Tja... als het fout gaat, dan gaat het ook in 1 keer echt goed fout. Tegen een pandamie met +6 miljard mensen valt niet zoveel te beginnen. Het wordt een ongenadige veldslag (als het tot een outbreak komt).quote:Bron : CNN.COM
Experts: No quick fix for bird flu
Tuesday, October 11, 2005; Posted: 10:51 p.m. EDT (02:51 GMT)
HHS secretary Mike Leavitt dips his feet in disinfectant after visiting a chicken farm in Thailand on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON, (Reuters) -- If vaccines and drugs are available too late to stop bird flu, then what can be done to battle H5N1 avian influenza if it spreads to people? Not a lot, experts say.
If a pandemic emerges in the coming year, there will not be enough supplies of drugs or vaccines to stop it and basic medical equipment that could slow its spread is also lacking.
World leaders have been stepping up their efforts to battle avian influenza in recent weeks, holding meetings, making international visits and ordering vaccines and drugs.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and a contingent of U.S. and World Health Organization flu experts are visiting affected southeast Asian nations this week and diplomats are working to make better alliances for sharing information quickly about any human outbreaks.
But many experts agree that little real progress has been made in stopping the spread of H5N1 bird flu.
"To believe that you can contain this locally is to believe in fairy tales," said Mike Osterholm, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Minnesota who has advised the U.S. government on avian flu and warned of the danger of a flu pandemic for years.
World Health Organization officials say many countries still seem to be reluctant to share information and to ask for help if the pandemic begins within their borders.
Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO's assistant director-general for communicable diseases, told Britain's Times newspaper that cooperation had worsened since the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed about 800 people before it was contained.
"That was a time when we were really working together as an international community of academics, politicians, public health experts. Everybody really was so focused," the newspaper quoted Chan as saying.
Not scary enough yet
"Everybody was trying to do his or her best to contain the spread of this disease. The thing with avian flu is we are not yet in a pandemic."
The H5N1 bird flu virus has killed at least 65 people in four Asian nations since late 2003, and has killed or forced the destruction of tens of millions of chickens, ducks and geese.
Experts say it is mutating steadily and fear it will eventually acquire the changes it needs to spread easily from person to person. If it did, it could sweep around the world in months or even weeks and could kill millions of people.
Even in advanced nations like the United States, little has been done to help provide even basic care for pandemic flu patients, the American College of Emergency Physicians said.
"Many hospital emergency departments in this country are operating at, or over current capacity," said ACEP president Dr. Rick Blum.
"We as a nation, have poured millions of dollars into preparedness, but virtually none of that has gone to the one place that is the true first response to something like a flu epidemic, or a hurricane, or a terrorist attack -- the nation's emergency departments."
And even if the drugs and vaccines were in place, it would take immediate detection of a mutated virus in a group of people and immediate action to contain it.
That would mean having diagnostic tests and experts on hand in rural and remote parts of Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia and other countries to immediately test patients with flu-like symptoms and then isolate and treat them and their families.
"If you can't do it with the speed of a smoke alarm and a fire truck, you don't have a chance in hell of stopping this," Osterholm said in a telephone interview.
Animal experts say good hygiene could help contain H5N1 before it spreads to people.
Measures would include penning in ducks and chickens, who often wander freely on Asian farms, allowing the spread of virus from animal to animal and perhaps allowing it to spread in droppings.
Leavitt inspected a Thai farm on Tuesday where a shoe bath, disinfectant room and plastic netting had been installed. (Full story)
But few farms have such equipment, said Alejandro Thiermann, President of the International Animal Health Code at the Paris-based animal health body OIE.
"There is much talk about humans but not about birds," Thiermann said, echoing complaints from other U.S. experts.
Weet iemand hoe het bij de Spaanse griep er aan toe ging? Vielen vooral ouderen en kinderen ten prooi aan het virus of trof het virus alle lagen van de bevolking?quote:Op woensdag 12 oktober 2005 22:57 schreef Drugshond het volgende:
Tja... als het fout gaat, dan gaat het ook in 1 keer echt goed fout. Tegen een pandamie met +6 miljard mensen valt niet zoveel te beginnen. Het wordt een ongenadige veldslag (als het tot een outbreak komt).
Teletekst nu..quote:***************************************
Vogelgriep Turkije is H5N1-variant
***************************************
BRUSSEL De vogelgriep in Turkije blijkt
de voor mensen gevaarlijke H5N1-variant
te zijn.Dat heeft de Europese Commissie
bekendgemaakt.Gisteren besloot Brussel
al de importstop van Turks pluimvee te
verlengen tot april.
In Zuidoost-Azië overleden al ongeveer
zestig mensen aan deze variant van de
vogelgriep.Die wordt overgedragen van
dieren op mensen.
Ook in Roemenië is bij drie eenden de
vogelgriep vastgesteld.Het is nog niet
duidelijk of het ook daar om de variant
H5N1 gaat,maar uit voorzorg heeft de
Europese Commissie vanochtend een
importverbod ingesteld.
http://edition.cnn.com/20(...)u.birdflu/index.htmlquote:BRUSSELS, Belgium -- A strain of bird flu found in Turkey is dangerous to humans, the European Union's health chief has said.
"The virus found in Turkey is avian flu H5N1 high pathogenic virus," EU Health and Consumer Protection chief Markos Kyprianou told a news conference in Brussels on Thursday.
The H5N1 bird flu strain has killed or forced the slaughter of millions of birds across Asia and killed more than 60 people since 2003. Kyprianou said the EU executive did not yet know whether the cases of avian flu discovered in Romania were of the same virulent strain.
He recommended seasonal flu vaccinations for all citizens as a precaution to deal with a potential bird flu pandemic.
Earlier Thursday the EU banned the import of live birds, poultry meat and feathers from Romania after officials there confirmed positive tests for the presence of bird flu.
An emergency meeting of EU veterinary experts was to be held later in the day to try to determine which strain of flu had been found, The Associated Press reported.
Romania's chief veterinarian Ion Agafitei told Reuters that scientists detected the H5N1 bird flu virus in samples taken from three ducks found in the Danube delta.
"We eventually isolated the avian flu virus in the samples taken from the three ducks," Agafitei told Reuters by telephone.
"We have so far culled 3,000 poultry and we will continue to do so at a rapid pace," said Mihai Carciumaru, the mayor of Ceamurlia de Jos in the Danube delta, where the three infected ducks were found last week.
"Today, we need to cull 15,000 more birds to contain the disease," he told Reuters. The mayor also said authorities had sealed off the village.
Test results released Wednesday by the European Commission had been negative, raising hopes that the highly contagious disease had not yet reached Europe.
But the EU said then it planned to extend until next April its ban on imports of live birds and feathers from Turkey, where an outbreak of avian influenza was discovered at the weekend at a farm near the Aegean and Marmara seas.
"All the virological tests carried out to date in Romania have failed to identify the presence of the avian influenza virus. Every day that passes ... reassures us that avian influenza is not in fact present in Romania," EU Commission spokesman Philip Tod told reporters, Reuters reported.
"We hope in light of that report ... to conclude ... that avian influenza is not present in Romania," he added.
Experts fear that the virus, known to pass to humans from birds, could mutate and start to spread easily from person to person, potentially killing millions around the world.
Amid fears that the virus might be creeping closer to the European Union's borders, the EU executive announced that Thailand, whose poultry sector has been ravaged by bird flu, had offered its assistance to the EU.
"Thailand has great expertise in this area," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told a joint news briefing with visiting Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Bird flu began sweeping through Thai poultry flocks in late 2003, all but wiping out markets for what was then the world's fourth largest poultry exporter.
With pharmaceutical companies under pressure to increase output of drugs to fight any human pandemic, Switzerland's Roche Holding said it was enlisting the help of other specialized firms in producing its Tamiflu antiviral treatment, Reuters reported.
Tamiflu is the most effective antiviral drug available for avian flu. There are fears of a shortage if the virus spreads widely among humans.
Roche said that while it was outsourcing some stages of its production it would not surrender the patents that protect the treatment and it had no plans to farm out the entire production process to other companies, not least because of its complexity.
"We are already collaborating with several specialist companies on the production process for Tamiflu," a spokesman for Roche said. "This has nothing to do with the patent."
Dat waren voornamelijk 20-40 jarigen, no kiddingquote:Op donderdag 13 oktober 2005 01:26 schreef Steijn het volgende:
[..]
Weet iemand hoe het bij de Spaanse griep er aan toe ging? Vielen vooral ouderen en kinderen ten prooi aan het virus of trof het virus alle lagen van de bevolking?
Volgens mij niet, eerst was Roemenie verdacht, gisteren niet meer, en hernieuwde tests maken het nu toch weer verdacht. Definitief antwoord zou morgen komen.quote:Op donderdag 13 oktober 2005 13:42 schreef MissHobje het volgende:
Jammer dat ik vanacht teletekst niet heb kunnen posten.. want er stond dus dat in Roemenie het allemaal loos alarm was enzo.
En nu ineens zijn er toch gevallen bekend.
Is het meer omdat de media het ook niet weet en schrijven maar wat ?
Dat was toch al een gegeven feit, niet dan?quote:Op donderdag 13 oktober 2005 14:04 schreef kippenek het volgende:
We gaan dus allemaal dood.
Dat wel, maar de meesten hadden gehoopt het nog een fiks aantal jaren uit te kunnen stellen denk ik.quote:Op donderdag 13 oktober 2005 14:10 schreef indahnesia.com het volgende:
[..]
Dat was toch al een gegeven feit, niet dan?
Het stond er dus wel.. dat was het gekke..quote:Op donderdag 13 oktober 2005 13:54 schreef indahnesia.com het volgende:
[..]
Volgens mij niet, eerst was Roemenie verdacht, gisteren niet meer, en hernieuwde tests maken het nu toch weer verdacht. Definitief antwoord zou morgen komen.
quote:Op donderdag 13 oktober 2005 13:28 schreef Whiskers het volgende:
[..]
Dat waren voornamelijk 20-40 jarigen, no kiddingbron
is er vandaag toch al gekomen? t' gaat idd om dat H5 en nog wat-virusquote:Op donderdag 13 oktober 2005 13:54 schreef indahnesia.com het volgende:
[..]
Volgens mij niet, eerst was Roemenie verdacht, gisteren niet meer, en hernieuwde tests maken het nu toch weer verdacht. Definitief antwoord zou morgen komen.
quote:Op donderdag 13 oktober 2005 18:13 schreef Pieldeprutkarbonkel het volgende:
Ramen dicht en geen ei of kip meer eten Marietje !
H5N1quote:Op donderdag 13 oktober 2005 18:07 schreef Marietje_34 het volgende:
[..]
is er vandaag toch al gekomen? t' gaat idd om dat H5 en nog wat-virus![]()
Is hetzelfde als "Blijf uit de buurt van mensen met een baard"quote:Op donderdag 13 oktober 2005 18:05 schreef Pieldeprutkarbonkel het volgende:
Hoorde net op de radio "niet in de de buurt van trekvogels komen"![]()
Hoezo paniek zaaien?
Ik vond net een veer in de tuin, ik heb de EOD maar vast gebeld voor de zekerheid.quote:Op donderdag 13 oktober 2005 20:04 schreef Doderok het volgende:
Waar ligt dat donskussen ook alweer?
Net een variant op de poederbrief bedacht...
idd, en dat dat komt omdat die voornamelijk in de loopgraven lagen en dus kwetsbaarder waren is helaas ook een sprookjequote:
Ook lekker..quote:Turkish medical staff on Friday tested nine people for possible bird flu, a day after European health officials confirmed the arrival of the deadly H5N1 strain in the country.
European Union veterinary experts are holding crisis talks on the spread of bird flu to examine the risk that migratory birds might pose for the 25-nation bloc.
European Commission spokesman Philip Tod told the BBC : "The outcome that we expect from this meeting is for the standing committee to vote on the commission proposal for a decision on preventative measures concerning avian flu."
"The measure includes a requirement for member states to reduce the risk of possible contact between wild birds and poultry, especially in high risk areas, such as wetlands or other areas going to be frequented by migratory birds."
He said it would be up to member states to define those areas at risk and to apply the necessary measures.
The European Commission said on Thursday the bird flu outbreak in Turkey was indeed H5N1 and advised Europe to prepare for a pandemic. Romania must wait another 24 hours because of a customs delay to find out if it also has the virulent H5N1 strain.
Turkish health officials kept nine people from the western town of Turgutlu under observation on Friday and carried out tests after the death of 40 of their pigeons, state-run Anatolian news agency said.
"Acting on a tip-off, we took the family which owned the pigeons and the neighbors who made the tip-off, in all nine people, to the hospital," the agency quoted local health official Osman Ozturk as saying.
"There is no sign of illness in the nine people, but we have taken all the people who have been in contact with the birds under observation," he said.
No human cases of the disease have been reported in Europe and the major threat of a human pandemic is still in Asia, experts believe. Bird flu has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003.
The World Health Organization in Geneva sought to calm fears, saying evidence showed H5N1 did not spread easily from birds to humans.
But a senior WHO official in the Philippines said the international community needed to raise about $260 million to fight bird flu in Southeast Asia.
To calm the public, the Turkish and French prime ministers made a point of eating chicken.
Also Thursday, the EU announced it would ban imports of live birds, poultry meat and other poultry products from Romania. Imports of live birds and feathers from Turkey have been banned since Monday.
On Friday, France announced it had banned poultry imports from Turkey and Romania, in accordance with the EU decision.
Avian flu is transmitted to humans only if they eat or live in very close contact with infected birds. But scientists say H5N1 could mutate into a form that could pass between humans.
Migratory birds are a natural reservoir of avian influenza viruses and do not usually become sick when infected. Domestic poultry die quickly when infected.
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