Bird Flu Watch

UK flu vaccine could help control pandemic

Link: UK flu vaccine could help control pandemic - Times Online.

Unlike existing vaccines, it does not have to be reformulated year by year to match the prevalent strains of flu, so could be stockpiled in advance and used as soon as a pandemic strain emerged. Nor does it need to be grown on fertilised hen’s eggs, as the existing vaccines do. It can be produced by cell culture, a technique that is not restricted by the supply of eggs. Related Links     * The sick-note season opens     * Black Swans and Bird Flu     * Flu brings heart attack risk The new results, announced today by Acambis, show that in human volunteers the ACAM-FLU-A vaccine was safe and produced an immune response against its target, a small protein (peptide) called M2e that is found on the surface of all A strains of the flu

Wartime tactic doubles power of scarce bird-flu drug

Link: news @ nature.com

Doctors think they have hit on a way to effectively double supplies of a drug that fights bird flu. Administering Tamiflu alongside a second drug that stops it being excreted in urine means that only half doses of the treatment would be needed. As bird flu threatens to spread, officials are keen to find better treatments. � punchstock Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate) is the main antiflu medicine recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO suggests that, in anticipation of a flu pandemic, countries should stockpile enough for at least a quarter of their population. But although Swiss drugmaker Roche, the sole supplier, has quadrupled its production capacity over the past two years, the current supply is thought to cover just 2% of the world population. Last week, Joe Howton, medical director at the Adventist Medical Center in Portland, Oregon, suggested a way to double supplies, after browsing basic safety data from Roche for a talk on avian flu. The technique was invented during the Second World War to extend precious penicillin supplies. Scientists found that a simple benzoic acid derivative called probenecid stops many drugs, including antibiotics, being removed from the blood by the kidneys. Probenecid is readily available and is still widely used alongside antibiotics to treat gonorrhoea and syphilis, and in emergency rooms, where doctors need their patients to have high, sustained levels of antibiotics in their blood.

Scientists aim to beat flu with genetically modified chickens

Link: Times Online.

THE long-term threat of an avian flu pandemic could be greatly reduced by a project to produce genetically modified chickens that can resist lethal strains of the virus. British scientists are genetically engineering chickens to protect them against the H5N1 virus that has devastated poultry farms in the Far East, with a view to replacing stocks with birds that are not susceptible to influenza. The technique should also offer protection against many other strains of flu with the potential to start a human pandemic, such as the H7 subgroup that was responsible for an outbreak in Dutch poultry in 2003. If chicken populations were to be replaced with transgenic birds that were resistant to flu, it would remove a reservoir of the virus and make it much harder for it to spread to humans and trigger a pandemic.

'Mad Cow' rules will halt advance of flu treatment

Link: Times Online.

BRITAIN will be unable to use a flu treatment that could be critical to fighting a pandemic because of strict rules designed to prevent transmission of the human form of mad cow disease, The Times has learnt. Scientists believe that antibodies taken from the blood of recovered flu patients could be used to treat others who develop the disease, providing a third line of defence against a pandemic after vaccines and antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu. The technique, however, could not be used in the UK because of a ban on British blood products in medical therapies, introduced seven years ago to tackle a theoretical risk of spreading new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). Sir Peter Lachmann, Emeritus Professor of Immunology at the University of Cambridge and a past president of the Academy of Medical Sciences, said that the minuscule chance of contracting vCJD from antibody treatments was far outweighed by their potential benefit in a pandemic.

Is Avian Flu another Pentagon Hoax?

Link: Is Avian Flu another Pentagon Hoax?.

I don't think so ...... but the writer has some interesting points to make nevertheless.

Rumsfeld stands to make a fortune on royalties as a panicked world population scrambles to buy a drug worthless in curing effects of alleged Avian Flu. The model suggests the parallel to the brazen corruption of Halliburton Corporation whose former CEO is Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney’s company has so far gotten billions worth of US construction contracts in Iraq and elsewhere. Coincidence that Cheney’s closest political friend is Defense Secretary and Avian Flu beneficiary Don Rumsfeld? It is another example of what someone has called the principle of modern US corrupt special interest politics: ‘Concentrate the benefits; diffuse the costs’ President Bush has ordered the US Government to buy $2 billion worth of Gilead Science’s Tamilflu. GMO Chickens come home to roost But Tamiflu conflicts are perhaps just the tip of the iceberg of the Avian Flu story. There is high-level biological research underway in Britain and presumably also the United States to develop a genetic engineering method to make chickens and other birds ‘resistant’ to Avian Flu viruses. British scientists are reportedly genetically engineering chickens to produce birds resistant to the lethal strains of the H5N1 virus devastating poultry in the Far East. Laurence Tiley, Professor of Microular Virology at Cambridge University and Helen Sang of the Roslin Institute in Scotland are involved in developing ‘transgenic chickens’ which would have small pieces of genetic material inserted into chicken eggs to allegedly make the chickens H5N1 resistant. Tiley told the Times of London on October 29, ‘Once we have regulatory approval, we believe it will only take between four and five years to breed enough chickens to replace the entire world (chicken) population.’ The real question in this dubious undertaking is which GMO giants are underwriting the research and development of GMO chickens and who will control their products. It is increasingly clear that the entire saga of Avian Flu is one whose dimensions are only slowly coming to light. What we can see so far is not at all pretty.

Vaccine for H5 strains being prepared

Link: Top News Article | Reuters.com.

No one can predict when or where a bird flu virus will mutate into a human pandemic strain, but scientists are preparing so that when it does, they will be ready to pounce on it, a leading virologist said on Friday. While surveillance centers dotted around the globe are keeping an eye on changes in the H5N1 bird flu virus, Dr Jim Robertson and scientists at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Controls (NIBSC) in England are working on vaccines in case it becomes highly infectious in humans. "The big concern about H5 is that it is so virulent, so highly pathogenic. If that virus gets into the human population and retains that virulence you could imagine what would happen," he told Reuters. The NIBSC is one of a few centers in the world which works with the World Health Organization to provide materials to industry to make vaccines. If a pandemic strain is identified, NIBSC researchers will be on the front line in developing tools for an effective vaccine. So far, H5N1, which has killed more than 60 people in Asia, has not mutated to become highly infectious in humans. But NIBSC scientists have made a vaccine using the H5N1 strain from a Vietnamese patient. They do not know it will work against a pandemic strain but are hoping it will provide some protection until a vaccine against the pandemic strain can be produced, which could take up to six months.

Bird flu vaccine to start trials in weeks

Link: Telegraph

Britain's largest drug company said yesterday that a new bird flu vaccine would begin clinical trials within weeks, as peers were told that the effect of a flu pandemic would be "somewhere between major and catastrophic". Jean-Pierre Garnier, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, said that the vaccine would combat the H5N1 strain of flu that has already killed 60 people in Asia. It could be ready by the middle of next year. If a flu pandemic emerges before then, Mr Garnier added, the company would try to produce a vaccine from the mutated strain as quickly as possible. However, this might take six months from the time the strain emerges.

UK Vaccine maker willing to licence

Link: Independent Online Edition > Business News.

GlaxoSmithKline is to signal that it is willing to licence production of its avian flu treatment Relenza to outside manufacturers in order to ensure sufficient supplies to tackle a pandemic and to pre-empt calls that the company be stripped of patent rights on the drug. The UK's largest drug maker is also hoping to advertise the merits of Relenza to governments making contingency plans for a public health emergency, and to avoid the controversy that has dogged Roche, the maker of Tamiflu, which is struggling to keep up with orders.

Bird flu vaccine makers threaten Britain

Link: Bird flu vaccine makers threaten Britain.

British vaccine manufacturers have told the British government they'll hold back on producing potential bird flu shots if they're pushed to produce at a loss. Related Headlines Canada hosts bird flu response summit (October 24, 2005) -- A two-day international summit of 29 health ministers concerned with a potential bird flu pandemic opened in Ottawa Monday. The meeting is intended ... > full story Bird flu fears rise in Britain (October 23, 2005) -- Britain is urging the European Union to ban wild bird imports as bird flu fears escalate following a positive test on a dead parrot. The parrot was ... > full story Vietnam girl developed drug resistant flu (October 15, 2005) -- Researchers have discovered that bird flu found in a Vietnamese girl is resistant to the most popular vaccine. The Washington Post reports that the ... > full story U.S. bird flu threat not an if, but when (October 9, 2005) -- U.S. health officials have adopted the opinion a bird flu pandemic is likely at some point, and swung into high gear to prevent or manage ... > full story British stockpiled flu drug may be useless (October 1, 2005) -- The virus that causes avian influenza in humans appears to be developing resistance to an anti-viral drug the British government has stockpiled. The ... > full story Richard Stubbins, of the U.K. Vaccine Industry Group, told a House of Lords select committee that it was "unreasonable" for the government to expect the industry to build new plants to produce enough vaccine for a pandemic and then leave them to languish, The Telegraph reported. While a vaccine for bird flu can't be created until the strain of the H5N1 virus that can pass between humans is identified, Stubbins said the government wanted 120 million doses of it as soon as it was developed. He said it could take between 10 and 11 weeks to modify a vaccine to a particular strain of the virus and sent it to the vaccine companies, who would then need four to six months before the vaccine was ready.

Vaccine alert as bird flu hits Europe

Link: Guardian Unlimited

Last night, British health officials called for the elderly and children in high-risk groups to seek out the winter flu jab, effectively urging the inoculation of more than 10 million British pensioners and approximately 1million children.