Saturday, December 29, 2007

That Was The Year That Was Pt 4

 

# 1428

 

 

The final installment to the 2007 review, covering October - November- December.  

 

All four parts will be posted on the sidebar for easy reference under  2007 Year In Review.

 

 

 

OCTOBER

 

The watchword for October seemed to be `mutation' with several sources broaching the subject.  Riau was also very much in the news with multiple human bird flu infections there.

 

 

  • Oct 1st: A 21-year-old Indonesian man from West Jakarta has died of bird flu, taking the death toll from the virus to 86, a health ministry official said. Experts are still investigating how the man contracted the virus, which is most commonly spread to humans through contact with sick fowl, Tini Suryanti, spokesman of the Jakarta health office, said.

 

 

  • October 4th: Indonesia, the hardest-hit by bird flu, has been ready to use its own anti-bird flu vaccines on human, after the country completed its clinical test, Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said in Jakarta Wednesday.

 

  • Oct 5th: NEW YORK (Reuters) - The H5N1 bird flu virus has mutated to infect people more easily, although it still has not transformed into a pandemic strain, researchers said on Thursday. The changes are worrying, said Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

 

  • Oct 5th : Jakarta (VNA) - A 44-year-old woman died early on October 5 after showing bird flu symptoms such as high fever, coughing and breathing difficulties at a hospital in the Indonesian province of Riau.

 

  • Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- Bird flu virus strain in Vietnam has mutated, becoming more dangerous, local newspaper Pioneer reported Wednesday.  However, the mutation is not big enough for the virus to transmit among humans, the paper quoted Vietnamese Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat as saying at a meeting of the country's Anti-bird flu Central Steering Committee on Tuesday.

 

 

 

  • Oct 13th: JAKARTA(AP): An Indonesian boy died from bird flu in the capital on Saturday, bringing the country's death toll from the virus to 88, the Health Ministry said.  The 12-year-old junior high school student from Tangerang, on Jakarta's southwestern outskirts, died after being treated for five days at Persahabatan Hospital - a designed bird-flu hospital in Jakarta - said Daswir Nurdin of the ministry's bird flu center.

 

  • October 15th : When you ask federal officials around the country if they are prepared for a pandemic flu, the answers are unsettling. “It is kind of a train wreck if we get into a pandemic because if it hits the entire country at once, if it spreads at lightning speed, it has the potential to overwhelm us,” said Ray Morris.

 

 

  • Oct 18, 2007 (CIDRAP News) – A study on the effects of the H5N1 avian influenza virus on small land birds suggests it is often lethal in sparrows but has lesser effects on starlings and pigeons and does not readily spread to other birds of the same species.

 

  • Oct 21st : JAKARTA (JP): A girl believed to have been suffering from bird flu died in Riau province, Metro TV reported Sunday. The 10-year-old girl was treated at the Arifin Achmad hospital on Saturday and died less than 12 hours later.

 

  • Oct 21st: VACCINE PRIORITIZATIONS: In the early weeks of a flu pandemic, the first to receive scarce supplies of vaccine will include the military, medical and emergency workers, pregnant women and babies — nearly 23 million people — under a draft federal plan to be outlined Tuesday in Washington.  At the back of the pack, in a pandemic of the sort that killed 20 million Americans in 1918, would be 74 million sick and elderly adults and 122 million healthy people ages 19-64.

 

  • Oct 22nd: Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari confirmed Monday that the death of a 10-year-old girl in Riau Province was caused by bird flu, bringing the total death toll to 89.      "Yes, it was positive (of bird flu)," she told reporters at the State Palace here.      The girl's aunt had died earlier of suspected bird flu, she added.      "But we are not certain about her aunt because we didn't take her blood sample," the minister said.

 

  • Oct 25th: Despite three years of massive preparation efforts, the world is not ready to deal with a potential Avian, or “bird” flu pandemic that could kill millions of people world-wide. That’s the assessment of David Nabarro, a senior United Nations official in charge of bird flu prevention efforts.

 

 

  • Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- A 3-year-old Indonesian boy from Tanggerang in outskirts of Jakarta was contracted by avian influenza, Health Ministry said here on Monday.     The boy has been treating in a bird-flu designed hospital of Sulianti Suroso in Jakarta since Saturday, Director of Disease Control of the ministry Nyoman Kandun said here.

 

NOVEMBER

 

The month starts off with a report about culling chickens in Pakistan's NWFP (North West Frontier Province).  Little did we know at that time that this was a harbinger of the biggest cluster of human infections to date and at least one confirmed instance of H2H transmission.

 

The big story will be the 3rd Outbreak of bird flu in the UK this year, followed closely by the  UK's decision to double their Tamiflu stockpile.

 

 

  • Nov 1st : ABOTABAD: Over 45 thousands chicks were burnt and buried by Buttle Ehtsham Breeder Farm after having confirmed that they were suffering from Bird Flu, The Post learnt here on Thursday.  (Abotabad is located in the NWFP of Pakistan)

 

  • Nov 2nd: Two police officers sent to guard a bird flu protection zone are suing their force, police said. The North Wales officers claim they were not given the same protective clothing as staff from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and later fell ill.

 

  • Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A 30-year-old Indonesian woman died of suspected bird flu on Saturday, the country's health ministry said here.     The woman from Tanggerang town on the outskirts of Jakarta died on Saturday in a designated bird flu hospital of Persahabatan in east Jakarta, said Harris Subiantro, an official of the anti-bird flu center of the ministry.

 

 

  • Nov 8th: A hospital employee suspected of having bird flu died on Tuesday evening in Pekanbaru, Riau province after being treated for only a few minutes at Arifin Achmad Hospital. The 31-year-old man, identified as MN, was employed on the administrative staff of Permata Hati Hospital in Duri district and was initially treated at that hospital.

 

  • Nov 8th: JAKARTA (JP): The virus sample sharing deal between the Indonesian Health Ministry and the World Health Organization has been criticized after the ministry's repeated requests for the return 58 bird flu viruses have gone unanswered. Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said Thursday the ministry asked for the return of the samples three months ago, but had yet to receive any response.

 

  • Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- A bird flu outbreak has recently occurred in Vietnam's southern Ben Tre province, raising the total number of localities currently affected by the disease to six, according to a local veterinary agency on Friday.

 

  • Nov 10th: Confusion in Riau -Yesterday the local press reported that an 8 month baby, neighbor of a 31 year-old-man who died last Tuesday suspected of having bird flu, was ill, and bird flu was suspected as well.   They also listed 5 or 6 other people in contact with this sick child who were down with fevers and were being isolated at a local hospital. A few hours later a local media source reported that 5 of these people had `tested negative' and were sent home.  And thus far, not a word in the English speaking press about any of this.  Everything we think we `know' has come from translations of local news stories.  Now this morning, we get word that the man who died on Tuesday did, indeed, die of H5N1.   The English press is carrying this news

 

  • Nov 11th: Today's story out of the UK indicates that their Pandemic Influenza Scientific Advisory Group is urging the government to triple their stockpile of Tamiflu (oseltamavir).    They believe that coverage for 75% of their population is essential if they are to "exert reasonable control over the scale and severity of the national ­outbreak"

 

  • Nov 12th:  LONDON: British officials on Monday confirmed an outbreak of bird flu in turkeys on a farm in eastern England. The department said the turkeys had tested positive for the H5 strain of the disease. It was not yet known whether it was the deadly H5NI strain, which has killed dozens of people around the world.

 

 

  • November 14th: VANCOUVER - A national survey sponsored by a drug company which makes antiviral medications shows that 15 per cent of B.C.  health care workers would be uncomfortable reporting to work if an individual in the province was diagnosed with pandemic influenza. (But the numbers are actually worse than that) 

 

  • Nov 14th: The Start of Something big- The lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu has been detected at a poultry farm in Saudi Arabia and 50,000 birds have been culled, the agriculture ministry announced on Wednesday. It said tests were carried out after 1,500 birds died in a farm of the Al-Kharj region, 150 kilometers (90 miles) south of Riyadh.

 

  • Nov 16 (KUNA) -- Some 90,000 chicken have died of bird flu at a poultry farm in Muzahmiya City, western Riyadh, according to the Agriculture Ministry on Friday.Agriculture Minister Dr. Fahad Balghunayim said in a press statement that teams were formed to take all required measures to prevent the spread of the disease to other farms in the area. (this outbreak will eventually spread to 20 farms)

 

 

  • Nov 21st: The UK Cull Expands - Poultry on a sixth premises are being culled on suspicion of bird flu. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the premises, which is within the existing surveillance zone and just outside the original 3km protection zone, has been designated a dangerous contact site. A total of 56,000 ducks, 9,000 turkeys and 3,000 geese have been culled at the latest site.

 

  • Nov 22nd: UK Doubles Tamiflu Stockpile - Orders worth hundreds of millions of pounds to buy new drugs and face-masks to help minimise the impact of any future flu pandemic will be announced by the government on Thursday. Alan Johnson, the health secretary, will unveil a doubling of the British stockpile of antiviral medicines, as well as increased supplies of face-masks for healthcare workers and antibiotics to treat secondary infections often linked to flu outbreaks.

 

  • Nov 23rd: GENEVA, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Health officials have failed to reach agreement on a new system to ensure developing countries benefit more from sharing bird flu viruses used to develop vaccines, the World Health Organisation said on Friday. "Nobody can fault you for not trying ... It is so close, yet so far away," WHO director-general Margaret Chan told the final session of a four-day meeting.

 

 

 

  • Nov 28 (Reuters) - Romania discovered an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 avian flu virus in the Danube river delta at a small farm on Wednesday, officials said. The head of the National Sanitary Veterinary Agency ANSV Radu Roatis said tests taken on samples from the dead birds revealed the presence of the H5N1 virus.

 

  • Nov 29th: Not Bird Flu . . .but - A new strain of Ebola virus has infected 51 people and killed 16 in an area near Uganda’s border with Democratic Republic of Congo, U.S. health experts said on Thursday. Analysis of samples taken from some of the victims show it is a previously unknown type of Ebola, a team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

 

 

 

DECEMBER

 

Unknown to us on the first of the month is that an outbreak among people of the H5N1 virus has been going on in Pakistan for more than a month. 

 

We will get our first inkling on the 11th.

 

 

  • Dec 1st : SEOUL (Thomson Financial) - A South Korean duck farm has reported a suspected bird flu outbreak, prompting sterilization by health officials, the Agriculture Ministry said Tuesday. 'Health officials have been sterilising a farming village in Jincheon where ducks showed symptoms of infection by avian influenza,' a ministry spokesman said.

 

  • Dec 3rd: NANJING -- A man in east China's Jiangsu province died of bird flu on Sunday, the provincial health department reported.   The 24-year-old man, surnamed Lu, developed fever, chills and other symptoms on November 24 and was hospitalized on November 27 after being diagnosed "lower left pneumonia". Lu's illness deteriorated in the hospital and died on Sunday. (Lu's Father will contract the disease and recover).

 

  • Dec 4th: 4  – The United Nations agriculture agency warned today that continued vigilance is needed to avert a global pandemic of avian influenza as Chinese health officials reported a new case of fatal infection in a human.

 

  • Dec 5th: KAMPALA (AFP) — The Ebola virus has killed two doctors in western Uganda, bringing the toll to 21 since the strain first appeared in September, an official said on Wednesday.

 

  • Dec 5th: VietNamNet Bridge - Deputy Head of the Veterinary Agency Dau Ngoc Hoa on Tuesday warned that bird flu epidemics caused by new bird flu strains have appeared in Asia and the rest of the world and can enter Vietnam anytime. In the past two weeks, several Asian countries and territories reported new bird flu epidemics, caused by mutated strains such as H7N3 in South Korea and H7N8 in Canada.

 

  • Dec 7th:  (Reuters) - Benin has discovered two outbreaks of bird flu among poultry in different locations which it suspects to be the deadly H5N1 strain, a senior health official said on Friday. "We have taken samples which we have already sent to Italy to be confirmed but we are convinced that these (bird) deaths are due to the H5N1 strain of bird flu," Julien Toessi, a senior public health official, told Reuters in an interview.

 

  • Dec 7th: BEIJING (AP) -- The father of a Chinese man who died of bird flu has also been infected with the H5N1 virus that causes the disease, the World Health Organization reported Friday, saying it could not rule out the possibility of human-to-human infection.

 

  • Dec 8 (Reuters) - A fourth centre of the H5N1 bird flu virus has been found in central Poland, about 50 km (30 miles) from three sites found last week, chief veterinary officer Ewa Lech said on Saturday. The emergency services, following a standard procedure, set up a safety perimeter around the sites.

 

  • Dec 10th: Chinese Spin On Father-Son Cluster - OFFICIALS confirmed that the bird flu virus that killed a man and infected his father in Jiangsu Province was a "poultry-originated virus" and cannot spread from person to person, Mao Qun'an, spokesman of the Ministry of Health, said in a press conference this morning. The H5N1 virus has not mutated according to the gene analysis of the virus, Mao said. The cause for the two infections was still being investigated, as both had no contact with poultry before becoming ill.

 

  • Dec 11th: Jakarta (ANTARA News) - An Indonesian woman who sold ornamental plants has died here with officials suspecting she may be the nation's 92nd bird flu death, an official from the agriculture ministry said Tuesday. The 28-year-old woman, Mutiah, from the satellite city of Tangerang west of Jakarta, died at a hospital in the capital Monday after showing signs of the H5N1 virus, a doctor at the agriculture ministry's bird flu centre told AFP.

 

  • Dec 11th: And So It Begins . . . - ISLAMABAD: Three suspected cases of human-to-human transmission of bird flu virus have been detected in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), sources told The Post on Monday. Of these three cases, two people died and the Ministry of Health has collected samples to determine the cause of their deaths. (NOTE: The major media outlets won't have this story for 3 more days.  FLUTRACKERS had this story hours before I did.)

 

  • December 11 (RIA Novosti) -Some 35,000 birds have died from bird fluu since late November at a poultry farm in southern Russia's Rostov Region, a spokeswoman for the local emergencies ministry said Tuesday. Marina Abramchenko said the birds started dying November 29 from the lethal H5N1 virus at the farm, which holds some 500,000 birds, adding that quarantine restrictions have been introduced in the area.

 

  • December 12, 2007 - Ministry of Health -A 47-year old man known as "M", from Cipondoh subDistrict, Tangerang Municipality in Banten Province is infected with the H5N1 influenza virus, according to tests conducted by the Health Research and Development Center of the Ministry of Healthand the Eijkman Institute in Jakarta. Overall, Indonesia has now recorded 115 confirmed human H5N1 cases and 92 fatalities. The case fatality rate now stands at 80%. Up to today, Banten Province has recorded 20 bird flu positive cases with 16 fatalities.

 

 

  • Dec 13th : ISLAMABAD: For the first time in the history of Pakistan, Bird Flu influenza has been confirmed among human beings after two brothers died at a local hospital in Peshawar. According to spokesman of Health Ministry, two brothers Muhammad Ilyas and Tariq working in a poultry farm in Mansera suffered flu, few days back that later turned to be critical in the form of Bird Flu influenza (H5N1). They were admitted to a local hospital in Peshawar where on Monday they died.

 

  • Dec 14th : Around half a million birds in Russia's south are due to be culled following an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in the Rostov region. Health officials are carrying out a massive vaccination programme against the virus.

 

  • 14 December The Ministry of Health in Myanmar has confirmed the country's first case of human infection with the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The case is a 7-year-old female from Kyaing Tone Township, Shan State (East).

 

  • Dec 14: The Health Ministry on Friday confirmed that five people had been affected by bird flu, but challenged the veracity of two reported deaths linked to the H5N1 infection. Confirming the bird flu cases, federal health secretary Khushnood Lashri said the infected patients had been quarantined and precautionary steps were being taken in cooperation with the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock to check further spread of the disease. (Note: The Major Media will finally begin reporting on this story this evening- It will be a global story tomorrow).

 

  • Dec 15th: BERLIN - Two domestic chickens in eastern Germany have tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, regional authorities said Saturday. The birds were kept with nine other chickens in the Oberhavel region, northwest of Berlin, Brandenburg state's Agriculture Ministry said.

 

The Pakistan story continues to evolve, and grow, over the next few days, with news reports (and changing details) every few hours.

 

 

  • Dec. 15 (Helen Branswell Reporting), Authorities in Pakistan have announced that country's first reported cases of H5N1 avian flu in a cluster of family members which may have involved human-to-human transmission.

 

 

  • Dec 16th: (Helen Branswell Reporting) - Meanwhile, U.S. public health authorities have confirmed they conducted H5N1 testing on a man who had recently visited Pakistan and was complaining of mild respiratory symptoms. The man, who officials will only identify as having a link to the cluster, is said to have been concerned he might have been infected."The individual went to his private physician after returning from Pakistan, and discussed this with his physician," said Claire Pospisil, a spokesperson for the New York State department of health.Pospisil said the doctor contacted the local health department in Nassau County, where the man lives, and they collected samples for testing. The tests came back negative.

 

  • Dec 17 (KUNA) -- A new case of avian flu was discovered at an ostrich farm in Kharj Governorate, Riyadh, the Agriculture Ministry announced Monday.Saudi Press Agency (SPA) quoted a ministry statement as saying that three barns holding 22,500 ostriches were closed off and all the birds were culled in line with safety measures taken under such conditions.

 

 

  • Dec 19th: KUWAIT  (Agencies): An Indian man and his son who is believed to be suffering bird flu have been quarantined in Kuwait, reports Al-Wasat daily.  The disease was discovered by chance when the man was on his way to Hyderabad aboard an Indian flight No IC862. When an immigration officer asked the man about his son, the man reportedly told the officer that his son who was leaving on the same flight with him ‘may be’ suffering from bird flu.  (Note: Absolutely no follow up on this story in 10 days)

 

  • Dec 19 (Reuters) - Pakistan said on Wednesday there was no threat of a pandemic from bird flu, as World Health Organisation experts carried out tests in the country's northwest after eight people were infected by the virus.Pakistani authorities confirmed the eight cases at the weekend, including one death.

 

  • Dec 19th: (Potentially a big story down the road) Washington - Researchers have identified a new strain of swine influenza--H2N3--which belongs to the group of H2 influenza viruses that last infected humans during the 1957 pandemic. This new strain has a molecular twist: It is composed of avian and swine influenza genes.

 

  • Dec 20th: Berlin - A fresh bird-flu outbreak has been discovered in Germany, with a state laboratory confirming the presence of the H5N1 virus, an official veterinarian said Thursday. The infected bird was in a private hen-run at Bensdorf, a village 85 kilometres west of Berlin, said state of Brandenburg vet Hans- Georg Hurttig. All 30 fowls were immediately killed and removed.

 

  • Dec 22nd: Geneva (dpa) - The World Health Organization said Friday it was impossible to say whether a case of bird flu in China involving a 52- year-old man was due to human-to-human transmission - but, even if it was, it was down to very close contact between the victims.

 

 

  • Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- A four-year old child from Vietnam's northern Son La province has recently died after showing bird flu symptoms, local newspaper Labor reported Wednesday.

 

  • Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- An Egyptian woman has died from theH5N1 strain of bird flu in the Beni Suef Governorate, some 120 km south of the Egyptian capital of Cairo, the Egyptian Nile TV channel reported on Wednesday.

 

  • Dec 27 (Reuters) - Two Egyptians have tested positive for the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, a day after an Egyptian woman died of the disease, Egypt's health ministry said on Thursday. "There are two cases today, one in Damietta and one in Menoufia... Today lab results confirmed that they are infected with bird flu," Amr Kandeel, head of communicable disease control at the health ministry, told Reuters.

 

 

  • Dec 29th :  (Xinhua) -- The latest bird flu patient was discharged from an unidentified hospital on Dec. 26 in the eastern province of Jiangsu, local health authorities said.  After being treated for about 20 days, the patient, surnamed Lu, 52, had recovered sufficiently to leave under the care of family members, the Jiangsu Provincial Health Department said.

 

(If any other big stories occur before midnight New Years Eve, they will be added)

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