From Der Spiegel

Officials in the southern German city of Nuremberg have reported new outbreaks of avian flu. On Sunday, the city reported having found eight dead swans in addition to a duck and a goose which had fallen victim to the disease. All of the dead waterfowl were confirmed to have been infected with the deadly H5N1 virus in the first cases of the disease to be reported in Germany this year.

A quarantine zone has been established in the city, and poultry farmers have been ordered to place all poultry birds in closed stalls to prevent the disease’s spread.

“Over the next few days, the city of Nuremberg will be aided by a federal epidemiological team which will scientifically investigate the causes and background of the infection cases,” the city said in a statement, according to Reuters.

According to the European Commission, more than 700 birds in the European Union were found in 2006 to have the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian flu. The disease spread last year across large parts of Europe, including Germany, Austria, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Britain, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, France and Hungary.

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From China Daily

The bird flu virus racing through Asia killed a teenager in hardest-hit Indonesia and a young girl from Cambodia, both after being admitted to hospitals in serious condition, health officials said on Friday.

The 15-year-old girl from Indonesia’s bustling capital Jakarta died late Thursday after experiencing multi-organ failure, said Sardikin Giriputro, a doctor at the facility. “By the time she arrived, it was too late,” he said.

The Cambodian child was initially suffering from high fever and diarrhea before being transferred from an eastern province to Phnom Penh, but she quickly got worse, the World Health Organization (WHO) and health ministry officials said.

The 13-year-old developed a cough and was struggling to breathe before dying on Thursday.

Bird flu has killed at least 170 people since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in 2003, according to the WHO. It remains hard for people to catch, and most human cases have been linked to contact with sick birds including the two latest deaths.

But experts fear it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic that could kill millions.

Indonesia, the hardest hit country with 73 human deaths, is seen as a potential hotspot for that to happen because of its high density of poultry and people.

Worried that poor countries will not be able to afford much-needed vaccines if that happens, the government stopped sending samples of its bird flu virus to WHO-affiliated laboratories several months ago.

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From Market Watch
Will U.S. finish preparing for flu pandemic before clock runs out?

By Ruth Mantell

U.S. medical, scientific and pharmaceutical personnel are racing against nature to protect Americans from what some say is the
imminent threat of a worldwide outbreak of deadly influenza, specifically the danger posed by an avian-flu virus that could mutate to a more-lethal form.
Although preparations have been underway for some time, the nation’s capacity to produce vaccines and antiviral drugs is strained and a federal goal of creating a stockpile of avian-flu vaccine for 20 million critical workers such as police officers and firefighters has yet to be met.

“The problem is that this virus already has the ability to infect humans, so it’s one step closer than anything we’ve seen before,” said Robin Robinson, acting associate director for pandemic influenza medical countermeasures with the Department of Health and Human Services. “The viruses are one to two mutations away from sustained human-to-human transmission.”
A world outbreak, or pandemic, could occur when a new flu virus emerges for which people have little or no immunity, and spreads easily from person to person, according to PandemicFlu.gov, a Web site managed by the U.S. government. In that event, it would take months to produce an effective vaccine and for manufacturers to gear up.

The first doses of a well-matched flu vaccine could be available in the United States 20 weeks after the onset of a pandemic, according to Robinson. Stockpiles of antiviral drugs could treat about 34 million people; by 2008 that figure could reach 81 million.
Health professionals are concerned about the H5N1 avian-flu virus because it is especially virulent and may be transmitted directly from infected birds to humans. A vaccine created from the current strain of H5N1 probably would not be potent enough to fully protect consumers from a stronger pandemic strain, but scientists say it could do some good. (See Avian flu FAQ.)
“As the virus continues to evolve genetically and acquires by mutation the ability for sustained human-to-human transmission, then an H5N1 pandemic may emerge,” Robinson said. “When will this event occur is not known, but the virus does continue to evolve and does represent a significant pandemic threat.”

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From Sydney Morning Herald
By Justin Norrie

Japanese scientists fear that rats were responsible for carrying avian flu into four poultry farms over the past month, in an alarming development that suggests the virus could spread more quickly than realised.

A team of government-appointed specialists who inspected the farms in the Miyazaki and Okayama prefectures, in the country’s south, believes that rodents infected by wild ducks from China may have been carrying the highly virulent H5N1 virus strain.

At all of the farms they found nets and coverings in place to prevent large migratory birds from coming into contact with the poultry. At three of the farms they found scores of dead chickens in areas furthest from the entrance of the coops, leading inspectors to believe that wild birds were not the direct source of the infection.

Toshihiro Ito, a professor of veterinary microbiology at Tottori University, who heads the team of specialists, told the Asahi Shimbun: “It’s possible that small rodents, such as rats, carried the virus into the chicken coops.”

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From Houston Chronicle
By Mike Eckel

Russian officials traced dead poultry in several suburban Moscow districts to a single market today as experts reported new outbreaks and tightened quarantines following confirmation of the presence of the H5N1 bird flu strain.

The presence of H5N1, confirmed by tests late Saturday, was the first such outbreak to be recorded so close to the Russian capital.

Authorities traced the birds that died in four separate incidences to a market located just outside the Moscow city limits, said Alexei Alexeyenko, spokesman for the federal agricultural oversight agency Rosselkhoznadzor.

The market was closed Saturday and experts were trying to determine the original source for the birds on sale there, he said.

On Saturday, Alexeyenko said tests had confirmed the H5N1 strain in some of the two dozen birds found dead in two suburban Moscow districts. Results of tests taken in a third district where nearly four dozen birds died were still pending, he said.

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From Information Clearinghouse
By Mike Whitney

On Friday there was an article in the New York Times (In a Daylong Drill, an Agency Tries to Prepare for a Real Outbreak of Avian Flu, Donald McNeil Jr.) that gave the details of the drills that are being conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.) in case a full-blown pandemic breaks out in the United States. The exercises were supervised by CDC chief, Dr. Julie Gerberding, the agency’s director. A number of disastrous scenarios were simulated to test the judgment of the supervisors and the strengths of the system.

I’m sure everyone is relieved that the C.D.C. and Dr. Gerberding are practicing their routine in the event of an outbreak of lethal influenza. After all, Gerberding may confront a situation where she will be asked to decide whether or not to quarantine cities or, perhaps, entire states to prevent the spread of an epidemic, like Avian Flu.

So, why is this so weird?

Well, when was the last time Bush-Cheney devoted millions of dollars to anything that served the public interest? That is an oddity in itself.

They refuse to provide the recommended security-measures for the nation’s nuclear power plants from terrorist attack, and they waged a bitter battle over legislation that required the checking of cargo coming into US ports. They even fought congress on the issue of air-port screeners following the attacks on 9-11?!?

So now they’re spending millions on drills for a potential outbreak of Bird Flu?

Why? Why this sudden interest in the health and welfare of the American people?

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From The Independent UK
By Geoffrey Lean and Cole Moreton

The first major outbreak of bird flu to hit Britain was confirmed yesterday, sparking fears that the virus will spread throughout the country and prompting a cull of 160,000 possibly infected birds.

As vets and scientists tried to trace the source of the country’s first infection of the H5N1 strain of the disease, which has killed 164 people in Asia, government scientists sealed off the farm at the centre of the alert.

The emergency measures were introduced after tests by the Veterinary Laboratory Agency confirmed that more than 2,000 birds had been killed by the highly pathogenic Asian strain of the H5N1 virus, which is believed most likely to cause harm to humans. The public was urged not to panic. All the 159,000 turkeys at the farm were due to be culled in an attempt to stop the spread of the disease. The birds were due to be gassed last night and carcasses burnt in an operation taking up to 36 hours.

The health of farm workers and their families was being monitored, entry into the site restricted and essential visitors disinfected. Other poultry farmers within a 10km protection zone were told to keep their stock indoors and out of contact with wild flocks, while pigeon races were banned nationwide. Later Defra widened the restriction zone to cover east Suffolk and south east Norfolk.

David Miliband’s Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) admitted that “the likelihood of further geographical spread of the virus is high”. It is confident that it can stop the disease from moving from the farm to infect other flocks, but believes there are increasing risks of it arriving through migrating birds, the trade in live birds, and the movement of people.

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From The BBC News

The avian flu which killed 2,600 turkeys at farm in Holton, Suffolk, has been confirmed as the H5N1 virus.

That virus can be fatal if it is passed on to humans.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the European Commission carried out tests at laboratories in Weybridge, Surrey.

The 159,000 other turkeys on that farm will have to be slaughtered and a three-kilometre protection zone and a 10km surveillance zone will be set up.

Holton is approximately 17 miles south-west of Lowestoft.

The statement also said: “Further tests to characterise the virus are underway in order to ascertain whether or not it is the Asian strain.

“Strict movement controls are in place, poultry must be kept indoors, there is a prohibition on gatherings of poultry and other birds and on-farm biosecurity measures will be strengthened.”

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From Financial Times
By John Aglionby

The deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza is making a seasonal resurgence in Asia and could easily spread to Europe again this year, the World Health Organisation warned on Sunday.

The alarm follows four human deaths in Indonesia in the last five days, the first human case in China for six months (though the infected man has since recovered) and new poultry outbreaks in Vietnam “ despite a huge campaign against it “ and northern Nigeria.

We are convinced that we’re in a repeat of last year and the year before when the virus began to get very active again [in the northern hemisphere winter] and spread from Asia into the Middle East and beyond, said Peter Cordingley, the WHO spokesman for the western Pacific region.

Indonesia, where 61 people have died since 2005, remained the biggest flashpoint but nowhere in the region has got it licked. Most countries are becoming better prepared and the countries that were caught out last year, especially wealthier ones in Europe and close to Europe, we hope are going to be better prepared, he said. But we’re still losing more than we’re winning.

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From Bloomberg
By Jason Gale

Bird flu killed three members of a family in Egypt, pushing the number of fatalities worldwide this year to 79, more than reported in the previous three years combined.

The Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population confirmed that the H5N1 strain of avian influenza had infected the three, who belong to an extended family in Gharbiyah province, 80 kilometers (50 miles), northwest of the capital, Cairo, the World Health Organization said in a statement yesterday.

“While being transferred and cared for at the country’s designated avian influenza hospital, a 30-year-old female, a 15- year-old girl and a 26-year-old male died,” the United Nations health agency said in the statement on its Web site. The most recent death occurred yesterday, it said.

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