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Sunnygal41

U.S. to test bird flu vaccine as warnings spread Government stockpiling antiviral drugs in case of epidemic

AP Scientists test laboratory samples infected with the bird flu virus at the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology in Hanoi, Vietnam, Feb. 22.

The Associated Press Updated: 6:55 p.m. ET Feb. 23, 2005

WASHINGTON - Amid dire warnings of an Asian pandemic, the government is preparing to test an experimental bird flu vaccine and is increasing disease surveillance in hopes of reducing the toll from any eventual American outbreak.

Antiviral drugs are being stockpiled, and 2 million doses of vaccine are being stored in bulk form for possible emergency use and to test whether they maintain their potency.

United Nations officials warned on Wednesday that the Asian bird flu outbreak poses the ?gravest possible danger? of becoming a global pandemic.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the National Press Club this week that ?it is a worrisome situation,? though she also said the United States ?is not immediately on the brink of an avian flu epidemic.?

Click for related story

WHO: Bird flu pandemic is imminent

The flu has affected poultry in eight Asian countries, with 45 human deaths among people who caught the illness, a strain of flu known as H5N1.

So far, humans appear to have caught this flu from chickens and other poultry, and the virus is not known to have spread from person to person.

Viral mutation poses global threatWhat health authorities most fear is that the virus will mutate into a form that can pass easily from one human to another. That?s when a global threat would be most likely.

The deadly flu of 1918, which killed from 20 million to 50 million people worldwide, didn?t appear suddenly but mutated gradually into the deadlier form, Gerberding explained.

?That?s why it?s important to have flu vaccine and antivirals, to be ready to react when it starts to emerge,? she said.

The first doses of an experimental vaccine are almost ready for testing, antiviral drugs are being stockpiled, and the government has increased disease surveillance and expanded research programs.

The new vaccine was prepared in two different concentrations ? 4,000 doses each ? and is nearly ready to be shipped to the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases for clinical trials, Len Lavenda, a spokesman for the pharmaceutical firm Sanofi Pasteur, said Wednesday.

Vaccine to be tested in four states
NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said the vaccine will be tested at centers in Rochester, N.Y., St. Louis and in Maryland and Texas to make sure it is safe and to determine the correct dosage in such groups as the elderly, children and healthy young people.

In addition to the vaccine scheduled for trials, Sanofi Pasteur has produced 2 million doses of bulk avian flu vaccine, Lavenda said. The vaccine is being monitored for potency to determine if such vaccines can be produced in advance and stored until needed, he said.

Lavenda said any decision on using it if avian flu should spread would be up to the government.

Fauci said that vaccine could be available for emergency use if needed.

The 8,000 trial doses were not made under full commercial conditions, he said, so the company geared up at the same time to make 2 million doses under commercial production processes, ?so that if the need arises they could rapidly scale up to tens of millions of doses.?

In a normal year more than 100 million doses of influenza vaccine are prepared for use in the United States. The inability of one manufacturer to supply its planned 48 million doses caused a shortage this year, though about 58 million doses were produced.

Because the flu changes from year to year the vaccine has to be reformulated annually.

In Europe, a program called Flupan is under way with Sanofi, European Union agencies and the University of Reading in England working on a bird flu vaccine for clinical study.

CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said that agency has a stockpile of antiviral drugs that could be used in the event of a pandemic, depending on the virus that emerges.

FACT FILE

Bird flu basics

?	Introduction

?	What is it?

?	Why the concern?

?	Transmission

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History

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Symptoms

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Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

The rapid spread of bird flu, which is not uncommon among chickens and other fowl, has caught the attention of global health authorities. Click on the topics to learn more about the illness and why scientists are so concerned.

There are at least 15 different types of avian influenza that routinely infect birds around the world. The current outbreak is caused by a strain known as H5N1, which is highly contagious among birds and rapidly fatal. Unlike many other strains of avian influenza, it can be transmitted to humans, causing severe illness and death.

Bird flu is not the same as SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome). Although their symptoms are similar, SARS is caused by completely different viruses. Influenza viruses also are more contagious and cannot be as readily contained as SARS by isolating people who have the infection.

Influenza viruses are highly unstable and have the ability to mutate rapidly, potentially jumping from one animal species to another. Scientists fear the bird flu virus could evolve into a form that is easily spread between people, resulting in an extremely contagious and lethal disease. This could happen if someone already infected with the human flu virus catches the bird flu. The two viruses could recombine inside the victim?s body, producing a hybrid that could readily spread from person to person.

The resulting virus likely would be something humans have never been exposed to before. With no immune defenses, the infection could cause devastating illness, such as occurred in the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed an estimated 40 million to 50 million worldwide.

In rural areas, the H5N1 virus is easily spread from farm to farm among domestic poultry through the feces of wild birds. The virus can survive for up to four days at 71 F (22 C) and more than 30 days at 32 F (0 C). If frozen, it can survive indefinitely.

So far in this outbreak, human cases have been blamed on direct contact with infected chickens and their droppings. People who catch the virus from birds can pass it on to other humans, although the disease is generally milder in those who caught it from an infected person rather than from birds.

If the virus mutates and combines with a human influenza virus, it could be spread through person-to-person transmission in the same way the ordinary human flu virus is spread.

The current outbreak of bird flu is different from earlier ones in that officials have been unable to contain its spread. An outbreak in 1997 in Hong Kong was the first time the virus had spread to people, but it was much more quickly contained. A total of 18 people were hospitalized with six reported deaths. About 1.5 million chickens were killed in an effort to remove the source of the virus.

Unlike the 1997 scare, this outbreak has spread more rapidly to other countries, increasing its exposure to people in varied locations and raising the likelihood that the strain will combine with a human influenza virus.

Bird flu can cause a range of symptoms in humans. Some patients report fever, cough, sore throat and muscle aches. Others suffer from eye infections, pneumonia, acute respiratory distress and other severe and life-threatening complications.

Flu drugs exist that may be used both to prevent people from catching bird flu and to treat those who have it. The virus appears to be resistant to two older generic flu drugs, amantadine and rimantadine. However, the newer flu drugs Tamiflu and Relenza are expected to work ? though supplies could run out quickly if an outbreak occurs.

Currently there is no vaccine, although scientists are working to develop one. It probably will take several months to complete and may not be ready in time to stop a widespread human outbreak, if one occurs.

Rapid elimination of the H5N1 virus among infected birds and other animals is essential to preventing a major outbreak. The World Health Organization recommends that infected or exposed flocks of chickens and other birds be killed in order to help prevent further spread of the virus and reduce opportunities for human infection. However, the agency warns that safety measures must be taken to prevent exposure to the virus among workers involved in culling.

Sources: AP, CDC & WHO? Print this

The disease has appeared in poultry in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.

In an effort to catch any U.S. cases early, CDC has contacted state and local health departments, hospitals and doctors, urging them to ask about recent travel by people with flu symptoms.

It called for testing patients for the bird flu if they have been in an affected area within 10 days and have confirmed pneumonia or other severe respiratory problems.

In addition, CDC said, testing should be considered for patients with a temperature greater than 100.4 who have visited such countries, visited a poultry farm and have a cough, sore threat or shortness of breath.

Major flu pandemics over the last century, according to CDC, include:

Spanish flu that swept the world in 1918-1919 and killed an estimated 500,000 Americans. Nearly half were young, healthy adults.
Asian flu in 1957-1958 was first identified in China. It claimed 70,000 lives in the United States.
Hong Kong flu, 1968-1969 caused about 34,000 American deaths.

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Either we're dead meat or not!

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frankiespeakin

I was just thinking about population "steady-states" and the currant population explosion with it's harm to the enviroment. One of these days due to over population, and easy common world travel,,that one day 90% of the human population can be wiped out from just one major out break of a deadly virus or bacteria. Lets hope we do something to prevent such a thing by wisely slowing down and reversing our explosive population growth. I think that's better than having "mother nature" do it for us.

Sunnygal41

Amen, Frankie..............amen!

Simon

I was just thinking about population "steady-states" and the currant population explosion with it's harm to the enviroment. One of these days due to over population, and easy common world travel,,that one day 90% of the human population can be wiped out from just one major out break of a deadly virus or bacteria. Lets hope we do something to prevent such a thing by wisely slowing down and reversing our explosive population growth. I think that's better than having "mother nature" do it for us.

Actually, the notion that its increased population that is damaging the planet is a myth. What is killing the planet is the tiny percentage of decadent and wasteful people who consume 90%+ of the worlds resources.

It is US, not 3rd world countries, who need to change our ways. The poor tend to live a lot more in-line with nature simply because they have no choice.

Sunnygal41

You are absolutely right, Simon. I work for a bus company and I breath diesel fumes daily, and cringe to think of what it is doing to our atmosphere...sad to say that greed is more of a motivator than anything else in the developed countries..........I try to do what I can, but, I always feel guilty........... Terri

frankiespeakin

Simon,

Actually, the notion that its increased population that is damaging the planet is a myth. What is killing the planet is the tiny percentage of decadent and wasteful people who consume 90%+ of the worlds resources.

Actually I think both are true. Over population and expoltation by the minority.

To disreguard the harmfulness of the population explosion to our eccosystem and say it is a myth is a great danger,,and sooner or latter we will have to pay the price for unchecked population growth,, and explotation.

New Worldly Translation

The UK government seems to be taking this Avian Flu pretty seriously. The chief medical spokesperson on numerous interviews said it's not a case of if it spreads but when. The govn't have also bought drugs for 15 million people to relieve the symtoms of the flu and are also looking into a vaccine. It's been said upwards of 10,000 people in the UK could die from it.

It does bare similarities with the SARS outbreak a few years ago though and that was quite well controlled in the end. There were many people affected of course but there wasn't the massive loss of life that was forecast as a worse case scenario.

the_classicist

it spreads but when

UGH! The American and Canadian media say this all this time about almost everything. It's getting f*$k$% annoying.It hasn't even really mutated much yet and they are all talking about it. And another thing: its NOT a pandemic; its not even in a transmissible human form!

Simply fearmongering by politicians looking to boost their status and public health officials looking for more money and work.

Yes, of course another pandemic will come, but who cares. I'm mean, it's not the end of the world.

Frannie Banannie

Cinnamon kills viruses, yall. I've used it plenty to avoid such as this, even the common cold.

Frannie

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