I always cringe when I see headlines that say, "Whatever happened to bird flu?" Usually what comes next is a recital of other "scares" that never materialized, the poster child being Y2K (although it has been strongly argued that the reason Y2K didn't happen was precisely because the business world prevented it with a sustained and intense effort). The article in question, however, just appearing in Nature magazine, still the world's pre-eminent science journal, is authored by one of Nature's senior correspondents, Declan Butler, the same journalist writing in the same journal who helped put avian influenza on the public map as a top public health worry back in 2005 (see our post on that event, here). So it's interesting to see his take on the problem better than three years after Nature's special issue:
Q. Is bird flu affecting fewer people now?Yes and no. The 88 cases and 59 deaths reported last year are lower than the 2006 peak of 115 cases and 79 deaths, when the virus first arrived in Turkey and Egypt and sparked a large number of cases there. Thirty four cases have been reported so far this year.
Vietnam, Thailand and China -- the only countries to report cases from 2003-04 during the current epidemic -- have made progress in controlling the spread of the virus in poultry. Once major hotspots, all three countries have consequently seen a significant drop in human cases.
But cases have since cropped up in 12 other countries, with Indonesia leading at 135 cases -- more than one-third of the worldwide total of 385. A major worry is that Bangladesh, which reported its first human case in May, might go the way of Indonesia because the virus is firmly established in the country's poultry. The apparent current downturn in cases could be short-lived. (Declan Butler, Nature)
Written in question and answer format, Butler surveys the current situation. I'm pretty much in agreement with his assessments, although perhaps not as sanguine as he is the situation is improved as much in southeast asia. The poultry situation, as he observes in his piece, remains dire, with little progress and lots of extension into new areas like the Indian sub-continent, where the disease threatens to become endemic in poultry. He believes the failure to reach the Americas is just a matter of luck and that time will run out, possibly with devastating effects on the North and South American poultry industries.
I'm also not so optimistic that the many national plans that represent the main product of government public health responses represent as much progress as he implies. Eisenhower's famous dictum that it's not the plan but the planning is certainly true, but too many government planners think that The Plan, often represented by hundreds or thousands of pages of details, is A Sufficient Answer. The Plan will be out the window in the first week of a pandemic. Like military battle plans they don't survive the first engagement with the enemy. Too many of them have been produced mechanically, without the genuine planning function involving entire agencies that gives them their main value. Indeed, many of those agencies are in much worse shape than they were three years ago, as governments continue to disinvest or defer investment in critical public health and social service infrastructure. In my view, we haven't made progress in preparedness but have back slid even more.
Vaccine technology continues to be an active and fruitful area of work, and given time we will see significant progress there. Given time. Then, of course, there will be the problem of productive capacity, distribution, access, etc. Vaccines have significant technical problems, but the real obstacles are political and economic. Flu scientist themselves are sometimes part of the ethical and political problem. In a Commentary on the failure of this year's seasonal flu vaccine in the same issue of Nature, Steven Salzberg takes WHO and CDC to task on sharing flu sequences:
The WHO and the CDC have stated publicly that they support placing sequence data in the public domain. Unfortunately, the WHO's own centres do not release all their influenza sequences, and when they do, they often use the Los Alamos National Laboratory influenza database. This database is, as reported on its own website, "a private database for collaborators" -- access is restricted to a private group of subscribers. A closed database limits the free exchange that is so important to scientific research, and it sets the wrong example. (Steven Salzburg, Nature)
Salzburg could have added some of the world's most eminent flu scientists to this list. We've discussed this many times here, but we'll say it again: these scientists are acting unethically when they do not immediately share their sequences via publicly accessible databases. Pandemic influenza isn't just any field of scientific research. It is one of urgent interest to everyone on the planet. Nature could help by refusing to even submit a manuscript for review unless any sequence mentioned in the paper has already been deposited in a publicly accessible database like GenBank.
Butler notes that media interest in bird flu remains high, although it has moved off the front pages to positions deeper in the news. We noted the same thing in our post of yesterday, where avian influenza was the top reported disease in the HealthMap system that datamines newsreports from all over the world for disease outbreak information. Like the virus itself, the big headlines have diminished but the disease is endemic in the news.
The subtitle of Butler's question-titled Nature News piece probably sums it up as well as anything:
Whatever happened to bird flu?
The media frenzy over bird flu has receded, but the threat of a global epidemic still looms large.
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Your readers may wish to take a look at this article I read not long ago. It covers the apparent lull in public and business interest in Bird Flu quite well. It's entitled "So You Think Your Business is No Longer Under Threat From Bird Flu? Think Again.
Nigel Thomas
For free references and tools go to Bird Flu Manual Online or, if you need more comprehensive tutorials and templates, consider Bird Flu D-I-Y eManual for business preparedness and survival.
I believe that the answer is very simple, and very, very clear, here; and I suspect that you, and I, Revere, would have no grounds for argument, on this issue.
"They" have lost control. Completely. Assuming that their wishfull thinking ever lead them to assume that they ever had any claim to that position, to begin with. It couldn't; not on any rational level.
Now, the lying promises to become very, very thick.
Very quickly.
Not good.
I am running a personal bet that BF will suddenly re-emerge in Thailand, China, Indon, Korea, Hong Kong about two weeks after the Olympics after the tourists leave.
Dylan likely has it here but maybe not the reasons like Declan Butler asserts? I hope that I am totally incorrect about this but if not then there is no telling what might happen. So much for game plans if rapidly spreading H5 is suddenly acknowledged.
I'm pretty confident we're not hearing the whole truth about what's going on in China... not unless they're having an amazing run of luck. What actually is going on is basically impossible to know, other than whatever it is, it's not too big (yet) to cover up. My guess (and hope) is that it's just b2b.
Nice post revere, thanks. Appreciate the topic being brought up again and again.
Two things you wrote:
Vaccines have significant technical problems, but the real obstacles are political and economic.
Profound to say the least, this cannot be stated enough and it should be repeated time and again. Key words, as everyone who visits here would know are, political and economic.
but we'll say it again: these scientists are acting unethically when they do not immediately share their sequences via publicly accessible databases.
One would like to believe that this type of behavior would fall by the wayside. Oh a dream in a sometimes dreamless world it is. Once again, this cannot be stated enough ... .
MRK: Bet the opposite way (offset your potential losses; although I do not know what they are -- their nature, or their extent -- I would assume that they are significant).
The "Beast" is not ready, yet; and there is no evidence that it will be, by the end of this summer. The hand that it has been dealt is a very powerful one; it can take its time. There is no reason for it to hurry.
We do not understand it. Why should it worry? It has nothing to fear, from us.
It is quietly going about its business; and that business translates into the near end of us, here. This is only my opinion, of course. It's got time. It's in no hurry.
Patience is a virtue. That is not a "thought;" that is simply an element of surviving, in "this place." Part of the "contract." Unexpressed. Unwritten. Unarticulated. But necessary.
It knows this.
No matter how inexpressible that conviction might seem to be.
We're not the "smartest" creature on the planet; that is a monstrously vain conceit. And almost all of us -- merrily --thoughtlessly, happily engage in it. It's an empty conceit, just the same.
When it chooses to announce its arrival, we will "smell" it; that is the most powerful of our various senses. That is the one that brought us up out of the sea, onto the surface of the land. That is where our "brain" first encounters the "different;" and where it first detects what we are dealing with, here. When it comes, we will smell it.
CUT THE CHAIN OF INFECTIONS !
Spread of avian flu by drinking water:
Proved awareness to ecology and transmission is necessary to understand the spread of avian flu. For this it is insufficient exclusive to test samples from wild birds, poultry and humans for avian flu viruses. Samples from the known abiotic vehicles as water also have to be analysed. Proving viruses in water is difficult because of dilution. If you find no viruses you can not be sure that there are not any. On the other hand in water viruses remain viable for a long time. Water has to be tested for influenza viruses by cell culture and in particular by the more sensitive molecular biology method PCR.
Transmission of avian flu by direct contact to infected poultry is an unproved assumption from the WHO. There is no evidence that influenza primarily is transmitted by saliva droplets: �Transmission of influenza A in human beings� http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473309907700294/a….
There are clear links between the cold, rainy seasons as well as floods and the spread of influenza. There are clear links between avian flu and water, e.g. in Egypt to the Nile delta or in Indonesia to residential districts of less prosperous humans with backyard flocks of birds and without a central water supply as in Vietnam: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no12/06-0829.htm. See also the WHO web side: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/emerging/h5n1background.pdf. That is just why abiotic vehicles as water have to be analysed. The direct biotic transmission from birds, poultry or humans to humans can not depend on the cold, rainy seasons or floods. Water is a very efficient abiotic vehicle for the spread of viruses - in particular of fecal as well as by mouth, nose and eyes excreted viruses. Infected humans, mammals, birds and poultry can contaminate drinking water everywhere. All humans have very intensive contact to drinking water. Spread of avian flu by drinking water can explain small clusters in households too.
Avian flu infections may increase in consequence to increase of virus circulation. Human to human and contact transmission of influenza occur - but are overvalued immense. In the course of influenza epidemics in Germany, recognized clusters are rare, accounting for just 9 percent of cases e.g. in the 2005 season. In temperate climates the lethal H5N1 virus will be transferred to humans via cold drinking water, as with the birds in February and March 2006, strong seasonal at the time when (drinking) water has its temperature minimum.
The performance to eliminate viruses from the drinking water processing plants regularly does not meet the requirements of the WHO and the USA/USEPA. Conventional disinfection procedures are poor, because microorganisms in the water are not in suspension, but embedded in particles. Even ground water used for drinking water is not free from viruses.
In temperate regions influenza epidemics recur with marked seasonality around the end of winter, in the northern as well as in the southern hemisphere. Although seasonality is one of the most familiar features of influenza, it is also one of the least understood. Indoor crowding during cold weather, seasonal fluctuations in host immune responses, and environmental factors, including relative humidity, temperature, and UV radiation have all been suggested to account for this phenomenon, but none of these hypotheses has been tested directly. Influenza causes significant morbidity in tropical regions; however, in contrast to the situation in temperate zones, influenza in the tropics is not strongly associated with a certain season.
In the tropics, flood-related influenza is typical after extreme weather. The virulence of influenza viruses depends on temperature and time. Especially in cases of local water supplies with �young� and fresh influenza-contaminated water from low local wells, cisterns, tanks, rain barrels, ponds, rivers or rice paddies, this pathway can explain H5N1 infections. At 24�C, for example, in the tropics the virulence of influenza viruses in water exists for 2 days. In temperate climates with �older� water from central water supplies, the temperature of the water is decisive for the virulence of viruses. At 7�C the virulence of influenza viruses in water extends to 14 days.
Ducks and rice (paddies = flooded by water) are major factors in outbreaks of avian flu, claims a UN agency: Ducks and rice fields may be a critical factor in spreading H5N1. Ducks, rice (fields, paddies = flooded by water; farmers at work drink the water from rice paddies) and people � not chickens � have emerged as the most significant factors in the spread of avian influenza in Thailand and Vietnam, according to a study carried out by a group of experts from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and associated research centres. See http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=26096&Cr=&Cr1
The study �Mapping H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza risk in Southeast Asia: ducks, rice and people� also concludes that these factors are probably behind persistent outbreaks in other countries such as Cambodia and Laos. This study examined a series of waves of H5N1, a highly pathogenic avian influenza, in Thailand and Vietnam between early 2004 and late 2005. Through the use of satellite mapping, researchers looked at several different factors, including the numbers of ducks, geese and chickens, human population size, rice cultivation and geography, and found a strong link between duck grazing patterns and rice cropping intensity.
In Thailand, for example, the proportion of young ducks in flocks was found to peak in September-October; these rapidly growing young ducks can therefore benefit from the peak of the rice harvest in November-December, at the beginning of the cold: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos � as opposed to Indonesia � are located in the northern hemisphere.
These peaks in the congregation of ducks indicate periods in which there is an increase in the chances for virus release and exposure, and rice paddies often become a temporary habitat for wild bird species. In addition, with virus persistence becoming increasingly confined to areas with intensive rice-duck agriculture in eastern and south-eastern Asia, the evolution of the H5N1 virus may become easier to predict.
Dipl.-Ing. Wilfried Soddemann - Epidemiologist - Free Science Journalist soddemann-aachen@t-online.de http://www.dugi-ev.de/information.html
First doctor do no harm... to the stock price. To a need for a vaccine production plant in the third world, that is unless you are Thailand who up and built the mother themselves with a little aid from the World Bank. But do no harm if you are Indonesia where the loonies are in charge of the looney bin.
I always wondered what Supari was talking about when she wanted the West to build them a facility to produce vaccine to address the inadequacies to the system of vaccine production, costs and etc. All of the aid that they get from just the US in one year is enormous and apparently . Its more than TN/AR/MS and a third of Bama's budget for it got in the last three years for health care. Add in the nearly 1/2 trillion that flowed in there for bird flu suppression and education that was ponied up by the world. So I guess its really not about the money. Its about the Caliphate that she wants to create and on someone elses dime. I wonder which oath she is at odds with, the one to God or the one to Hippocrates?
The Chinese with a variance are no exception. We cant find out anything about whats happening there until at least a month after its happened. The flu there isnt going to be acknowledged at all until after the Olympics. Nope, not going to happen and if those visitors who are generally well heeled get involved on the lower rung of life types and they are sick, then we might see a sudden surge. In our case the flu will eventually pop up somewhere and then the tracebacks like SARS is going to end up in either Indon or China...maybe. So what do we do then? I honestly dont know but it will do something I think sooner than later.
Most identified A versions manifest themselves into humans within about 5 to 10 years after they come down the pike. We are already at that point if you go back to the first detection in 96 in humans. Very few of them that havent ended up causing some or a lot of human sickness.
In the military it was called a commode flush moment. The handle gets pulled and everything goes down the ........No matter what you do or try it just keeps going until its good and ready to stop.
Everything should be found out form ground reality about influenza and bird flu effect before commenting. As there are many instance where one tries to hide the truth to gain some praise.
Holy crap Reveres! When did the comments on this blog get so nutty?
Your readers may wish to take a look at this article I read not long ago.
You.... read.
On topic, it seems an almost insurmountable problem. The same political and economic systems that are preventing us from acting to avert clearly seen disasters (PI, GW) are the systems that evolved to prevent us killing each other over mates and meats.
Democracy (our version, anyway), capitalism, both triumphing over their competitors because they most effectively force us to cooperate, and mitigate how much we can screw each other over. It forces people to oppress themselves - and like it!
But now we come to the crunch: they also entrench the status quo to what now appears to be a pathological degree. The same stability we've benefited from so well is now a monstrous obstacle. The checks and balances that we needed to protect ourselves from each other are now acting against us. We can see the bridge is out, but we took the brakes off this train a long time ago.
If we were better creatures we could have relied on benevolent dictators to make these decisions for us. If we were better creatures we could have decided, en-mass, to dedicate our civilisation's resources to solve the problems we face. But we needed systems that harnessed greed and that constrained the actions of our leaders because history shows us that too many humans are bastards. We can't trust each other. And now that constraint and that greed is looking like ending the very civilisation that was built on it.
Screwed by our own natures.
Magpie:
LOL. Pretty much always. The way we run the place is that we have control of the front page and we let pretty much anyone in on the comments thread. We have banned very few people over the years and those mainly for being rude or consistent thread hijacking or other forms of antisocial behavior. Some people think we are too lenient but we prefer to err on that side than the reverse. No one forces anyone to actually read the stuff in the comment threads and we don't read a lot of it ourselves. The longer it is the less likely we are to read it.
The longer it is the less likely we are to read it.
Oh. Err... oh.
I'll sum up then: humans suck, now it's going to cost us. Our only hope is an alien invasion.
:P