Tracking the next pandemic: Avian Flu Talk |
10,000 Doses TAMIFLU -2-IRAQ/in few days? |
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Posted: February 04 2006 at 10:06am |
UPDATE: Tamiflu Sent To Iraq On Human Case Of
Bird Flu-UN -3 Feb 2006 16:42 GMT Copyright © 2006, Dow Jones Newswires (Updates an item at 1445 GMT with details of suspected cases, background) * The quarantine area has several hundred thousand GENEVA (AP)--A large shipment of an anti-flu drug is being sent to Iraq to help contain any outbreak of bird flu following the first confirmed human case of the disease in the country, a top official of the U.N. health agency said Friday. Margaret Chan, the World Health Organization's top official in charge of monitoring communicable diseases, said the manufacturer Roche Holding AG (RHHBY) had agreed to provide enough Tamiflu to treat up to 10,000 people. Chan said the confirmation by an authoritative laboratory in the U.K. made clear that the pulmonary disease that killed a 15-year-old Iraqi girl Jan. 17 was the fatal H5N1 bird flu virus. She noted that specimens from the girl's 39-year-old uncle, who died Jan. 27, and a 54-year-old woman under treatment for respiratory illness were being sent to the U.K. laboratory, but have yet to be tested. "I was on the phone talking to the company, and they are willing to provide in the order of 7,000 to 10,000 treatment courses, and we are trying to ship them as soon as possible," Chan told reporters. But she said it would be days before the medicine arrives in Iraq. Tamiflu, which reduces the symptoms of flu, is the drug that experts say offers the best initial hope of containing a human influenza pandemic in case the bird flu virus mutates into a strain that can easily spread from human to human. It also helps treat individual cases of bird flu caught by humans from poultry. A team of WHO experts and animal health specialists is to arrive in northern Iraq next week to conduct a rapid assessment of the situation in the Sulaimaniyah area, WHO said. The agency credited Iraqi clinicians with "a high level of awareness" in detecting the human case even though there had been no confirmed outbreaks of bird flu in poultry. But it said it underscored the urgent need to investigate the extent of bird outbreaks in northern Iraq and possibly elsewhere. Chan said there had been "a lot of rumors" of other human bird flu cases in northern Iraq, "but those rumors were not substantiated. Our team will work with their experts and will make a proper assessment to find out the size and the extent of the problem." World health officials have been tracking bird flu since if first started killing humans in East Asia in 2003. Since then WHO has confirmed bird flu in 161 people, 86 of whom died. The spread of the disease to Turkey late last year and Iraq this year has led the agency to step up its control efforts. WHO has confirmed 12 human cases in Turkey, four of which were fatal. Further tests of nine more Turkish cases are still pending. Chan said international teams of experts had been deployed to nine countries - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Georgia, Iran, Lebanon, Moldova, Syria and Ukraine - to help local officials prepare and check for signs of a bird flu outbreak in poultry. "All countries are really scrambling to find out what is going on in their countries," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, who is coordinating WHO's global influenza program. "These teams are going out there to help." Fukuda said he expects the teams to find some bird flu in poultry in the region. But Chan stressed that WHO still regards the H5N1 strain of bird flu as difficult for humans to catch. "We expect to see outbreaks in poultry, and we will continue to see sporadic human cases," she said. "This is still pretty much an animal disease. It is a rare disease in humans. Only in situations where there is exposure and contact with infected birds would a human being be exposed to the risk of getting infection." Fukuda said he saw promise in a recent study that put H5 proteins in a vaccine that proved "quite effective" in keeping mice from dying of bird flu. "This is one vaccine among many H5 vaccines that are out there. There are scores of vaccines which have been tried and put in trials and in mice many of these vaccines have been protective," he said. "The key question is whether we can take these vaccines and make them useful for people, make them commercially viable and use them with a lot of people. That's the next step. All of these studies such as the recent one are good news. But we need to go to the next step." But Chan stressed, "That doesn't mean we will have that vaccine very soon. We are still far from being able to use that on a commercial scale within the coming years." (END) Dow Jones Newswires http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp? StoryID=2006020316420013&Take=1 (cut & paste URL manually) Edited by Rick |
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Ella Fitzgerald
Valued Member Joined: January 15 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 586 |
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I really don't get it. Why the delay? If the WHO is a big organization then why would'nt they have their own plane to get supplies to where they are needed. I don't get the sluggishness? This is crazy! |
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“......would come these almost unbelievable stories. If they were believable you're supposed to do something, if they were unbelievable, you didn't have to do anything. A lot of health officers were, and a lot of politicians to whom the health officers would have to con, people they'd have to convince, preferred not to face it. “ “The first reaction of the authorities was, for many of the most important ones, just flat-out denial. This was simply too large an event for them to deal with, not only in policy, but to even to think about constructively. Excerpts from PBS 1918 Spanish Flu documentary http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/influenza/filmmore/reference/ interview/drcrosby3.html Edited by Rick |
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Brilliant Rick. Brillint. You nailed it buddy.
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Flubird
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Yes, Rick, excellent timely reference, we can only hope that those preparing now for a possible pandemic will learn from past experience. After recent announcements about the first US preparations I am waiting for a more detailed plan outlining public health and social policy in the event of a serious outbreak of disease. |
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mightymouse
Valued Member Joined: January 27 2006 Status: Offline Points: 487 |
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Rick, If this goes H-2-H as everyone seems to think, and overwhelmes the world, which it probably will, in spite of all the warnings to governments, etc. then history will have repeated itself again. Is repetetive behavior ingrained in our psyches? Are we really that stupid as a race? Just human rats on the treadmill of time. |
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Nothing matters - Therefore everything matters
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janetn
V.I.P. Member Joined: February 04 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 333 |
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The camels got lost, come on guys give em a break. And yes we are dumb enough to repeat history, I feel like Im watching a rerun of 1918. |
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"And yes we are dumb enough to repeat history, I feel like Im watching a rerun of 1918." The difference this time, is that we can write our own individual scripts for the 1918 sequel. Which is more than could be said for the actors in the 1918 tragedy. |
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