H5N1 is easily transmissible between birds facilitating a potential global spread of H5N1. While H5N1 undergoes mutation and reassortment, creating variations which can infect species not previously known to carry the virus, not all of these variant forms can infect humans. H5N1 as an avian virus preferentially binds to a type of galactose receptors that populate the avian respiratory tract from the nose to the lungs and are virtually absent in humans, occurring only in and around the alveoli, structures deep in the lungs where oxygen is passed to the blood. Therefore, the virus is not easily expelled by coughing and sneezing, the usual route of transmission.[19
Medical News Today Published:
Time Magazine this week cited the approval of a bird flu vaccine earlier this year as the top medical development in 2007. Key testing of the vaccine, the first ever approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to prevent bird flu, was done by doctors and nurses at the University of Rochester Medical Center. More than 750 people in the Rochester area have taken part in studies of bird flu vaccines at the University. Crucial testing of the vaccine was led by John Treanor, M.D., professor of Medicine and of Microbiology and Immunology. His team on the University’s Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit, together with scientists around the nation, showed that large doses of the vaccine are safe and effective at protecting people against bird flu. Read the full report here.
According to reports, a 16-month-old baby boy in Bangladesh contracted the bird flu virus. Although the country first got its reported case last February 2007, the bird flu virus became dormant.
The boy from a slum in the capital Dhaka “has survived. He has been quarantined and his condition has improved,” Health Ministry official Mahmudur Rahman told agencies.
Authorities said that although the boy did not live near poultry farms, he might have gotten it from chickens brought by his parents from a farm. In response the Health Ministry has set up isolation units at all public clinics.
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Indonesia has finally decided to help the World Health Organization in its global fight against the bird virus by sharing information on the virus.
Before that, Indonesia decided to stopped sharing information on the said virus in protest for a lack of access to vaccines that were produced by developed countries. The country was then criticized for by health officials and scientific researchers.
“We have always promoted the sharing of influenza data, all we ask for is that it be done in a fair, transparent, and equitable manner,” Supari said of Indonesia’s decision to contribute sequence data to the new database, known as the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID), according to the AP report.
With the merging of the information, we hope that a cure be found soon.
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A new drug has joined the fight against bird flu, also known as the avian flu: Prepandix. The European Commission has granted pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKlein a marketing license for the pre-pandemic vaccine .
According to the World Health Organization, vaccines are important for preventing influenza and the reduction of health consequences during a pandemic.
A pre-pandemic vaccine is produced in advance of a pandemic, based on the currently circulating avian H5N1 influenza virus likely to cause a pandemic, and has the ability to raise immune protection against potential drift H5N1 strains.
Pandemic vaccines won’t be available four to six months after a pandemic.
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