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.