Archive for May, 2008
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.
Source
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.
Source
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.
Source
According to Steven Gamblin and his co-workers at the National Institute for Medical Research in London and the University of St Andrews, going against the bird flu with Tamiflu may not be enough.
Mutations arising which have a selection advantage are very quickly exploited [by the virus],’ Gamblin says. ‘Our study suggests that stockpiling a single drug, oseltamivir, might not be sufficient if we are faced with a pandemic.
This was proven as molecular pictures of another drug, zanamivir, may be more effective than Tamiflu. Zanamivir can block the active site of the mutant enzyme.
The reason why nations are stock piling on Tamiflu is because it is cheaper.
Source
South Korea’s response to the bird flu maybe considered as extreme but it needs to be done. The country has decided to “disinfect†all poultry farms, the agriculture ministry said last Tuesday.
“The government will take strong steps to stop the spread of bird flu, which is causing enormous damage to our poultry industry,” an agriculture official told AFP.
In the country’s capital, Seoul, 15,000 ducks, chickens, pet birds, and school aviaries are put down to stop the spread of the disease after there was a second confirmed case there. On the nationwide front, 6.8 million fowls have been culled since April 1.