WHO: "H5N1 Bird Flu is Back" …and Infects Fish Too

Japan's done several rounds of culling and it's popped up there again.

...The danger now is that H5N1 will be used as yet another excuse to raise food prices.

FYI - Low-path H5N1 has been in North America for at least a decade. Also fyi - if a virus only kills 2 out of 8 chickens infected, it's considered low path; if it kills 6 out of 8, it's high path.

"Developed" nations who practice agri-industry solve the problem of constant infections by pumping the chickens full of anti-virals and antibiotics, and with sprayed vaccines. ...The birds then shed mutated virus in their excretions, which goes into the ground water and then waterways and lakes - and infects wild birds (and fish) who carry it around the world, where it mutates again and again and...

NOTE: The food supply is not in any more danger than it has been for the past few decades. Admittedly, that's not saying much. ...But the answer is NOT higher prices, vaccines or GE and GM chickens or beef or other crops. The answer is to de-industrialize our food production.

H5N1 cases reported in Indonesia, Bangladesh
CIDRAP
Mar 14, 2011 (CIDRAP News) – Two people died of H5N1 avian influenza in Indonesia in the past few weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today, while news reports from Bangladesh cited that country's first human H5N1 case this year. ...
With the two latest cases, Indonesia's H5N1 case count rose to 174, including 144 fatal cases, the WHO said. …(83% fatality rate)
The WHO's global count of H5N1 cases, which does not yet include the Bangladesh case, stands at 532, including 315 deaths. …(60% fatality rate)

India: Girl detected with bird flu virus
The Daily Star
This is the second case of human infection of bird flu, also known as avian influenza (H5N1), in the country. The girl, however, is not having any serious breathing problem, which is normally the case. The symptom is so mild that it has been detected ...

H5N1 virus detected on major poultry farm in India
Vetsweb (press release)
On a major breeding farm in Ghandigam, India, the bird flu virus H5N1 has been detected. All the animals on the farm in addition to all the birds in a radius of 6 miles have been culled. The farm has a capacity of 4000 layer birds. ...

H5N1 continues to spread and do its thing, and industry deniers are still trying to blame wild birds for creating the situation - when the fault lies with industrial agricultural practices. But they want to control the big wild world - and let industrial agriculture run free. lol. Not.

Bangladesh reports another H5N1 infection
CIDRAP
Mar 16, 2011 (CIDRAP News) – Health officials in Bangladesh have confirmed another H5N1 avian influenza infection, the second one in a week, bdnews24.com, a news service based in Dhaka, reported today. The new case is in a 2-year-old boy who appeared ...

Cattle egrets may spread bird flu
AsiaOne
The lifestyle of cattle egrets make them ready made to spread H5N1 bird flu viruses that can also infect human beings. There are two major categories of cattle egrets in Taiwan during winter season. The researchers, from the National Science Council, ...

Indonesia reports human deaths from Avian influenza
WorldPoultry.net
The Ministry of Health of Indonesia has announced two new but unrelated confirmed cases of human infection with avian influenza A (H5N1) virus. The first case is a 2 year old male from Depok City, West Java Province. He developed symptoms on 3 February ...

Just really like the protective measures outlined here:

Stay cautioned as bird flu makes alarming comeback

1. Avoid contact with birds and bird-related material in areas where bird flu is occurring.

2. Wash your hands frequently with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand sanitiser to help prevent the spread of infection.

3. Use proper respiratory hygiene by covering your mouth and nose with tissue when you cough or sneeze; discard used tissues immediately.

4. Wear latex gloves when caring for someone with flu.

5. Consider wearing a respiratory mask.

6. Be careful about the food you eat — if they contain undercooked poultry or raw eggs.

...'Kay.

H5N1 Bird Flu is just one of many dangerous diseases poised to go pandemic. Other untreatable serious diseases already have gone global. For example, Drug-resistant TB could infect 2 million by 2015.

Of course, medicos and activists have been ranting about drug-resistant TB for some time now, and authorities have been considering all kinds of "solutions" - like this one, put on the table in 2007: Quarantine Until Death: The Pandemic Policy Now on Trial in the Court of Public Opinion.

Like Bird Flu, TB is a zoonosis - a disease that jumps back and forth between animals an people. Zoonoses are the greatest disease threat we face globally - and new zoonoses seem to appear every other week.

Sadly, our system forces specialties to compete with one another - doctors and researchers have to "pick" a disease to focus on - and few have the resources to look at the big global picture. So the focus is on "treatments" and "cures" - NOT prevention.

Big Pharma, vaccines and magic pills aside, our best defence is the same as it always has been - hygiene. Clean water and air, uncontaminated food, good nutrition - hand washing - and personal responsibility:

Don't go to work sick - especially if you handle food!

Unfortunately, the only low-level employees who can afford to miss work when they're sick have union contracts. Your friendly servers and the cooks who prepare your food aren't covered. Many have children, mortgage payments, car payments and lots of other bills. So they go to work sick - because they have to.

It doesn't look like that essential bit of prevention is about to happen:

Union-Busting: Six Fired After Demanding Sick Days for Fast-Food Workers

Get ready. There are NO magic pills, and prevention is not covered.




And oh yeah.


Study profiles human H5N1 burden in Egypt

Mar 22, 2011 (CIDRAP News) – A study of human H5N1 influenza cases in Egypt, including a genetic analysis of some of the isolates, shows that most cases have occurred in children and females but does not explain why the fatality rate there is significantly lower than in other countries.

Writing in PLoS One, a team of US and Egyptian scientists says Egypt became the epicenter of human H5N1 cases in 2009 and 2010, with 68 of the 121 cases reported worldwide. But the country's H5N1 case-fatality rate (CFR) is 34%, versus 60% for other countries with human cases.

Because the H5N1 viruses in Egypt seem to be less virulent than those elsewhere, there is concern that they are becoming more adapted to humans…..

From the post above:

Because the H5N1 viruses in Egypt seem to be less virulent than those elsewhere, there is concern that they are becoming more adapted to humans…..

So H5N1 Bird Flu is adapting to humans in Egypt, and H1N1 Swine Flu is epidemic again in Mexico and Venezuela. ...How long before the two strains meet?

Authorities in Mexico's Chihuahua state along the US border announced preventive health measures Sunday to stanch a return of an H1N1 epidemic after four people recently died of the virus.

...An H1N1 outbreak has also been detected in Venezuela, where health authorities last week said 85 people had recently contracted the virus, and three people with H1N1 have died this year.

Flu season should be almost over in the Northern Hemisphere, but Indonesia/Sumatra is taking another beating.

Sumatra On Alert As Bird Flu Comes Back
Bernama
Local health authorities have confirmed that most of the chickens had died of bird flu or avian influenza (H5N1). The poultry deaths due to bird flu have occurred among other things in the Sumatran provinces of West Sumatra, Bengkulu, Jambi and Bangka ...

Out Break of Avian Influenza in Indonesia
TopNews New Zealand
The Local Health authorities have confirmed that most of the chickens had died of bird flu or avian influenza (H5N1). Avian influenza (AI), commonly called bird flu, is an infectious viral disease of birds. Outbreaks of AI in poultry may raise global ...

it seems that WHO is on top of this www.cidrap.umn.edu... from the link

WHO details virus-related patents in pandemic preparedness report
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Apr 1 released a report compiled by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), another United Nations agency, on flu pandemic preparedness patents and patent applications. The report's purpose is to assist the WHO's virus-sharing working group, which over the past several years has been grappling with how to assure that developing countries that share influenza viruses with the international research community and pharmaceutical industry benefit from the resulting vaccines, medications, and diagnostic tests. The WIPO report covers patents related to the H5N1 avian influenza virus and the 2009 H1N1 virus. The group identified 27 "patent families" clearly relevant to H5N1 and four patent families relevant to H1N1, all of them involving viral components or derivatives thereof. The authors found 35 more H5N1 and eight more H1N1 patent families that may be relevant. Of the patents that were relevant, 73% were vaccines, 24% were diagnostics, and 3% were therapeutics. None of the patents consisted of a sole element, such as a native virus. They also identified some patents that included known viral sequences. They found a number of patents from developed-world companies that are now co-owned by companies in developing countries, which they said could be an emerging model for ensuring broader access to new technology. The WHO's virus-sharing working group is slated to report on its latest developments at the World Health Assembly, scheduled for May 16 to 24 in Geneva.
Apr 1 WHO/WIPO pandemic influenza patent report

note the date Apr1, even they have a day of jokes and then this blast from the past the article was written back in 2009 on a theory first brought up in 2004 preventdisease.com... from the link

WHO First Suggested Reassortment
of H1N1 and H5N1 Bird Flu In 2004

so where are we today.
and just when you think they could not get any more insane blogs.wsj.com... from the link

More Deadly Swine Flu? CDC Mixes H1N1, H5N1 Viruses in Tests

yes they did it now is it loose?
and then in the country of down under www.adelaidenow.com.au... from the link

Four times as many flu cases than last year

Health Reporter Jordanna Schriever
From: The Advertiser
April 06, 2011 12:00AM

and how many of them fly? to the USA HK UK Canada, just a matter of time. i wonder could the fall out from the Japan reactors do any mutating? like say a mutated one that is a super super strain?

reply to post by bekod


Thanks bekod.

Was looking for some old info to share - realized I've written a LOT of bird flu articles full of amazing info. Here's one that might interest you from 2005: Bird Flu and Beyond: Assisted Suicide Instead of Prevention.

Also note: Mexico and Venezuela are reporting H1N1 swine flu outbreaks, according to Global Incidents.

Egypt and Cambodia report 5 H5N1 cases, 1 fatal
CIDRAP
Apr 6, 2011 (CIDRAP News) – Two countries reported five new H5N1 avian influenza infections today, four of them in Egypt and one in Cambodia, including an 11-year-old girl who died from her illness, according to reports from the World Health ...

Cambodian girl dies of H5N1
Xinhua
PHNOM PENH, April 6 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization announced Wednesday that an 11- year old girl from the eastern province of Kompong Cham has died of avian influenza H5N1. A joint statement sent to the ...

UPDATE.

Interesting development. I don't think vaccines are the right way to go - but they are the only option offered. And developing nations have been getting the short end of the stick. But now, looks like they're getting a new deal.

Vaccine/Virus Sharing Agreement in the Works

Countries are about to come to an agreement that will regulate the exchange of influenza viruses for access to vaccines. This was prompted by members of the World Health Organization (WHO) due to the emergence of the H5N1 bird flu in southeast Asia. Indonesia wanted to have some of the vaccines that were manufactured and withheld sample of virus samples as leverage. It was also a challenge to create an H1N1 flu vaccine and the first pandemic passed before it was readily available. Some in the WHO feel that pharmaceutical industry and regulators were to blame for the delayed distribution of the vaccine to poor countries. The two major goals of the agreement are to be able to respond faster to the next flu pandemic and making sure that all countries have access to the vaccine.

WHO Group Hopes To Have Virus-Sharing Draft Agreement Finalized By Friday

On the heels of an international agreement between nations and Big Pharma for sharing viruses samples and accessing vaccines, the FAO reports that it will take more than 10 years to eliminate H5N1 Bird Flu - if it can be done at all. …I am particularly dismayed at the results of this "industry partnership," especially the recommendations.

Eliminating H5N1 will take more than 10 years

Apr 13, 2011 (CIDRAP News) – Because of deep-rooted barriers, there is little chance that H5N1 avian influenza can be expelled within the next 10 years from the six countries where it remains entrenched, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says in a new report.

Most of the 60-plus countries that reported H5N1 in 2006 have eliminated it since then, but it remains endemic in China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, and Egypt…

…As long as H5N1 outbreaks continue, so will the risk of the virus evolving into a human pandemic strain, the report notes. Several of the H5N1-endemic countries have had human H5N1 cases this year, with Egypt leading the list with 22 confirmed cases so far.

The report …concludes with a list of innovative technical methods that might be tried, including:

* Vaccines that don't require individual injection of each bird and provide long-term immunity
* Development of genetically resistant poultry
* Methods for temporarily increasing the resistance of poultry, such as administering short interfering RNA before selling birds at live markets
* "Universal" human vaccines for influenza A
* Reconsidering the pros and cons of novel vaccines, such as live-virus vaccines, which are not currently recommend for poultry.

FAO H5N1 report

reply to post by soficrow


I don't know how to express correctly, nor do i have time to find all my links and info sites, but we are so closely related to animals and plants (not just monkeys) that the 'all inclusive' new science is simple logic. I tell my kids to think of their own body and how it works then find similarities in Earth cycles (hydrological, climate, atmosphere, weather) Even small children can easily grasp --once taught how things work at the simplest levels-- just how intimately connected every single thing on this planet is. It's not one huge event that is going to cause any major Earth change on a global scale--local yes. It has been happening over time and it's a definite combination, just like disease is usually a mix of environmental exposure, pollutants, neglect of self, over indulgance, genetics, and ability to self heal. Let's say Diabetes, in most cases it equals dumping the wrong foods into your body which are then circulated to every organ and place inside said body. We all know exactly what happens then. Over time those pollutants wreck havoc with many body systems. Whereas when you contract a virus (which occurs in nature) fight it off, you are then immune to that virus. Hence vaccinations that work. What happens when we continue dumping the wrong things into our planets circulatory system (or hydrological cycle)? Years and years of this activity cause build ups that are measureable (just like an alcoholics liver-even our ground is contaminated with poisons at this point), of the wrong things and the systematic changes occuring---yet we keep doing it and calling it new names and treating/analyzing seperate instances of disater or dismissing as anomolies. Patching after the fact if you will. When we get a fever we reduce intake of certain things, increase fluids, and take meds-all corrective measures. Sounds to me like the Earth is about to go into fever stage (ie solar flares, ozone depletion, weakened or erratic magnetic shield, UV warnings to Africa and Mexico) I don't think we can rid the planet of disease as easily as ourselves, it's build up has been much longer. And the Earth's fever varies from ours simply because it will also burn us and our food sources. When you combine that with all the other---volcanos, earthquakes etc, it will just keep feeding itself on a weakened body (much like a hantavirus). We might want to do something about it now rather than have to build solar shields and live like Mad Max after the majority of the host is killed off......

Gets off the soap box. And yes I realize that was probably way off topic, just my thoughts as I read your threads. We must as a species at least try connect the dots and take action before these things happen instead of watching DWTS and getting bombed at the club turns into living underground and losing half the planet, or a slow painful death. People need to wake up. I enjoy your posts even though I have only a sketchy understanding of the magnetics etc of the planet. I tend to take a very simplified view of most things, and I have only recently been introduced to this topic. Thank you for sharing them.

Just a reminder.

Bump.