Outbreak News Radio Show

 

# 9908

 

Although we recorded it Thursday night (April 2nd) for Broadcast on Sunday, Robert Herriman’s latest Outbreak News This Week Radio Show is now online.  Robert’s guests included CDC researcher Dr. Ivo Foppa discussing a recent CDC Study: Lives Saved By the Flu Vaccine, along with this humble blogger.

 

Robert, a microbiologist, runs the Outbreak News Today website. 

 

The link to the show can be found below, and an archive of earlier shows is available at this link.  You can follow  Robert Herriman @bactiman63 on twitter as well.   

 

 

Avian influenza update on Outbreak News Radio

Posted by Robert Herriman on April 5, 2015

Mike Coston, Editor of Avian Flu Diary joined me on today’s, Outbreak News This Week Radio Show and I spent a huge portion of the hour-long program on the latest news, updates and analysis concerning avian influenza, both in humans and in birds, here and abroad.

(Continue . . . )

H7N9 And The `Fog Of Flu’

Screenshot taken from http://www.chinacdc.cn/en/  as of 0600 hrs EDT 4/1/13

 

 

# 7049

 

For the newshounds of Flublogia, the past 48 hours have been very busy, as dozens of stories (of widely varying substance and believability) have emerged out of China regarding the H7N9 virus.

 

You’ll find multiple news threads being curated on the two major flu sites (FluTrackers  & Flu Wiki), each filled with machine translated reports from across Asia.

 

Some of these machine translated reports would suggest there are more cases – if not confirmed, at least under suspicion – in China. Additionally, there are `speculative pieces’ – like this one out of Taiwan – that suggest a wider spread of the virus.

 

But how much credence we should give these stories remains very much in doubt. 

 

Some of these reports are attributed to anonymous sources, or are based on next-to-impossible-to-verify messages circulating on Chinese social media sites, like Weibo.  That doesn’t make them false, just hard to corroborate.

 

Like everywhere else in the world, there are political and social agendas in China that can influence how, and what, gets reported online and in the newspapers. 

 

Making matters worse, we often are dealing with machine-translations - which while often quite interesting – lack nuance, and can be difficult to properly interpret. 

 

There is an inevitable `fog of flu’ at the start of almost every disease outbreak that we’ve witnessed over the years; details get confused, different theories are offered, rumors abound, and the narrative gradually changes over time.

 

So my tendency is to take all of these reports with a fairly large grain of salt, and refrain from posting them on AFD until I can get some (admittedly subjective) degree of comfort regarding their veracity and/or value.

 

The good news is, while I doubt they are telling us everything they know, Beijing has been (for them, anyway) unusually forthcoming regarding this outbreak.

 

Viral sequences were deposited at GISAID in a very timely manner, and the China’s CDC website  posted a pretty good Q&A on this virus on Sunday (see graphic at top of page).

 

Actions that would have taken months (if ever) to happen during the SARS outbreak a decade ago in China.

 

Small steps perhaps, but encouraging nonetheless.

The next few days (and possibly weeks) will tell us a lot about this emergent virus, and the threat it could pose. H7N9 may turn out to be little more than an interesting footnote in the varied history of bird flu, or it may become the next big thing.

 

Stay tuned.

Drinking From The Twitter Fire Hose

 

 

# 6387

 

 

Every day I weed through literally hundreds of news stories, press releases, journal articles, and blog posts looking for items that interest me, and I hope, will interest my readers.  

 

I have an RSS feed system that polls 266 different news sources every 20 minutes, and pipes new items to my desktop based on a variety of key words. I rely heavily on the newshounds on FluTrackers and The Flu Wiki, and of course items that come across my Twitter feed.

 

It’s a lot to keep track of, and even with RSS tools and the able assistance of the newshounds on the flu forums, it is easy to miss items. 

 

Luckily, over the past couple of years specialized daily newspapers – with news gleaned from twitter feeds – have sprung up, and they increasingly provide another very useful conduit of internet news.

 

In early 2011 I wrote about some of these internet papers in Getting My Daily Twitter Fix. At the time, I highlighted about a half dozen papers I followed, including:

 

The Emergency Management (EM) Daily 

The microbiology Daily

The Sciencemob Daily

The MicrobiologyBytes Daily

 

Since then, the number of papers I follow has increased, and now includes:

 

The DRJ Digest (Disaster Recovery)

The Business Continuity Daily

The bravethestorm.com Daily

The Healthcare Daily

#Publichealth Daily

And the newest entry, started recently by one of my first twitter contacts going back to 2008 - Andrew Wilson - whom I was lucky enough to meet in Washington D.C. a couple of years ago.

 

Health and Human Services News

 

 

These genre-based newspapers are a terrific way to quickly scan the enormous content published online each day – usually in very specific fields. Each daily edition usually has dozens of linked stories, easily arranged into 6 to 8 broad categories for quick viewing.

 

You can search for newspapers that cover topics you may be interested in at http://paper.li/, and yes, you can create your own online newspaper as well.

 

If you are looking for a better way to keep track of the avalanche of information that flows continually across the twitterverse, pick a couple of papers that cater to your interests, and give it a go.

 

Just as with your Twitter feed, the quality and reliability of the information in these newspapers will depend upon the quality and reliability of the people they follow.  

 

So examine the list of each paper’s daily contributors, and choose your Daily Newspapers wisely. 

 

And as always, Caveat Lector.

Getting My Daily Twitter Fix

 

 

 

#5291

 

For those of us who remember the single-line BBS (bulletin board systems) of the early 1980s, back when MS-DOS 2.11 was king, and a 1200 baud modem was an upgrade, today’s instant communications on the Internet seems almost miraculous.

 

Email didn’t exist back then.

 

But you could leave a message for someone else who used the same BBS system, disconnect, and check back in a day or two for a reply.

 

Times have certainly changed.   Today, between email and Twitter, we can get real-time updates from hundreds of friends in a continual flow of information across our desktops.

 

The problem is, keeping up. 

 

Particularly with Twitter, which can easily send you thousands of `tweets’ in a single day.  

 

I  use a small app (Echofon) added into my Firefox browser that handles tweets very well, holding them in a queue until I choose to view them.

 

While that helps enormously, I still miss out on a lot of valuable content that streams from those that I follow.  Articles and blogs that I really would like to follow up and read, but haven’t the time to click and read as they come across my twitter app. 

 

A couple of months ago I mentioned the Emergency Management (EM) Daily, a `twitter newspaper’ created using paper.li.

 

Every 24 hours this paper is electronically published, with highlights and links to the best content `tweeted’ by those followed by @AllHandsDotNet, which is the twitter  account for http://www.all-hands.net.

 

 

Each edition is apt to have a couple of hundred linked articles, easily arranged into 8 or 9 broad categories for quick viewing.

 

This twitter newspaper has been a godsend, enabling me to go back and pick up on information I had missed. I’ve since added 5 more daily Twitter newspapers to my reading list, and hope to discover more over time.

 

These genre based newspapers are a terrific way to quickly scan the wealth of content published online over the previous 24 hours. 

 

In addition to The EM Daily, I also read:

 

The microbiology Daily

As shared by 93 people on Cesar Sanchez’s Twitter list

 

The Sciencemob Daily

As shared by 118 people on Liz Ditz’s Twitter list

 

 

The MicrobiologyBytes Daily

As shared by MicrobiologyBytes + 33 followed people on Twitter

 

 

The Daily Ren

As shared by Rene F. Najera, MPH + 77 followed people on Twitter

 

 

Food & Agriculture Spotlight

As shared by 212 people on FAO Media Centre’s Twitter list

 

 

You can search for newspapers that cover topics you may be interested in at http://paper.li/, and yes, you can create your own online newspaper as well.

 

 

 

If you are looking for a better way to keep track of the avalanche of information that flows continually across the twitterverse, pick a couple of papers that cater to your interests, and give it a go.

 

Just as with your Twitter feed, the quality and reliability of the information in these newspapers will depend upon the quality and reliability of the people they follow.  

 

So examine the list of each paper’s daily contributors, and choose your Daily Newspapers wisely. 

 

And as always, Caveat Lector.

Drinking From The Fire hose

 

 

# 3882

 

With flu season in the northern hemisphere upon us, and cooler weather bringing the likelihood of new H5N1 bird flu reports as well, the newshounds that work the flu forums are looking at six very busy months ahead.

 

Newshounds are volunteers who spend hours each day searching in the hundreds of online English and Foreign language news sources for information pertaining to pandemic influenza, avian flu, and other emerging infectious diseases.  

 

Their efforts appear on flu forums like Flutrackers, the Flu Wiki, Plan For Pandemic, CurEvents and PFI or in blogs such as Crofsblog,  Chen Qi or Pandemic Information News .

 

Much of what I do in this blog is dependent upon their labors.  While I still do a fair amount of news hounding myself, at least half of the stories I blog about come by way of these hardworking news analysts.

 

I’ve highlighted their efforts a number of times, and always try to hat tip them whenever I use one of their links, but perhaps the best introduction to how they work can be found in an essay entitled:

 

Newshounds: They Cover The Pandemic Front

 

While I select the 3 or 4 (or sometimes more – yesterday I did 10) stories that interest or intrigue me to blog about each day, that doesn’t come close to covering the territory that the newshounds traverse each day. 

 

Their work thankfully is archived on the flu forums, where it is discussed, analyzed, and becomes part of the historical record.  The flu forums have essentially become repositories of flu and infectious disease information, that function like real-time libraries.

 

While there are a half dozen flu forums - all with hard working members - with just 24 hours in a day, I tend to focus my attention on two; Flu Wiki and FluTrackers.   

 

Crof over at Crofsblog quite accurately says that trying to keep up with the flow of information is like trying to drink from a fire hose.  These forums make that task – if not easy – at least a bit less daunting.

 

Both FluTrackers and The Flu Wiki  produce a daily summary of news items, which helps make it easier to pluck out individual news stories from the onslaught of posts. 

 

The Flu Wiki summary is updated in real time, during the day, at the top of each day’s news thread.  Each item has a corresponding link to take you to the original source material (news article, journal article, etc.).   

 

(Unsourced news items are not allowed on the news threads, and are generally frowned upon in Flublogia)

 

Excerpts of the story, and comments, can found below the summary in the body of the news thread.

 

This is what the Flu Wiki Daily Summary looked like yesterday.

 

Australia
•  Teen swine flu victim's muscles 'melted' (Link)

Canada
•  One more death in Ontario, total for province now 28 (Link)
•  Alberta confirms another death, total now 9 (Link)

Indonesia
•  Health Minister Promises International Cooperation (translated) (Link)

Ireland
•  Youth is Ireland's ninth flu death (Link)
•  "Unprecedented" numbers sick with H1N1 (Link)

United Kingdom
•  Swine flu vaccine: drugs regulator casts doubt on one dose schedule (Link)
•  Two more swine flu deaths in Wales (Link)
•  Sir Elton cancels arena concert (Link)
•  Cheerleader in flu jab horror (Link)

 

United States
•  AL: Nursing students get vaccinated as two more H1N1 deaths reported (Link)
•  DE: Delaware death of 15 yr old ruled H1N1-related(Link)
•  KY: two more deaths in Kentucky last week, total now 10(Link)

•  MI: First death confirmed in Kalamazoo, Michigan (Link)

•  MN: Martin County Officials React To H1N1 Deaths (Link)
•  MN: Minnesota Mom Says Swine Flu Led to Son's Death (Link)
•  MO: Health director suspends flu vaccine law (Link)
•  NC: Brunswick County confirmed 1st death, new mom (Link)
•  OR: 800 turned away from Multnomah County swine flu shot site (Link)
•  OR: Josephine County has its first H1N1 death (Link)
•  OR: 2 S. Oregon swine flu patients in critical condition (Link)
•  OR: Josephine County to declare State of Emergency - H1N1 (Link)
•  SC: Joe Wilson's wife diagnosed with swine flu (Link)
•  TX: New Flu Deaths in Dallas & Tarrant (Link)
•  TX: Local Health District Offers Drive-Through FluMist Clinic Friday (Link)

•  WI: Second death in Winnebago County (Link)

 

General
•  Swine flu may protect against bird flu (Link)
•  Human transmits H1N1 flu to ferret(Link)
•  Nearly 5,000 H1N1 Flu Deaths Reported World-Wide (Link)
•  Washing hands won't stop a respiratory virus (Link)
•  GSK's flu vaccine delivers strong response in children with one shot(Link)

 

     *       *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *

FluTrackers takes  a slightly different approach, posting a summary at slightly irregular intervals, but generally every 24 to 36 hours. 

 

The links provided in this case take you to the thread, or post, dealing with that story.  From there you will find links to the original source material.

 

You’ll find the latest summary linked on the front page atop the right hand PANDEMIC FLU HELP column.

 

The FluTrackers summary tends to run a bit larger, and so I’ve only reproduced excerpts below.   These snippets of the Oct 23rd summary represent about half of that summary.

 

 

 

 

China - Hong Kong - Tamiflu-resistant swine flu strain detected

A high-tech, rotating bed already saving lives at Indiana hospitals could be critical in the fight against the H1N1 flu.

U.S. Doctors Answer Flu Questions on New Website

Tracking World Wide Virulence of Swine Flu

Paper - The 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza and indigenous populations of the Americas and the Pacific

Novel H1N1 Vaccine Availabilty

• Algérie - Le vaccin contre la grippe A/H1N1 sera réceptionné à la fin du mois, selon Saïd Barkat - Muscade
• Canada - British Columbia - Novel H1N1 Vaccine Availability
• Canada - Ile-du-Prince-Edouard - Campagne de vaccination - Muscade
• Canada - Quebec - Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean: Un plan qui se précise - Muscade
• Canada - Quebec - H1N1 vaccinations start Monday in Quebec - Pathfinder     

      <SNIP>

• USA - Texas - Novel H1N1 Vaccine Availability - Pathfinder
• USA - Retard dans la livraison de vaccins aux États-Unis - Muscade

Novel H1N1 outbreaks

• Canada - Alberta - La grippe porcine balaie les Territoires du Nord-Ouest (25 communautés sur 33 - 65% des échantillons positifs) - Muscade
• Canada - Alberta - Absentéisme record dans les écoles - Muscade
• Canada - Quebec - Identification des écoles touchées - Muscade
• Canada - Quebec - Trois cas diagnostiqués dans une école de Granby - Muscade

      <SNIP>

• UK - Deaths rise to 128 as A/H1N1 claims younger victims - Shiloh
• USA - California - California Death Toll from H1N1 Swine Flu Virus Grows - Americas hit Hardest - Chuck
• USA - Florida - Swine flu claims life of Seminole County girl - JimO
• USA - Florida - 11 New Deaths Reported in Florida last week – JimO

     <SNIP>

• Vietnam - Swine flu continued to take its toll in Vietnam, as two children in central Danang City and southern Ben Tre Province
  succumbed to the virus. - Dutchy
• ECDC Update - Ironorehopper

Pneumonia and Influenza Like Illnesses (ILI)

• USA - ACHA Pandemic Influenza Surveillance Influenza Like Illness (ILI) in Colleges and Universities - Missouriwatcher
• USA - Massachusetts %ILI week 41 - RNboston

H5N1 outbreaks

• Indonésie - Sumatra Nord - Lubuk Pakam - Cas suspect - forte fièvre + poulets morts - Muscade

Other news

• Transcript of WHO Virtual Press Conference of 6 August 2009 with Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, Director of Initiative for Vaccine Research at WHO Headquarters and Gregory Hartl, Spokesperson for H1N1 - Pathfinder
• Major Nurses Strike and Picket Looms October 30 As RNs to Protest Hospital Gaps in Swine Flu Safety – Chuck

      <SNIP>

• USA - Swine flu vaccine shipments to Massachusetts are running three weeks behind schedule, forcing the state to direct local health departments to cancel vaccine clinics scheduled for next month. - Commonground

Studies

• N Engl J Med. Use of Ribavirin to Treat Influenza - Ironorehopper
• Les virus influenza A pourraient échapper au système immunitaire - Lili
• N Engl J Med. A Novel Influenza A (H1N1) Vaccine in Various Age Groups - Ironorehopper
• Novel Influenza A (H1N1) Outbreak at the U.S. Air Force Academy: Epidemiology and Viral Shedding Duration - Ironorehopper
• Early transmission characteristics of influenza A(H1N1)v in Australia: Victorian state, 16 May – 3 June 2009 - Ironorehopper

Commentaries

• Adjuvants and Cytokines - the Curious Case of IL-6 - SusanC, Snowy Owl
• Why CDC says this year's flu season is "very sobering" - Revere
• Human swine flu in pigs – Revere

 

     *       *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *

 

All of this, as you might imagine, takes an incredible amount of work and dedication.  Scores of these folks work on the forums without pay, and far too often without recognition.   Their work, by the way, is freely shared between forums and with the world.  

 

The expertise of many of these newshounds is remarkable, with some becoming quite adept at translating articles, and knowledgeable about local customs and idioms in places like Indonesia and China. 

 

The various flu forums, while certainly overlapping in some areas, each have found their own niche and style.   Many of us belong to more than one forum, finding different things to value in each venue.  

 

I’d hate to have to choose just one.

Nieman Foundation Launches Guide For Covering Pandemic Flu

 

# 3880

 

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard today announced the launch of a web-based guide for journalists covering pandemic flu.  

 

This is a feature rich and valuable resource, and I’m looking forward to exploring it further.   I’ve placed a link to it in my side bar under Resources & Toolkits.

 

Update:  After spending less than an hour exploring this site, I’ve come away even more impressed. This is a great resource for anyone wanting to know more about pandemic influenza, not just for journalists.   

 

The contributors are a `who’s who’ of science based journalism, and they provide sorely needed context for complex issues.

Based on everything I’ve seen so far, this is highly recommended.

 

 

Excerpts from the press release are below.

 

 

Nieman Foundation Launches Guide to Covering Pandemic Flu

Cambridge, Mass. – The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard today is launching a comprehensive online guide to covering pandemic flu. Written by and for journalists, www.coveringflu.org is a one-stop resource designed to help reporters, editors, producers and other media professionals understand the complexities of the flu story. It also offers guidance and best practices for reporting on the topic.

 

Journalists using the Nieman guide can quickly access essential elements of the flu story and learn from veteran reporters and editors who have covered outbreaks such as SARS, avian influenza, and the first wave of H1N1 in spring 2009. They also can discover how to maintain their independence and continue to exercise rigorous journalistic inquiry when called on by the government and/or public health officials to share messages with the public in times of crisis.

 

As misconceptions about the flu, the H1N1 vaccine, government preparedness and other issues continue to swirl and confuse the public, careful, well researched reporting on the topic is more important than ever. And with both seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccination campaigns and other response measures coming into full swing this fall and winter, coverage that neither sensationalizes nor sugarcoats the news is crucial.

 

(Continue . . .)

CIDRAP: FDA Weighs Peramivir & Headlines

 

 

 

# 3840

 

Tonight CIDRAP has a report by News Editor Robert Roos on recent calls to license the emergency use of Peramivir, an injectable antiviral created by BioCryst, along with a half dozen other news briefs.

 

 

 

FDA faces decision about use of peramivir for H1N1

 

Robert Roos News Editor

Oct 15, 2009 (CIDRAP News) – In response to questions from citizens at a meeting yesterday, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official said the agency would make a decision "fairly soon" about permitting emergency use of the experimental antiviral drug peramivir to help patients severely ill with pandemic H1N1 influenza.

 

The FDA has been reviewing a possible emergency use authorization (EUA) for peramivir, which, like the licensed drugs oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza), is a neuraminidase inhibitor. Peramivir can be given intravenously (IV) or intramuscularly (IM), whereas oseltamivir is taken orally and zanamivir is inhaled as a powder.

 

During a public teleconference of the National Biodefense Science Board (NBSB) yesterday, Aubrey Miller of the FDA Office of Counterterrorism was asked to comment on the status of the FDA's review of an EUA for peramivir for H1N1 patients. The NBSB is an advisory board to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

 

"There should be information or decisions being made fairly soon. That amongst other medical countermeasures are currently being evaluated by the agency," Miller said. "I don't have a specific time frame at this time, because things are under review."

(Continue . . . )

 

Other CIDRAP news stories tonight include:

 

Flu up slightly on US campuses

Hospital uses triage tents for flood of patients

Ill county workers who stay on job could be fired

Massachusetts prioritizes high-risk prisoners for vaccine

Kentucky district targets college students for vaccine

China plans vaccine for hajj pilgrims

 

 

And CIDRAP’s Novel H1N1Influenza Overview page is updated almost continually with the latest information on the virus.   It is a resource that I go to often, and I highly recommend it.

 

 

Novel H1N1 Influenza (Swine Flu)

Last updated October 9, 2009

Agent
Swine Influenza in Pigs
Swine-Origin Influenza in Humans: Historic Perspective
2009 Pandemic: Case Counts and Clinical Features
Pandemic Perspective
Laboratory Testing for the Novel H1N1 Virus in Humans
Community Mitigation Measures
Recommendations for Use of Influenza A H1N1 2009 Monovalent Vaccine
Vaccine Development
Use of Antiviral Agents
Infection Control Considerations
Food Safety Issues
References