cases were found daily, that specialists contend that the northward spring migration played no role.

"In response to the good news, agriculture officials in many European countries are lifting restrictions intended to protect valuable poultry from infected wild birds.

"...the lack of wild bird cases in Europe only underscores how little is understood about the virus. And scientists warn that it could return to Europe.

"While bird flu has become a huge problem in poultry on farms in a few African countries, including Egypt, Nigeria and Sudan, specialists increasingly suspect that it was introduced in those countries through imported infected poultry and poultry products....the strength of the virus among wild birds possibly weakened as the southward migration season progressed..."

FEARS US BIRD FLU PANDEMIC MOVIE MAY CAUSE PANIC, SPREAD MISINFORMATION

From Rueters : A film about a fictional bird flu pandemic that will air on (US) television on Tuesday has experts worried it will panic some people and convince others that legitimate warnings are mere hype.

But the same experts are taking advantage of publicity surrounding the made-for-television movie to stress what they see as the need for individuals, businesses and local officials to do what they can to prepare.

"Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America" features scenes with actors wearing spacesuit-like protective gear, a terrified populace and an ending scene in which most residents of an African village lie dead.

"I am not happy," said Mike Osterholm, a University of Minnesota public health expert who has been warning about and consulting on the threat of an influenza pandemic.

"I worry that this could very well be portrayed by many as ultimate example of sensationalism..."

From The Hollywood Reporter : This chilling made-for-TV pic that's designed to look and feel like a contemporary nightmare docudrama....delivers the goods with a wallop to the gut, taking some heavy-handed liberties in telling the to-date fictitious story of an avian flu pandemic but revealing a greater sense of authenticity than most reality shows.

The fact that "Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America" is so disturbingly timely adds to its impact... And while there is an inevitable overheated quality to much of the dialogue, its focus and tone are steeped more in sobering "what if?" than alarmist "we're doomed!" This isn't to say it isn't distinguished by some particularly graphic scenes of blood-seeping medical calamity.

Playing like a page-turning thriller, "Fatal Contact" opens with a depiction of Patient Zero in the depicted outbreak: an American businessman who flies to Hong Kong to meet with his Asian manufacturers and winds up falling violently ill.

It's traced to a new strain of avian flu virus discovered by the World Health Organization in a Hong Kong marketplace. More than a million birds suspected of infection are destroyed to eradicate the strain, to no avail. The virus leaps from its bird hosts and is suddenly communicable via human-to-human contact.

This is pretty much the ultimate health catastrophe, a virulent disease that's so contagious and spreads with frightening speed via microbes that take to permeating the atmosphere

US HANDS OUT $1 BILLION IN CONTRACTS FOR HOMEGROWN VACCINES

The day after the White House unveiled a new plan to deal with a pandemic flu outbreak in the US, five companies have been awarded more than $1 billion in contracts to develop new influenza vaccines.

From the Melbourne Age : "The companies will work to develop cell based-vaccines to fight seasonal influenza or a pandemic strain. The new vaccines will be grown in labs in batches of cells called cell cultures, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said.

"The new method aims to replace older, egg-based systems, which require steady supplies of carefully grown eggs and months of cultivation.

"Experts have been urging the United States for years to help companies modernise influenza vaccine production. The current, 40-year-old technology is unwieldy and unreliable, and it takes months to determine how many vaccines will be available in a given year.

"HHS also has worried that almost all flu vaccines are made outside the United States. If countries acted to keep vaccine supplies for their own citizens during a pandemic, vaccines might not be available for Americans."

BIRD FLU IN AMERICA

From WNBC.com : "A strain of bird flu not dangerous to people turned up at a live poultry market in South Jersey during routine testing last week and samples are undergoing further tests, the state Department of Agriculture said.

"Preliminary results from the National Veterinary Services laboratory showed the samples, taken from birds at a live poultry market in Camden County, did not have the N1 type of virus.

"'Anything that was sold, if it was properly cooked and handled, it would not be of any consequence to humans,' said Agriculture Department spokesman Jeff Beach.

"...the infected samples found last week are undergoing further testing at U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratories in Ames, Iowa, to confirm the strain of the virus."

157 birds at the market were culled after the virus was discovered.

NEW REPORT ON US PANDEMIC FLU PLANNING STRESSES TOTAL DISCLOSURE FROM GOVERNMENT, DISCUSSES MANDATORY QUARANTINES, BREAKDOWN OF US SOCIETY, DEPLOYMENT OF FEDERAL TROOPS

In the event of what the US government refers to as pandemic flu, a new report predicts a death toll of two million people, civil disorder, the breakdown of American society, massive disruptions to business, personal lives, critical infrastructure and food deliveries.

Pandemic Flu basically means avian influenza, or another strain of the flu virus that mutates to human-to-human transmission levels with a high lethality. The avian influenza virus, at present, has killed more than 55% of the people who have been, officially, infected, within ten days of the infection occurring. The current death toll stands at more than 160 people.

The report's plans to cope with a pandemic flu outbreak is aimed squarely at the lingering threat of a bird flu pandemic, but it was commissioned by the US government under the idea of establishing a nationwide plan that can be honed, modified but called into action the moment a particularly deadly flu virus goes pandemic.

The report estimates up to 40% of the nationwide work force being off the job at any one time during the length of a pandemic outbreak, either sick with the virus, caring for someone who is ill, staying away from public and work places due to fear of infection, or quarantined to their homes should entire neighbourhoods be 'locked off' from the outside world.

While travellers would be checked and quarantined, if necessary, there is no part of the plan that refers to a closing of US borders in an effort to halt further strains of the virus from entering the country, or from persons infected leaving. Nor does the plan recommend closing borders in an effort to prohibit a pandemic flu virus from entering the US, should an outbreak occur internationally, or in the rest of continental America.

International flights, in and out of the US, however, are expected to be limited. There are provisions in the plan to also limit the movement of Americans around the country.

The full report, to be released by the White House tomorrow, is expected to reiterate that the US is prepping for a death toll of some two million people, which the report cites as a worst case scenario.

The report is supposed to instigate a fast track approach to nationwide pandemic flu preparations, but the report will also acknowledges just how hard that is going to be, and mentions that such a plan could take years to get into place.

This is why the report pushes for immediate action to be taken, through all levels of the US government and the private sector. The main aim is to protect the "basic functioning of society" along with the economy and national security.

The failure of basic infrastructure across all levels of the government and US business and society is regarded as particularly problematic.

For example, 85% of food production, food transport, medicine production and financial services are run by private entities. In order to keep up such services, the private entities would need their staff to continue coming to work, or be able to work from home, during a pandemic flu outbreak.

The report points out that unlike other disasters that threaten mass deaths - earthquakes, hurricanes, floods - pandemic flu will not take down power lines or smash electricity stations, it won't destroy banking systems or the banks themselves, it won't trash malls and food outlets or wipe hospitals off the surface of the earth, nor will it directly disable computer networks, upon which the US is now almost completely reliant.

Yet, says the report, pandemic flu has "the potential ultimately to threaten all critical infrastructure by its impact on an organization's human resources by removing essential personnel from the workplace for weeks or months."

Some of the more interesting advice in the report for employers who decide to keep their business open during a pandemic flu outbreak : workers should keep at least three feet away from each other at all times, face to face contact should be limited, teleconferencing and working in absentia, down the phone lines, would be far preferable.

Breakdowns in public order, rioting, raiding food stores, over-running hospitals, trying to steal anti-virals, for example, would see state governors deploying National Guard troops to reign in the mayhem. Should it spread, or be uncontrollable at a state level, federal troops would be allowed to be called in.

Should then martial law be declared, in a state, or across the nation, federal troops would be allowed to shoot on sight in total quarantine zones. As in, if your neighbour is quarantined and 'locked-down' you would not be able to leave your house, without permission, for any reason.

For now, the US has stockpiled enough anti-virals to treat some 5 million infected persons, but Presiden Bush's plan is to have enough to treat 80 million. The report acknowledges that will take years to accomplish.

The report estimates that with open borders, pandemic flu would arrive in the US within two months of an outbreak overseas. Though an outbreak in Canada or Mexico, would obviously reach the US itself within weeks, or days, seeing as the virus' symptoms can take up to a week to fully manifest.

The reason why the US would not seal borders is a matter of impracticality. More than 1.1 million people enter and exit the US's 320 official ports of entry, and exit, every day.

The report says sealing borders would not stop pandemic flu reaching the US, only delay what is already deemed to be "the inevitable" by a few weeks.

Mandatory quarantine, where whole neighbourhoods, or cities, would be locked-down, is regarded in the report as the last resort, because such quarantines would be difficult to enforce and would restrict the delivery of food, medicines and other essentials, should there be enough truck drivers available, or willing, to make the deliveries in the first place.

But the report billboards one demand above all others : That the government tell its citizens what is going on, the truth, as soon as they confirm it.

To delay telling Americans that pandemic flu has arrived in the US, and that it is spreading, would do nothing to stop the virus reaching its maximum potential and would instead help its spread, thereby killing more Americans.

The longer the ultra-bad news is delayed by the US government, the worst the eventual outcome will be for all Americans.

Go here to read further coverage of the planning report