birdflu new bio terrorism weapon

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New bird flu strain may be bioterrorism, says BIN
Bagus BT Saragih, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | National | Thu, January 10 2013, 7:00 PM
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Indonesia’s top intelligence agency has scrutinized the spread of a new strain of the avian flu virus that has killed thousands of ducks over the past few months, saying the disease could be a form of biological weapon used by foreign countries.

“My agency has been following this phenomenon since the beginning. We have to stay alert as the global development of biological weapons has been very fast. In the future, this kind of biological attack will be used in wars,” National Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief Lt. Gen. Marciano Norman said at the State Palace on Thursday.

However, an intelligence investigation had yet to find any proof that the current bird flu outbreak in some places across Indonesia was a form of biological attack or a test of biological weapons by foreign countries, he added.

“We are closely monitoring developments. We cannot jump to conclusions without strong proof,” he added. “We are asking relevant bodies with relevant competence to dig deeper into the new virus while we will back them up.”

Coordinating Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Minister Djoko Suyanto echoed Marciano’s statement. “Since the allegation came to us, we have formed a team to delve into it. The team comprises of BIN and the Health Ministry, among others,” he said.

Djoko agreed that it was possible that the virus might have been "engineered" for certain interests. “The allegations represent good input for us to stay vigilant to the possibility,” he said.

The government has asked regions across the country to begin taking measures to anticipate the new bird flu virus, identified as H5N1 clade 2.3.2.

In Bantul, Yogyakarta, the new virus strain has killed more than 1,000 ducks. The same strain also reportedly killed hundreds of ducks in Central Java and in East Java.

The Central Java provincial administration has recorded nearly 200,000 cases of duck deaths in 28 regencies and cities since September 2012.

Over 6,000 ducks were reported to have been infected with the virus in the regencies of South, Central and East Lampung.

In Payakumbuh, West Sumatra, known as the province’s main production center of poultry products, the virus killed nearly 2,000 ducks in December 2012, while in Sidenreng Rappang, South Sulawesi, some 25,500 birds have reportedly died since December 2012.

C. Java to distribute new bird flu vaccines in Feb
Ainur Rohmah, The Jakarta Post, Semarang, Central Java | Archipelago | Wed, January 09 2013, 3:45 PM
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The Central Java administration will start distributing in February vaccines for a new strain of bird flu, identified as H5N1 clade 2.3.2, that has killed thousands of ducks in Yogyakarta, Central Java and East Java.

Central Java Animal Husbandry Agency chief Whitono said on Wednesday that the master seed of the vaccines--discovered last December in Sukoharjo, Central Java--was currently being produced by the Agriculture Ministry’s Animal Husbandry Department.

“It takes between a month and a month and a half to multiply the vaccines. God willing the new vaccines will start circulating within the first week in February,” he said.

In the meantime, poultry farmers are obliged to comply with appropriate bio-security measures, especially after directly handling poultry, according to Whitono.

They were also advised to use the vaccines for the older avian flu strain of clade 2.1.3 which killed chickens before the new vaccines arrived, he added.

The agency reported that more than 196,233 ducks had died from the new virus in 28 regencies and cities in the province. (han)

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Deadly GM flu research that could 'wipe out significant portion of humanity' set to restart
Flu experts overturn self-imposed ban on creating mutant firms of the H5N1 bird flu virus
They claim the risky research is needed to prepare in case it naturally mutates to human transmissible form
But leading experts condemn decision to restart research into genetically modified versions of the virus
Humans can only currently catch H5N1 from infected birds, but when they do it is usually fatal
By DAMIEN GAYLE
PUBLISHED: 09:33 GMT, 24 January 2013 | UPDATED: 15:32 GMT, 24 January 2013
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Scientists last night ended a voluntary ban on creating mutant forms of bird flu, despite warnings that an accidental release could kill millions of people.
Research into H5N1 transmission stopped a year ago amid fears information about how to create potentially dangerous viruses could be used for bioterrorism.
The self-imposed moratorium came after two teams independently discovered how to mutate the virus so that it could be transmitted through the air between humans.

Deadly: The H5N1 strain of bird flu can currently pass from birds to birds, and from birds to humans, but not between humans. When it does infect a human, it is usually fatal
However, other leading scientists condemned the decision to go ahead with the research, with one warning an 'accidental release could wipe out a significant portion of humanity.'
Forty of the world's leading flu researchers voluntarily halted investigations into the airborne transmission of the H5N1 avian flu strain last January, following public outrage over the work.
Announcing the decision to resume studies in a letter published in the journals Science and Nature last night, they said the work would only be carried out in the most secure sites in countries that agree it can go ahead.
That will allow work to start again in key laboratories in the Netherlands and elsewhere but not yet in the U.S or U.S.-funded research centres, pending further safety and security guidelines there.


Flu experts said they have recognised the fears over their risky studies of the pathogen and worked hard to calm them, and now it is time to push on.
They say the studies are essential for a deeper understanding of H5N1, which many fear could one day spark a lethal pandemic in humans.
'We want the world to be better prepared than we currently are when an H5N1 virus causes a pandemic,' said Yoshihiro Kawaoka of Tokyo University, a leading researcher on avian flu.
'We understand the risks associated with our research and we take every precaution to conduct H5N1 virus experiments safely.'
'Should we be trying to engineer in the laboratory a virus so dangerous that a release could wipe out a significant portion of humanity? I vote no'
Sir Richard Roberts, genetic engineering expert and Nobel Prize winner
He told reporters on a teleconference the research would boost efforts to develop global flu 'biosurveillance', early warning systems, as well as better flu drugs and vaccines.
But other scientific experts warned that the potential risks of going ahead with the research outweighed the possible benefits.
Former government chief scientist Professor Lord May told The Independent: 'As this research become more widely known and disseminated, there is the opportunity for evil people to pervert it.
'My other concern is the statistics of containment are not what they ought to be.'
Genetic engineering expert Sir Richard Roberts, who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1993, said the decision had been 'made by a small group of self-interested scientists' and made 'a mockery of the concept of informed consent'.
'Should we be trying to engineer in the laboratory a virus so dangerous that an accidental release could wipe out a significant portion of humanity?' he asked. 'I vote no.'

Hazard to public health: A bird flies away from an Indonesian public health officer who tries to catch it as they kill birds in Jakarta, Indonesia following an outbreak in the country in 2006
In the open letter announcing the lifting of the ban, flu researchers from the U.S., China, Japan, Britain, the Netherlands, Canada, Hong Kong, Italy and Germany admitted their research was not without risks.
'However, because the risk exists in nature that an H5N1 virus capable of transmission in mammals may emerge, the benefits of this work outweigh the risks,' they added.
Wendy Barclay, a flu virologist at Imperial College London and one of the letter's signatories, said lifting the moratorium would lead to scientific discoveries that would have 'direct consequence for human and animal health'.
All research into H5N1 transmission was halted last January after teams at the University of Wisconsin and the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam made mutant forms that can be transmitted directly among mammals, meaning they could in theory also pass between people.
SERIOUS PANDEMIC THREAT
There are serious concerns that the H5N1 bird flu virus poses an enormous pandemic threat.
The first avian influenza virus to infect humans occurred in Hong Kong in 1997 in an epidemic that was linked to chickens.
Human cases H5N1 have since been reported in Asia, Africa, Europe, Indonesia, Vietnman, the Pacific, and the near East.
Hundreds of people have become sick with this virus, with slightly more than 60 per cent of those who catch it dying of the illness.
The more the avian flu virus spreads, the greater the chances of a worldwide outbreak in humans.
Currently, bird flu can be transmitted from birds to birds, and birds to humans, but not from humans to humans.
When it does pass from birds to humans, it is usually fatal. Scientists are concerned the same mutations needed to make it transmissible among mammals in a lab could one day happen in nature.
When news of the work emerged late in 2011, it prompted the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity to call for the scientific papers about it to be censored to prevent details falling into the wrong hands.
The censorship call sparked a fierce debate about how far scientists should be allowed to go in manipulating infectious agents in the name of research.
Professor Barclay said this had been a 'knee-jerk response from certain quarters previously naive of this approach, expressing horror that scientists were brewing up deadly diseases.'
During the moratorium, the World Health Organisation recommended that scientists explain the biological and other security measures they use to contain the virus and make more effort to show why the research is so important.
'The laboratories have expanded on their containment and security system ... and I think the value of the results has been recognised,' said John McCauley, director of the WHO collaborating centre for flu research at Britain's National Institute for Medical Research.
Ron Fouchier, from the Rotterdam lab which led one of the studies, said his team would start fresh research on H5N1 viruses 'in the next few weeks'.
'We really need to understand how these viruses become airborne,' he told reporters in the teleconference, saying that was the primary goal of the work.
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the thing is ,it only takes one slight change in the RNA to enable H5N1 to be able to infect millions,if this happens sorry when this happens,it may or may not be by chance ,we will never know !!!