AUSTRALIA READIES TO ROLL OUT BIRD FLU VACCINE FOR THE YOUNG AND THE ELDERLY

SIX MONTH OLD INFANTS ARE BEING "RECRUITED"

How exactly does a six month year infant "volunteer" to take part in a vaccine test trial?

The key fact of this story is near the bottom. There are no guarantees. This vaccine has only proved effective against the strain of H5N1 from which it was developed. Whether or not the vaccine would prove effective against a mutant, more infectious form of the virus, is completely unknown.

Expect to see this vaccine rolled out across Australia and, once the virus has infected and killed a few Australians, this vaccine (or another) may well become mandatory for all Australian children.


From smh.com. au :

Scores of children and seniors will be immunised against deadly bird flu after an Australian-made test vaccine proved safe on adults.

Perth researchers have begun trialling a vaccine manufactured by serum and vaccine maker CSL on the two groups most vulnerable to a pandemic.

Similar trials are expected to start soon in Adelaide and Melbourne - involving 800 people in total.

CSL has said initial trials on 18- to 45-year olds, which began in the three cities last year, found the vaccine to be effective with few side-effects.

Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth is recruiting 100 children aged six months to eight years and the same number of people over 65.

Study volunteers will receive two doses of the vaccine three weeks apart, followed by blood tests over the following seven months to check their immunity levels.

The commonwealth-supported vaccine - the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere - was developed from a strain taken from a Vietnamese bird flu victim.

CSL said its product could be available in Australia within six weeks of a pandemic beginning.

However, it warned that because the vaccine was developed from one strain of the avian flu it may not provide immunity if the H5N1 virus mutated and became highly infectious between people.

CSL will present its research to the Therapeutic Goods Administration for approval as soon as trials are complete.

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US PANDEMIC BIRD FLU REVEALED : STAY HOME AND DIE QUIETLY

Wow. Not exactly the most heartening news for Americans about how their government is planning to cope with the "inevitable" bird flu pandemic.

Harsh, but ultimately realistic. To a point.

Home quarantine is likely to stop you catching pandemic bird flu from a stranger in the street, but is it really possible to lock yourself away from the world for the eight to twelve weeks each wave of pandemic bird flu is expected to be in circulation?

But then, if you catch bird flu during a pandemic, you are unlikely to find help at your local hospital.

If the pandemic hits and millions are infected, all the hospitals of the world are not going to cope. Not that you would want all the infected crowded together in hospitals anyway.

Isolation and quarantine were discovered to be about the best 'cure' there was for the 1918-1919 pandemic. It appears little has changed nearly 90 years later.

From Newsday.com :

Could you work from home for weeks at a time? How long could you hole up without needing to go to the grocery or drugstore? Would you be willing to wear a face mask and isolate yourself from others?

...the US government wraps up work on a plan to use primitive infection-control measures to deal with a killer flu outbreak until drugs and vaccine become available.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pitching the plan at medical meetings and aims to send it out for review by the end of the year.

State and local governments have asked for unusually detailed and specific advice on such matters as closing schools and canceling public events, one CDC official said.

This week, CDC awarded $5.2 million in grants related to the plan, including research on whether to recommend face masks to the public. CDC also asked the Institute of Medicine, a group of scientific advisers, to meet on these measures later this month.

"We can't afford to neglect some of the traditional approaches to contagion control because we very well may find ourselves in a situation where that's all we've got for a period of time," said CDC's quarantine chief, Dr. Marty Cetron.

As for hygiene tips like sneezing into your sleeve, "we have no data that that makes any difference" in controlling a pandemic...

...voluntary quarantine, voluntary isolation of infected people and hygiene measures like hand washing, "cough etiquette" and face masks might help (combat the spread of pandemic bird flu)

The CDC plan will list multiple scenarios for pandemics that range in severity or attack certain age groups like children or college students, and recommend corresponding control measures.

These will include voluntary isolation of sick people, voluntary quarantine for those exposed to the germ but are not ill, and protective sequestration to separate healthy people or communities from a source of infection.

Scientists know flu spreads through hand contact and big droplets when people cough or sneeze, but they don't know how far tiny particles remain in the air, or how important that is for spreading the germ.

In fact, experts know surprisingly little about what enables a flu germ to spread.

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MASSIVE AUSTRALIAN EXERCISE TO TEST COUNTRY'S PREPAREDNESS FOR PANDEMIC BIRD FLU OUTBREAK

From theage.com.au :

An "infected" person flying into Brisbane airport on Tuesday will trigger the mock outbreak.

Exercise Cumpston will last four days from Monday, cost $4.1 million and involve more than 1,000 officials and health workers, 55 international observers, and all states and territories, Health Minister Tony Abbott told parliament on Thursday.

Mr Abbott said the exercise would help test Australia's border controls, disease detection and surveillance, contact tracing, quarantine and treatment systems.

It would also test agencies' ability to make decisions and coordinate their response, which will include the establishment of fever clinics and distribution of anti-viral drugs.

The government has already spent more than $600 million preparing for an influenza epidemic, including building up one of the world's largest anti-viral stockpiles.

The government has stockpiled enough anti-virals Relenza and Tamiflu to cover about 20 per cent of Australia's population, and is waiting on orders that would take that figure to 44 per cent.

But it intends to hand out the medication only to sick people and those in direct contact with infected patients - not automatically to sufferers' next-of-kin and all health workers.

Exercise Cumpston is named after Dr John Cumpston, the health department's first director general and an epidemiologist responsible for showing quarantine measures could help limit the spread of the deadly Spanish flu pandemic in 1918-19.

UPDATES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

(click headlines to go to original story)


EGYPT REPORTS NEW CASE OF HUMAN BIRD FLU

Hanan Abul Magd, 39, from the northern delta province of Gharbiya was tested positive for bird flu after suffering from high fever and shortness of breath.

Her case brings to 15 the total number of human bird flu cases since the virus was first detected in February in Egypt. Six cases turned out to be fatal and eight people recovered after being treated with Tamiflu.

BIRD FLU FIGHT IN INDONESIA HAMPERED BY POVERTY, SUPERSTITION

"Why should we be afraid of bird flu?'' says the 39-year-old janitor...as he caresses a pigeon. "People die because it is God's will.''

Fatalism, geography and a lack of money are hindering Indonesia's battle against bird flu, as public health officials say the struggle to avert a global pandemic may hinge on the Southeast Asian nation. The world's fourth-most populous country will spend $54.4 million to fight the disease this year, a fifth of what is needed, the government says.

VIETNAM : NO NEW BIRD FLU OUTBREAKS IN TEN MONTHS

Vietnam's bid to prevent the reoccurrence of avian influenza has shown progress, as no new outbreaks of bird flu had been reported nationwide since the last December.

According to a report dated October 8 by the Veterinary Department to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), 40 out of 64 cities and provinces throughout the country had provided second vaccinations in 2006 to nearly 70 million poultry.

IS BIRD FLU ABOUT TO GO PANDEMIC IN INDONESIA?

In Makassar, six patients (children, aged from 1.5 to 11 years) have had to get medical treatment since Oct. 3 and should undergo lab tests.

Local health officials in Makassar want to conduct lab tests on those who live with the sick and their neighbors, but people locked their doors against health care workers there who wanted to take blood samples.

RUSSIA ANNOUNCES PRODUCTION OF BIRD FLU VACCINE FOR 2007

A human vaccine against the H5N1 bird flu virus could start to be produced in Russia in the spring of 2007, a research center chief said Wednesday.

...researchers have developed proper vaccine production techniques and, commercial production could be started promptly in the event of a pandemic.

When the vaccine is completed, the first batch could be produced in seven and eight weeks' time, and demand for the vaccine could be met in full in 45 days' time, the researcher said.

US CLAIMS ITS BIRD FLU PANDEMIC PREPARATIONS ARE CLOSE TO "STATE OF THE ART"

U.S. preparations against a possible outbreak of the deadly form of the H5N1 avian flu virus are solid, but other countries may not be as ready, a U.S. health safety official warned on Thursday.

"We're ... close to the state-of-the-art in the United States with preparations and strong biosecurity measures," said Ambassador John Lange, the State Department's special representative on avian and pandemic influenza.

But abroad, "it's a mixed bag," Lange said during a meeting of poultry industry leaders in Washington.

GET READY CANADA, THE PANDEMIC IS COMING - 1918 BIRD FLU VIRUS HUNTER WARNS OF INEVITABLE OUTBREAK

Everyone should start preparing for the next flu pandemic, building supplies of food, water and medication, the organizer of an expedition to unearth samples of the 1918 deadly Spanish flu warns.

University of Toronto scientist Kirsty Duncan led a scientific expedition during the 1990s to exhume the bodies of a group of Norwegian miners who died from the Spanish flu virus.

"We know a pandemic is coming. For the first time in history we have an opportunity to prepare," she said.

BIRD FLU IN AMERICA : VIRUS CONFIRMED IN MONTANA

A final round of tests on wild ducks in Montana confirmed the birds tested positive for the low-pathogenic H5 avian influenza virus, the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior said on Saturday.

Low-pathogenic H5N1 has been confirmed in the United States this year including in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

SINGAPORE REFINES ITS PLANS TO COMBAT BIRD FLU PANDEMIC

Should a pandemic hit Singapore, the Ministry of Health (MOH) says it will be able to vaccinate the entire population, 4-6 months after the new flu strain is confirmed.

Lim Kok Peng, Deputy Director for Contingency and Scenario Planning, MOH, on obtaining the vaccine, says “We are not first in line, but we are not last.”

According to the MOH, an outbreak of the bird flu will be more infectious than SARS with an incubation of seven days.

It is estimated that some 11,000 people in Singapore could be hospitalised during the first wave of the outbreak...

BIRD FLU MADNESS - WELL COOKED EGGS AND POULTRY STILL SAFE TO EAT

It cannot be emphasized too strongly that H5N1-infected poultry, their eggs, and other products are perfectly safe to eat, provided they are cooked properly.

Raw egg and uncooked foie gras are out, but for the gourmet, cooked foie gras has long been available. People who prefer their boiled egg with a runny yolk will have to make do with the 3-minute version, but this cannot seriously be considered a hardship, compared with unemployment in the egg trade

VIRUS SEEN MUTATING OUT OF REACH OF VACCINES

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu which has killed at least 148 people is showing signs of being able to mutate and develop resistance to the most effective anti-viral drugs and any possible vaccines yet to be produced, a WHO scientist said Thursday.

The H5N1 virus is splitting into genetically different groups, said Mike Perdue, a team leader with WHO's influenza program who took part in a two-day bird flu conference earlier this week sponsored by the U.N. health body.

CHOLESTOROL LOWERING DRUGS COULD BE 'READY-MADE' REPLACEMENT FOR BIRD FLU VACCINE

The other possibility, raised in a letter to The Times on Wednesday, is to use statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs. There is early evidence that these might fight the extreme immune reaction that often kills people who contract virulent flu. Statins are cheap, they have few side-effects and they are already made generically in vast quantities. If they work, they would be ideal.

BIRD FLU FOUND IN BALI PIGS

The H5N1 bird flu virus has infected pigs on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, a senior agriculture ministry official said on Monday.

Koran Tempo newspaper had reported on the weekend that a team from the veterinary faculty at Udayana University had discovered avian influenza infected two pigs in the regencies of Gianyar and Tabanan in Bali.

Pigs are a concern because they are susceptible to many of the viruses that infect humans. Swines can act as mixing vessels in which genetic material from avian flu viruses can mix with human influenza viruses, potentially producing new and deadly strains for which humans have no immunity.

1918 'SPANISH FLU' MADE HUMAN BODY KILL ITS OWN CELLS

American scientists believe that the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic was so deadly because it triggered a tremendous immune response in the human body which made it destroy its own cells. Spanish Flu was estimated to have killed over 50 million people - young adults were worst hit.

AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES PREPARING STUDENTS FOR BIRD FLU PANDEMIC "REALITIES"

But where could students go to? How many of their parents have a 30-day supply of food stored, as Governor Romney suggested families should put aside this year? How many have a three-month supply as some emergency workers are now being told to provide for themselves and their families?

How many know about frequent hand washing, social distancing, N-95 masks and other tricks to reduce the spread of the flu? (In a normal year, about 10 percent of people get the seasonal flu.) What would international students do if airline flights were cancelled? What would students whose parents live in major cities do if food supply shipments broke down?

CHINA ANNOUNCES SECOND BIRD FLU VIRUS OUTBREAK IN POULTRY IN A WEEK

China's second outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in poultry in a week has killed about 1,000 birds in the country's northwest, a news report said Thursday.

The latest outbreak occurred in a village near the city of Yinchuan in the Ningxia region, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Another 72,930 birds were destroyed in order to prevent the virus from spreading, the report said. It didn't say what kind of birds were involved.

A separate bird flu outbreak in the northern region of Inner Mongolia killed 985 chickens last week.

CAN ORDINARY FLU VACCINES KILL THE BIRD FLU VIRUS?

As millions of Americans prepare to line up for their annual flu shots, a leading expert on the feared strain of avian influenza told researchers in San Francisco that the ordinary vaccine might save lives if the bird disease ever starts spreading among humans.

Robert Webster of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis told delegates at a science conference that 50 percent of a small group of laboratory mice injected with a component of the annual flu vaccines survived exposure to a bird flu strain that ordinarily would have killed all of them.

"When the vaccine becomes available,'' said Webster, "if you are concerned about H5N1, take it.''

CHINA BRINGS BACK DAILY REPORTS OF BIRD FLU OUTBREAKS

China has reinstated daily reporting of the results of bird flu monitoring, state media said on Wednesday, after two outbreaks in the country's northwest earlier this month.

The daily reports, published on Xinhua news agency, were to prepare for the huge number of migratory birds expected to fly over the country in coming weeks.

China has already seen at least 21 human cases, including 14 deaths from the virus, and dozens of outbreaks in birds.