December 20, 2011 at 12:51 pm By Roz Potter
From the Independent: Link
Excerpts:
A deadly strain of bird flu with the potential to infect and kill millions of people has been created in a laboratory by European scientists – who now want to publish full details of how they did it.
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For the first time the researchers have been able to mutate the H5N1 strain of avian influenza so that it can be transmitted easily through the air in coughs and sneezes. Until now, it was thought that H5N1 bird flu could only be transmitted between humans via very close physical contact.
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What makes H5N1 so dangerous, though, is that it has killed about 60 per cent of those it has infected, making it one of the most lethal known forms of influenza in modern history – a deadliness moderated only by its inability (so far) to spread easily through airborne water droplets.
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The details of the study are so sensitive that they are being scrutinised by the US Government’s own National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, which is understood to have advised American officials that key parts of the scientific paper should be redacted to prevent terrorists from using the information to reverse-engineer their own lethal strain of flu virus.
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Some scientists have privately questioned whether such research should have been done in a university department that does not have the sophisticated anti-terrorist security of a military facility. They also point out that experimental viruses kept in seemingly secure laboratories have escaped in the past to cause human epidemics – such as a 1977 flu outbreak.
“There are people who say that the work should never have been done, or if it was done it should have been done in a setting where the information could be better controlled,” said the source close to the biosecurity board.
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The study was carried out by a Dutch team of scientists led by Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, where the mutated virus is stored under lock and key, but without armed guards, in a basement building.
Dr Fouchier, who declined to answer questions until a decision is made on publication, said in a statement released on the university’s website that it only took a small number of mutations to change the avian flu virus into a form that could spread more easily between humans.
Posted in Infectious and Communicable Disease, Pandemic Flu | No Comments »
September 5, 2011 at 8:46 am By Roz Potter
From Salon.com: Link
Excerpt:
In Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming disaster film “Contagion,” no one — not even Gwyneth Paltrow — is safe from a pandemic virus that kills quickly and leaves mass frenzy in its wake.
We’d all like to hope that the film’s scenario is mere fantasy, calculated to give brave moviegoers a decisive end-of-summer thrill. But as Dr. Ian Lipkin, who balanced a consultative role on the movie with his responsibilities as director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia and co-chair of the National Biosurveillance Advisory Subcommittee, tells Salon, these things are unpredictable, and “Contagion’s” plot is far from implausible. Indeed, Soderbergh and “Contagion” screenwriter Scott Burns went out of their way to make the movie “ultrarealistic.”
In a phone interview, Dr. Lipkin described his own role in the film — and his hopes that the project will ultimately not only entertain, but also inspire, advocate and inform.
What follows is an edited and condensed transcript of our conversation. See Link to read more.
Posted in Community Preparedness, Pandemic Flu | No Comments »
August 30, 2011 at 9:09 am By Roz Potter
From Life Scientist: Link
This threat should not be dismissed because it sounds like so many other warnings. A new lethal bird flu strain is spreading rapidly. If it mixes with the more tame but highly contagious swine flu now firmly established in humans and animals throughout the world, we could face a lethal flu pandemic.
Excerpt:
Bird flu is back on the radar, with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warning of a new mutant strain that is spreading amongst bird populations in Asia and beyond.
According to the FAO, this could lead to a resurgence of the H5N1 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, which has already infected 565 people since 2003, and killed 331.
However, should such a strain of influenza happen to cross with the recent H1N1 ‘swine flu’ strain, it could morph into a serious threat, said Professor Peter Doherty, Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne.
“The recent H1N1 ‘swine ‘flu’ pandemic was caused by the reassortment of genes from two pig viruses. That virus was incredibly infectious and went around the world in six months though, fortunately, it was not especially virulent as it took about six months before we started getting vaccine into peoples’ arms.
“If, however, a pig became infected simultaneously with an HP H5N1 virus and the 2009 pandemic strain, it is possible that an extremely virulent variant that spreads readily between humans could emerge,” he said.
Professor Doherty has spent a lifetime studying the immune system, and in 1996 he and Professor Rolf Zinkernagel received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work uncovering the role of the Major Histocompatibility Complex in immunity.
Vaccination against individual strains is important, said Professor Doherty, although the virus has been able to mutate to get around vaccines targeted just as H5N1.
Posted in Pandemic Flu | No Comments »
January 4, 2011 at 12:02 am By Roz Potter
No, this is not a statement from the 2010 pandemic. It is from a news story dated 1/4/11 and reflects the current swine flu (H1N1) epidemic in England. Doctor’s say the illness is more severe this year than last. Flu cases are also rising in the U.S. See link.
If you haven’t yet been vaccinated, now’s the time. It takes weeks to develop immunity after vaccination.
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