H5N1 // Current TV

Ron Atlas: Publication of H5N1 Research (MWV57)

In episode 57 of MicrobeWorld Video, filmed at the American Association for the... more

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Worldwide Hippies News Briefs Wednesday

Hong Kong culls chickens at market, bans trade, as H5N1 found With payroll tax cut... more

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Mutant Bird Flu strain hits China, Vietnam, UN warns

News Desk [2]August 29, 2011 12:22 Override Title: UN warns of new bird flu strain... more

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Bird flu jumps to pigs

The H5N1 bird flu virus may be evolving the ability to spread from mammal to mammal, says a team who have discovered that pigs in Indonesia have been infected with the disease since 2005. It's one step in the frightening chain of events that could lead to human transmission and a pandemic.

The H5N1 bird flu kills 60 per cent of the people it infects. However, most infections occur after direct contact with an infected bird and the disease does not appear to spread well between humans. As long as human to human transmission remains rare, the virus cannot cause a flu pandemic.

This could change. One way the virus could develop the ability to spread among humans is to first infect pigs, which have many biochemical similarities to humans. Flu viruses adapted to pigs have less trouble adapting to humans than do bird flu viruses – one pig-adapted virus caused the swine flu pandemic in 2009.

Chairul Nidom of Airlangga University in Surabaya, Indonesia, and colleagues in Japan, have been tracking H5N1 in pigs since 2005 in Indonesia, the country hardest hit by the avian flu virus. They now report that between 2005 to 2007 when the avian flu peaked, 7.4 per cent of 700 pigs they tested also carried H5N1. There have been sporadic reports of H5N1 in pigs, but this is the first time the extent of the problem has been measured.
Poultry to pig

In each case, the virus in pigs closely resembled H5N1 from nearby outbreaks in poultry, suggesting it has jumped from the bird to the pig population. That and the small proportion of pigs infected suggests the virus cannot yet spread between pigs. "If the virus was better adapted to pigs it would have spread like wildfire," says Ab Osterhaus of the University of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, a flu expert not involved in the research.

Since 2007, avian flu outbreaks have diminished in poultry and in people in Indonesia and the investigators found that the the rate of infection in pigs has similarly dropped. Although pigs are still carrying signs of recent infection.

This means the virus could still be spreading and evolving because the team discovered, to their surprise, that infected pigs show no symptoms. "H5N1 viruses could easily evade detection as they spread through Indonesia in asymptomatic pigs," warn Nidom and colleagues.

And there are worrying indications that H5N1 is already evolving. Nidom says that in one pig, the virus had developed the ability to bind to a molecule present in the noses of both pigs and humans. That's exactly the kind of change that could allow it to spread between people.

"This shows we should keep a close watch on pig flu, as it can change rapidly," warns Osterhaus. The European Union is heeding the call and is funding a scientific collaboration called FLUPIG, to study how bird flu adapts to pigs and how pig flu spreads to people. It will meet for the first time later this month.The H5N1 bird flu virus may be evolving the ability to spread from mammal to mammal,... more

02
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Lining up

Yesterday morning, outside the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, I stood in a long line for two hours with thousands of other people. We were all braving a pretty cold morning for Southern California, but we weren’t lined up for tickets. The line was over half a mile long, and ended in a big circus-style tent. Inside, amidst many helium filled balloons, 50 nurses were dispensing H1N1 vaccines. Lots of little kids were crying. “It’s just like the county fair,” I observed to my son, “except with shots.”

We were all there because swine flu vaccine is scarce, and the Pasadena Health Department was making it available to people who are under 24, over 65, pregnant, or facing chronic health issues. Most of the people standing in the line were not eligible to get the shots themselves, they were parents. There were a lot of strollers. Other people brought little chairs for their toddlers, which they kept moving as the line moved, ala Woody Allen playing the cello in the marching band in “Take the Money and Run.” Kids left the line to play nearby when they couldn’t bear it any longer. My son got a bit restive also, but since he’s in high school, and has a driver’s license, I gave him the keys to my car and 20 bucks, and he left for an hour to get breakfast.

All in all, we were an orderly bunch, and everything went smoothly. And that’s what struck me. Among the many different subjects I’ve covered over the years are disease outbreaks. In April of 2003, I covered the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong and China. And in November of 2005, Laura Ling and I covered Avian Flu in Vietnam—a flu that unlike H1N1, swine flu, never produced a serious outbreak in people.

Battle Against Bird Flu (Video)

Pandemic (Video)

But what struck me yesterday in Pasadena, and struck me on those previous stories, is that there are some situations which don’t seem like they’ll get better unless government is efficient, and everyone is willing to cooperate in an orderly fashion toward a common goal.

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Cannabis Science Inc. Reports on Prospective Life Saving Treatments for H1N1

AN FRANCISCO, Apr 27, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Cannabis Science Inc. (GFON:1.40, +0.15,... more

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2009 Flu Summit

the entire 2009 flu summit.

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2 years ago
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H1N1 Swine Flu Virus Vaccine Is Useless As Virus Start mutating with H5N1 Avian Flu.

Washington : Last week Fight Back H1N1 reported about how H1N1 man-made pandemic virus... more

current_spider
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2 years ago
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U.S Troops the latest "Guinea Pig" for H1N1 toxic vaccine

Washington : According to FDA website the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had issued... more

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2 years ago
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Avian flu pandemic vaccine achieves 100% protection in a lethal challenge study

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Swine Flu Outbreak Illuminated By Avian Flu Research

A new study by University of Maryland researchers suggests that the potential for an avian influenza virus to cause a human flu pandemic is greater than previously thought. Results also illustrate how the current swine flu outbreak likely came about.

As of now, avian flu viruses can infect humans who have contact with birds, but these viruses tend not to transmit easily between humans. However, in research recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Associate Professor Daniel Perez from the University of Maryland showed that after reassortment with a human influenza virus, a process that usually takes place in intermediary species like pigs, an avian flu virus requires relatively few mutations to spread rapidly between mammals by respiratory droplets.

"This is similar to the method by which the current swine influenza strain likely formed," said Perez, program director of the University of Maryland-based Prevention and Control of Avian Influenza Coordinated Agricultural Project, AICAP. "The virus formed when avian, swine, and human-like viruses combined in a pig to make a new virus. After mutating to be able to spread by respiratory droplets and infect humans, it is now spreading between humans by sneezing and coughing."

In his study, Perez used the avian H9N2 influenza virus, one that is on the list of candidates for human pandemic potential. Using reverse genetics, a technique whereby individual genes from viruses are separated, selected, and put back together, Perez and his team created a hybrid human-avian virus. Their research hybrid has internal human flu genes and surface avian flu genes from the H9N2 virus. Though it comes from a different strain of avian flu than the one that contributed to the hybrid virus now causing the swine flu outbreak, Perez's research virus is similar in origin to the swine flu virus, in that both involved a combination of avian and human influenza viruses.

Perez infected ferrets (considered a good model for human influenza transmission) with the virus he created, and allowed the virus to mutate in the species. Before long, healthy ferrets that shared air space but not physical space with the infected ferret had the virus, showing that the virus had mutated to spread by respiratory droplets.

When the genetic sequences of the mutant virus and original hybrid virus were compared, the only differences were five amino acid mutations, three on the surface, and two internally. Two of the surface mutations were determined to be solely responsible for supporting respiratory droplet transmission. Because so few mutations were necessary to make the hybrid H9N2 transmissible this way, they concluded that after an animal-human hybrid influenza virus forms in nature, a human pandemic of this virus is potentially just a few mutations away.

"We do not know if the mutations we saw in the lab are the same that have made the H1N1 swine flu transmissible by respiratory droplets," Perez said. "We will be doing more research on the current swine flu strain to study its specific genetic mutations."

Perez found that one of the two of the genetic mutations in his lab strain that enabled respiratory transmission between mammals was on the tip of the HA surface protein, one of the sites where human antibodies created in response to current vaccines would bind.

"Because the binding site of the mutant virus is different from the virus upon which the vaccine is modeled, it may mean that current vaccine stocks would not be as effective against the H9N2 mutant strain as previously anticipated," said Perez. "We should keep this in mind when designing vaccines for an avian flu pandemic in humans."

However, scientists cannot predict what the actual mutations will look like if and when they occur in nature, or even which strain of avian influenza will mutate to infect mammals.A new study by University of Maryland researchers suggests that the potential for an... more

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H5N1 strain hits Xinjiang in China

China has reported their first bird flu outbreak this year, after 519 fowl has died... more

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99% Of All Flu Strains Are Drug Resistant

This is quiet shocking. Tests conducted by health experts showed that nearly all... more

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Experts Closing In On Avian Flu Breakthrough

Groundbreaking research to enable rapid diagnosis of bird flu - including the deadly... more

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Bird Flu spreads, prompts mass cull

Hong Kong ordered a mass cull of all poultry on Wednesday in a bid to stop the spread... more

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3 years ago
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Ron Atlas: Publication of H5N1 Research (MWV57)

Worldwide Hippies News Briefs Wednesday

Mutant Bird Flu strain hits China, Vietnam, UN warns

Bird flu jumps to pigs

Lining up

Cannabis Science Inc. Reports on Prospective Life Saving Treatments for H1N1

2009 Flu Summit

H1N1 Swine Flu Virus Vaccine Is Useless As Virus Start mutating with H5N1 Avian Flu.

U.S Troops the latest "Guinea Pig" for H1N1 toxic vaccine

Avian flu pandemic vaccine achieves 100% protection in a lethal challenge study

Swine Flu Outbreak Illuminated By Avian Flu Research

H5N1 strain hits Xinjiang in China

99% Of All Flu Strains Are Drug Resistant

Experts Closing In On Avian Flu Breakthrough

Bird Flu spreads, prompts mass cull

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