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Draadje vogelgriep

1. [verwijderd] 9 januari 2006 09:22

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   Is niet nieuw, maar wel aktueel:
   
   Spray vaccine aimed directly at bird flu
   
   Associated Press
   Last Updated: Jan. 8, 2006
   
   Washington - In an isolation ward of a Baltimore hospital, up to 30 volunteers will participate in a bold experiment: A vaccine made with a live version of the most notorious bird flu will be sprayed into their noses.
   First, scientists are dripping that vaccine into the tiny nostrils of mice.
   It doesn't appear harmful - researchers have weakened and genetically altered the virus so no one should get sick or spread germs - and it protects animals enough to try in people.
   
   This is essentially FluMist for bird flu, and the hope is that, in the event of a flu pandemic, immunizing people through their noses could provide faster, more effective protection than the shots - made with a killed virus - the nation now is struggling to produce.
   And if it works, this new vaccine frontier may not just protect against the bird flu strain, called H5N1, considered today's top health threat.
   It offers the potential for rapid, off-the-shelf protection against whatever novel variation of the constantly evolving influenza virus shows up next - through a library of live-virus nasal sprays that the National Institutes of Health plans to freeze.
   "It's high-risk, high-reward" research, said Brian Murphy, who heads the NIH laboratory where Kanta Subbarao is brewing the nasal sprays.
   
   Hopkins researchers gave the first of Subbarao's vaccine candidates - the H9N2 spray - to 30 volunteers last summer. To be sure they couldn't spread the virus by coughing or sneezing, the volunteers underwent daily tests of their noses and throats.
   The vaccine appeared safe. Scientists now are analyzing whether it also spurred production of flu-fighting antibodies, a sign that people would be protected if they encountered the H9N2 strain. Subbarao expects results by February.
   In April, pending final Food and Drug Administration permission, Subbarao will put an H5N1 spray to a similar test.
   
   Here's the catch: Each flu strain has subtypes.
   
   An Indonesian version of H5N1, for example, was recently discovered that differs from a Vietnamese strain on which Subbarao's nasal spray - and the government's stockpiled shots - are based.
   If a novel flu strain begins spreading among people, how will Subbarao tell if her stored nasal vaccines are a good match to fight it?
   NIH also will store blood samples from the people who test those sprays.
   Say a new H9 strain sparks an outbreak. That virus will be tested against those blood samples, and NIH could predict within a day which spray candidates work.
   How quickly doses could be manufactured is a different issue. All influenza vaccines, shots or spray, are brewed in chicken eggs, a time-consuming process that other research is seeking to improve.
   
   "These are research projects," Murphy stresses - the nasal-spray concept could fail"
   
   Bovenstaand enkele alinea's, uitgebreider op: www.jsonline.com/alive/well/jan06/383...
   
   
2. [verwijderd] 9 januari 2006 09:32

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   21 people treated for suspected bird flu in Istanbul: report
   
   ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Twenty-one people in the Istanbul area are in hospital amid fears they have bird flu, newspapers said on Monday, raising concern the deadly disease has spread to Turkey's commercial hub of 12 million people.
   
   Health authorities expect to receive test results on the 21 people on Monday, the Milliyet daily said.
   
   Istanbul province deputy health director Mehmet Bakar said initial tests on two dead chickens in the Istanbul district of Kucukcekmece indicated they were infected by the bird flu virus, the reports said. A third test was being carried out to determine the definitive diagnosis.
   
   "21 people under suspicion (of having bird flu) have been kept in hospital under observation. Samples have been taken from these people and sent to the laboratory for examination," Bakar was quoted as saying in Star newspaper.
   
   today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.as...
   
   
3. [verwijderd] 9 januari 2006 10:07

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   Bird flu identified in 5 more people in Turkey
   
   Mon Jan 9, 2006 4:01 AM ET
   
   ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A Turkish health official said on Monday the deadly bird flu virus had been identified in five more people across Turkey, state-run Anatolian news agency reported.
   
   Health Ministry official Turan Buzgan told the agency laboratory test results showed there were new cases in the Black Sea provinces of Kastamonu, Corum and Samsun and the eastern province of Van.
   
   The first case of the virus jumping from birds to humans outside China and southeast Asia occurred last week in rural eastern Turkey, where three children from the same family died after contracting the H5N1 strain.
   
   today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.as...
   
   
4. [verwijderd] 9 januari 2006 10:33

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   in het Nederlands...zelfde bericht..ongeveer..
   
   ANP - 9 januari 2006 10:26 printversie
   
   Vijf nieuwe gevallen van vogelgriep in Turkije
   ISTANBUL/ANKARA (ANP) - Artsen in Turkije hebben bij nog eens vijf mensen vastgesteld dat ze besmet zijn met vogelgriep. Dat maakte een functionaris van het ministerie van Volksgezondheid maandag bekend. Of ze besmet zijn met de voor mensen potentieel dodelijk variant H5N1 is nog niet bekend.
   
   Vier van vijf patiënten komen uit de noordelijke provincies Samsun, Kastamonu en Corum. Het vijfde geval komt uit de provincie Van in het oosten van het land. In totaal is er tot nog toe bij veertien mensen in Turkije vastgesteld dat ze met een vogelgriepvirus zijn besmet. Bij negen van hen draait het zeker om het H5N1-virus.
   
   Dode kippen
   
   Eerder op de dag werd bekend dat in Istanbul 21 mensen in het ziekenhuis opgenomen die mogelijk besmet zijn met vogelgriep. Volgens de krant Milliyet van maandag komen de resultaten van tests in de loop van de dag beschikbaar.
   
   De plaatselijke gezondheidsautoriteiten hebben verklaard dat twee dode kippen in Istanbul inderdaad waren besmet met vogelgriep. Het is niet duidelijk om welke virusvariant het zou gaan.
   
   Offerfeest
   
   In het oosten van Turkije overleden onlangs drie kinderen uit een gezin na besmetting met het in potentie dodelijke H5N1 via zieke kippen. Het zijn de eerste vogelgriepdoden buiten China en Zuidoost-Azië, waar sinds 2003 zeker zeventig mensen bezweken aan vogelgriep.
   
   Het virus zou zich nog verder kunnen verspreiden door het offerfeest dinsdag. Dit islamitisch feest gaat gepaard met veel gereis van mensen naar hun families op het platteland. Bovendien worden dieren zoals schapen, geiten maar ook pluimvee geslacht en delen de gelovigen het vlees met elkaar.
   
   Indonesië
   
   Vandaag werd ook bekend dat een 39-jarige man die eerder deze maand in Indonesië is overleden, leed aan vogelgriep. Dat blijkt uit medische tests, aldus het ministerie van Volksgezondheid in Jakarta maandag.
   
   Het gaat om het twaalfde dodelijke geval van infectie met het H5N1-virus in het Aziatische land. De man had contact gehad met dode kippen.
   
   
5. [verwijderd] 9 januari 2006 10:55

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   wanneer is crucell zover ik woon in turkije nauw
6. [verwijderd] 9 januari 2006 13:01

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   Turkey confirms 14 bird flu cases
   
   Mon Jan 9, 2006 6:50 AM ET
   
   DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkey's Health Minister Recep Akdag said on Monday a total of 14 people across the country have tested positive for bird flu, including three children already dead.
   
   The World Health Organization (WHO) has so far confirmed four cases in Turkey, including two of the deaths. The WHO said other cases had not so far been verified by laboratory tests.
   
   today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.as...
   
   EU bans feather imports from six states near Turkey
   
   today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.as...
   
   
7. [verwijderd] 9 januari 2006 19:02

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   Kerstboom al weggegooid?
   
   Yuletide trees may help fight bird flu
   
   ST. CATHARINES, Ontario, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- A Canadian drug maker has found a new use for discarded Christmas trees -- fighting bird flu in humans.
   
   Biolyse Pharma Corp., in St. Catharines, Ontario, extracts shikimic acid from the pine, spruce and fir needles. The chemical is a main ingredient in the production of the flu drug oseltamivir, or Tamiflu, the Buffalo (N.Y.) News reported Sunday.
   
   Tamiflu is being stockpiled by many countries in the event the bird flu mutates and can be transmitted from human to human.
   
   The chemical is extracted mostly from the star anise tree in China, but the supply is limited -- and the price has risen from $45 a kilogram to $600 over the past year, said John Fulton, a vice president with Biolyse.
   
   "What makes (Biolyse's) process more viable is the fact that the particular species of pine and spruce and fir that we are working with are far more abundant than the seedlings of star anise," Fulton said.
   
   www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?fe...
   
8. [verwijderd] 9 januari 2006 19:06

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   quote:

   Gert50 schreef:

   Kerstboom al weggegooid?
   
   Yuletide trees may help fight bird flu
   
   ST. CATHARINES, Ontario, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- A Canadian drug maker has found a new use for discarded Christmas trees -- fighting bird flu in humans.
   
   Biolyse Pharma Corp., in St. Catharines, Ontario, extracts shikimic acid from the pine, spruce and fir needles. The chemical is a main ingredient in the production of the flu drug oseltamivir, or Tamiflu, the Buffalo (N.Y.) News reported Sunday.
   
   Tamiflu is being stockpiled by many countries in the event the bird flu mutates and can be transmitted from human to human.
   
   The chemical is extracted mostly from the star anise tree in China, but the supply is limited -- and the price has risen from $45 a kilogram to $600 over the past year, said John Fulton, a vice president with Biolyse.
   
   "What makes (Biolyse's) process more viable is the fact that the particular species of pine and spruce and fir that we are working with are far more abundant than the seedlings of star anise," Fulton said.
   
   www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?fe...
   
   

   hé , de kerstboom staat zomaar te renderen in de tuin? Hoe cash je zo'n boom eigenlijk, op de STOKmarkt?
   
   mvg ivet ;-)
9. [verwijderd] 9 januari 2006 19:11

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   Star role for bacteria in controlling flu pandemic?
   from Nature Reviews Drug Discovery
   
   David Bradley
   
   Engineering microbes could be our best hope for creating enough antiviral drugs.
   
   As fears spread about a potential flu pandemic, Roche's antiviral drug Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate) has found itself thrust under the spotlight. With the current supply thought to cover just 2% of the world population, health officials and researchers are asking how Roche can create enough supplies to be stockpiled and help control an outbreak until a vaccine can be made. Of all the proposals suggested, it is ironic that the best solution to controlling a flu pandemic with an antiviral drug could lie within bacteria.
   
   To make Tamiflu, you start with shikimic acid, which is naturally abundant in the oriental spice Illicium anisatum, or star anise. A complex multi-step chemical synthesis procedure then converts shikimic acid into the drug. Producing large amounts of Tamiflu not only takes months to complete, but is also hazardous. Some of the steps in the synthesis require careful handling and relatively mild reaction conditions, as they involve the use of potentially explosive azide chemistry.
   
   The problem doesn't seem to be replicating this demanding synthetic process. For instance, Cipla, the Indian generics company, says it could produce a version of Tamiflu within months (authorized or unauthorized), despite Roche's claims that it would take a newcomer 2–3 years to start from scratch and produce the drug.
   
   Cipla says it could create generic Tamiflu as it has experience of making the HIV drug AZT, which relies on similar chemistry. John Frost, a bioorganic chemist at Michigan State University, says any competent organic chemist can follow the literature and make Tamiflu in gram quantities. “But making a ton of drug and manipulating tons of azide [intermediate] is quite a different matter,” says Frost.
   
   Making large-scale quantities of the drug, of course, relies on having enough starting material. But star anise is harvested only from March to May, and there aren't enough supplies to produce the number of doses needed worldwide. With no other agricultural sources, other than perhaps the leaves of the gingko biloba tree, the pharmaceutical industry needs to find an alternative sustainable supply.
   
   Shikimic acid, however, is also a natural intermediate in the formation of microbial amino acids. Researchers could boost production of shikimic acid in strains of the bacterium Escherichia coli by ramping up enzyme activity and feeding the microbe a diet of carbohydrates.
   
   
   Roche already uses engineered bacteria to boost shikimic acid production. “Today, around two thirds of the shikimic acid used for Tamiflu is gained from star anise and Roche also has access to the remaining shikimic acid through fermentation,” says company spokesperson Martina Rupp, “This gives us more flexibility, and in particular allows us to become more independent from events such as bad harvests.” Roche hopes to scale up its fermentation capacities over the next few years, but there is no firm timeline as to when this will happen.
   
   In theory, there is no limitation on how much shikimic acid can be produced by fermentation. The bioproducts industry currently produces 750,000 tons of lysine from glucose by microbial fermentation for use in products such as animal feed. If needed, the same tanks could be used to produce shikimic acid from glucose. “Globally, there is ample fermentor-tank capacity that can be re-deployed to make shikimic acid,” says Frost, whose lab has developed an E. coli strain that produces shikimic acid.
   
   There's another advantage to using fermentation. Microbes could be engineered to make variations on the Tamiflu starting material and so allow production of Tamiflu analogues with slightly different pharmacological properties that could potentially target emerging strains other than H5N1. Should a pandemic hit, it might be valuable to focus on accelerating such analogues through testing procedures to cope.
   
   Frost, who consulted with Roche on how to grow his E. coli strain and purify the shikimic acid on a commercial scale, has started up a company called Draths Industries to help boost supplies of shikimic acid. Draths already has an agreement with one bioproducts firm to contract-manufacture 200 tons of shikimic acid by fermentation, but it could produce more, according to Frost.
   
   “Draths Industries feels that there is enough capacity to access 1,000 tons of shikimic acid in 14 months,” says Frost. Roche is on record as claiming 0.13 grams of shikimic acid is needed per Tamiflu capsule. So, 1,000 tons should provide enough feedstock for more than 20 million capsules a month, or enough doses for 2 million people. This would fulfill Roche's current annual production but would be inadequate for its planned production of 300 million courses of Tamiflu in 2007.
   
   Bradford Frank, of the University of Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, is not confident that we could cope with a pandemic, even with microbial assistance. He suggests that the infection rate could be as high as 50% of the global population — 3.2 billion people. Half of those people would have inapparent or asymptomatic infections — as is often the case with viral diseases — but the other 1.6 billion people could become seriously ill. Jeff Levi at the Trust for America's Health adds, “It is correct that many are now saying that a severe pandemic, along the lines of 1918, would result in a 2% fatality rate among those who become ill.” Frank explains that even if only half of those needed treatment with Tamiflu, this would still require around 30 billion capsules.
   
   Tamiflu, however, can be synthesized from other products in a microbial fermentation tank. Quinic acid, found in cinchona bark, is also in limited supply, but Frost and his team have already engineered a microbe to make quinic acid under fermentor-controlled conditions. Another starting material that is ripe for conversion into Tamiflu is aminoshikimic acid, says Frost. This starting material is easier to isolate from fermentor broth compared with shikimic acid, which could allow Tamiflu to be made in higher yield, he says. “Introducing a nitrogen atom into the starting material would eliminate the need to deal with azide and organoazide intermediates,” Frost adds.
   
   The sad truth is that all of these efforts will prove to be academic if a pandemic strikes within months. Even if we wait a year before a breakout of the virus, which should give manufacturers enough time to make reasonable supplies of Tamiflu, our ability to cope with a putative bird flu pandemic shouldn't hinge on small molecules, says Frank. “Within the next few years, no matter what is done, there won't be enough Tamiflu to use as we like for everyone who needs it,” says Frank.
   
   
   Frank suggests that the inhaled drug Relenza (zanamivir; GlaxoSmithKline), which is manufactured from a readily available starting material, N-acetyl-neuraminic-acid, should be included in pandemic contingency plans. It is, he says, “just as good as Tamiflu, but not too many people even have this on their radar screen.”
   
   www.nature.com/drugdisc/news/articles...
10. [verwijderd] 9 januari 2006 19:36

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    Flosz: de kampioen info en links opzoeken!
11. [verwijderd] 9 januari 2006 19:38

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    WHO bevestigt aantal slachtoffers:
    
    Number of victims jumps in Turkish bird flu outbreak
    
    Mon Jan 9, 2006 1:30 PM ET
    
    DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkey said on Monday its bird flu outbreak had now infected 14 people, while dozens more sought hospital tests for the deadly disease which is spreading westward toward mainland Europe.
    
    The World Health Organization (WHO) said the victims appear to have contracted the virus directly from infected birds, allaying fears it was now passing dangerously from person to person.
    
    The Turkish authorities said the 14 victims included three children from the same family in an impoverished region of eastern Turkey who died last week. The WHO said it was now treating the cases announced by the Turks as confirmed.
    
    today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.as...
    
12. [verwijderd] 10 januari 2006 07:30

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    Fighting Fake Flu Pills
    
    By AMANDA BOWER
    
    Posted Sunday, Jan. 08, 2006
    Avian flu claimed more lives last week. In eastern Turkey, initial tests showed at least two of the three deceased siblings from the Kocyigit family had succumbed to the virus' dreaded H5N1 strain, becoming its first human victims outside East Asia. As fears of a pandemic continue to grow, customs and health official's are struggling to halt a burgeoning trade in counterfeit forms of Tamiflu, the only drug approved to treat the disease. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials tell TIME that last week their officers seized 250 separate parcels of suspect Tamiflu at the airmail facility in New York City -- the biggest interception to date -- and one package in Chicago. The New York shipments came from the island of Mauritius and were probably destined for American consumers wanting to stock up in case of a pandemic.
    
    Officials expect more—and bigger—seizures of fake Tamiflu. "We believe they will continue to go up dramatically," says CBP's William Heffelfinger. If past experience is any guide, the pills will contain no more than trace elements of Tamiflu's active ingredient. Less than a month ago, authorities in San Francisco announced the confiscation of 51 packages of phony Tamiflu ordered through the Internet and shipped from Asia. Tests on those pills found only harmless ingredients, but experts worry that in an outbreak, people might take such pills and consider themselves protected.
    
    The World Health Organization, which has recorded 76 human deaths from H5N1 since 2003, discourages individuals from hoarding Tamiflu since there is a global shortage and those who can afford it are unlikely to be most vulnerable. Tamiflu's manufacturer, Roche, has promised to increase production tenfold from its 2004 level, to 300 million 10-pill courses by the end of 2007. A rush order of 100,000 courses was sent last week to Turkey, where 20 people with symptoms of bird flu remained hospitalized, including the last surviving sibling in the Kocyigit family.
    
    From the Jan. 16, 2006 issue of TIME magazine
    www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1147146,00.html
13. [verwijderd] 10 januari 2006 10:11

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    volgens Senator Frist gisteren kan een avian influenza pandemie de VS economie 675 miljard dollar kosten
    
    www.newstarget.com/016567.html
14. [verwijderd] 10 januari 2006 13:10

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    Turkey battles to contain bird flu outbreak
    
    Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:08 AM ET
    
    ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey reported another case of bird flu in a patient in the center of the country on Tuesday as the authorities sealed off parts of the outskirts of major cities Ankara and Istanbul while they culled poultry.
    
    Three children have already died in eastern Turkey -- the first reported deaths from the bird virus flu outside China and Southeast Asia. Dozens of worried Turks have rushed to hospitals for tests for the virus across the country of 72 million.
    
    Four people were taken to hospital with suspected bird flu in the town of Aydin near the Aegean coast -- one of Turkey's most important tourism centres -- fuelling fears the outbreak will harm country's important tourist trade.
    
    The government, criticised for a slow response to bird flu which first appeared in birds in October last year, has called for calm and urged people to stay away from poultry.
    
    The World Health Organization (WHO) says there is no evidence so far of human-to-human transmission of the virus, but experts fear the H5N1 strain could mutate enough to allow it to pass easily from person to person and spark a pandemic.
    
    Turkey has now confirmed 15 people with bird flu infections since last week, most in eastern, central and northern parts of the country. More than 70 people are suspected of having the bird flu virus and are undergoing tests.
    
    today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.as...
    
    
15. [verwijderd] 10 januari 2006 13:11

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    China says bird flu outlook 'not optimistic'
    
    Tue Jan 10, 2006 5:22 AM ET
    
    BEIJING (Reuters) - China's bird flu outlook is "not optimistic" and human cases may increase if there are more poultry outbreaks, Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday, the day after the country's eighth human case was announced.
    
    China reported more than 30 outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus in birds last year, and three people are confirmed to have died of it in the last three months.
    
    In the latest human case, a 6-year-old boy from the central province of Hunan was taken sick in December and is now in hospital.
    
    "Measures to prevent and control the epidemic must be strengthened as the danger of bird flu not only exists in China but also threatens other countries," Xinhua said, citing health department spokesman Mao Qun'an.
    
    today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.as...
    
    
16. [verwijderd] 10 januari 2006 13:12

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    quote:

    joie1 schreef:

    volgens Senator Frist gisteren kan een avian influenza pandemie de VS economie 675 miljard dollar kosten
    
    www.newstarget.com/016567.html
    

    Ach, de oorlog in Irak kost al 2 Biljoen, dus waar maken ze zich druk om.
    
    :-))
    
    Dirk
17. [verwijderd] 11 januari 2006 11:26

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    Bird flu virus could become endemic in Turkey-FAO
    
    Wed Jan 11, 2006 5:00 AM ET
    
    ROME (Reuters) - The bird flu virus could become endemic in Turkey and poses a serious risk to neighbouring countries, the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Wednesday.
    "The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 could become endemic in Turkey," FAO said in a statement.
    Juan Lubroth, senior FAO animal health officer, said the virus may be spreading despite the control measures already taken. "Far more human and animal exposure to the virus will occur if strict containment does not isolate all known and unknown locations where the bird flu virus is currently present," Lubroth said.
    
    today.reuters.com/News/NewsArticle.as...
    
    The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it was not clear why so many people had been infected in Turkey so quickly.
    
    "It is an open question if we are seeing a more efficient transmission from animals to humans," said Guenael Rodier, heading the WHO's mission to Turkey.
    
    There was also no answer yet to why the fatality rate was relatively low -- just two confirmed deaths so far -- against a rate in east Asia of roughly one death in every second case.
    
    Snow and freezing temperatures in the east of Turkey are also hampering efforts to tackle the virus and may be allowing it to survive for longer.
    Authorities in neighbouring countries sprayed cars crossing from Turkey with disinfectant and checked luggage as they tried to stem the spread of bird flu.
    
    today.reuters.com/News/NewsArticle.as...
    
    
18. [verwijderd] 11 januari 2006 13:28

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    New test could monitor bird flu virus mutations
    11 Jan 2006 03:26:00 GMT
    
    Source: Reuters
    
    By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
    
    WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (Reuters) - A new test may help provide a kind of early warning system for new and dangerous mutations in the avian flu virus, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
    
    The test could alert scientists to when the virus starts to change into a form that easily infects people, the researchers report in the Journal of Molecular Biology.
    
    The test, called a glycan array, shows it would take very little change for the H5N1 avian influenza virus to cause a human pandemic, said Ian Wilson of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.
    
    "It would appear that two mutations could change the specificity dramatically going from avian to human," Wilson said in a statement.
    
    The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed more than 70 people since late 2003 and is spreading from Asia into Europe. It is endemic in birds in many countries and has started affecting people in a sixth country, Turkey, where it has killed at least two people.
    
    But the H5N1 virus still primarily infects birds and only rarely passes into people. Experts fear this could change, and that a form easily transmitted from person to person could cause a pandemic, a global epidemic, that would kill millions.
    
    Wilson's team says the new test can spot this happening.
    
    They used their glycan array to survey samples of the proteins that make up the coats of strains of human and avian viruses, including from the 1918 influenza pandemic.
    
    The key protein is called hemagglutinin -- the "H" in a flu virus designation. How deadly an individual influenza infection is depends on how well a person's immune system recognizes the hemagglutinin.
    
    The virus uses hemagglutinin to attach to lung cells. It uses a lung cell receptor, a molecular doorway, called sialic acid.
    
    The Scripps Institute test can tell the difference between a bird virus that prefers bird sialic acids and a virus that prefers the human version, the researchers said.
    
    "This opens the door to the possibility of using the glycan array as a surveillance tool for monitoring individual strains of influenza in birds and humans," said James Paulson, who worked on the study.
    
    The researchers, funded in part by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, studied samples of virus taken from victims of the 1918 flu and helped to discover that that virus had apparently jumped directly from birds into people.
    
    That could help explain why it was so deadly, killing tens of millions of people in the space of 18 months.
    
    The H5N1 virus has about a 50 percent mortality rate in known cases although experts believe that whatever mutations may allow it to become a more human virus would also make it somewhat less deadly.
    www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N10...
19. [verwijderd] 11 januari 2006 14:24

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    Infected Turk boys may provide bird flu lesson-WHO
    
    11 Jan 2006 13:14:12 GMT
    
    ANKARA, Jan 11 (Reuters) - A U.N. health expert said on Wednesday the case of two Turkish boys who tested positive for bird flu without developing symptoms provided a chance to learn more about the virus which has killed 78 people worldwide.
    
    The two children contracted the virus after playing with two dead birds they found near their home in the central Turkish town of Beypazari, west of the capital Ankara.
    
    "This is a very interesting case. They have still shown no symptoms of the virus and yet have tested positive," said Dr Guenael Rodier, head of a World Health Organisation (WHO) team visiting Turkey.
    
    "The normal flu virus is always at its most virulent at the start of the process, but you don't necessarily exhibit the symptoms at that stage," he said, suggesting a possible similarity between avian influenza and the normal flu virus.
    
    "If so, we have diagnosed the H5N1 virus at the very early stages (in the boys). We hope to study this case carefully. This is an opportunity to learn about the disease."
    
    www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L11...
    
20. [verwijderd] 12 januari 2006 09:39

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    Update:
    
    UN says flu pandemic threat grows, Turkey fights on
    
    Thu Jan 12, 2006 2:11 AM ET
    
    ANKARA (Reuters) - The threat of a bird flu pandemic is growing daily, a top World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Thursday, as Turkish officials stepped up efforts to halt outbreaks in people and poultry.
    Shigeru Omi, the WHO's regional director for the Western Pacific, said Asia was still the epicenter of the threat to global health but that a pandemic was not inevitable if countries and health bodies responded quickly.
    "As the new cases of human infection with the H5N1 virus in Turkey show, the situation is worsening with each passing month and the threat of an influenza pandemic is continuing to grow every day," he told a two-day meeting of Asian countries and international organizations on bird flu in Tokyo.
    
    today.reuters.com/News/NewsArticle.as...
    
    Global bird flu campaign needs $1.5 billion: UN
    
    Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:13 PM ET
    
    UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - International donors will need to contribute about $1.4 billion to finance the next phase of the global campaign against bird flu at a conference next week in Beijing, a top U.N. official said on Wednesday.
    Dr. David Nabarro, senior coordinator for avian influenza at the United Nations, said he was optimistic delegates to the January 17-18 meeting in China would pledge the full amount.
    But this was just "the beginning," he said, stressing that future phases of the campaign would be far more costly.
    The money would help national governments and international organizations put measures in place to try to stem the spread of the disease in birds and prevent cases in humans, he said.
    
    today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.as...
    
    Asia meets to discuss possible bird flu pandemic
    
    11 Jan 2006 23:52:54 GMT
    
    TOKYO, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Asian countries and international organisations begin two days of talks in Tokyo on Thursday on how to contain a bird flu pandemic should the virus mutate into a form that can pass easily between people.
    The talks come at a time of growing fears about the H5N1 avian flu virus spreading to more countries after a spate of infections in Turkey, the first cases in humans outside East Asia.
    
    www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/T49...