H5N1: Chickens engineered to be bird flu decoys

Scientists have engineered chickens that block the spread of avian influenza viruses.

These chickens – which are not intended for human consumption – still got the flu and died, but they didn’t pass the virus on to the healthy chickens they lived with.

These genetically modified chickens (pictured) could one day thwart outbreaks of a global threat to poultry production and human health that has caused the destruction of hundreds of millions of birds and the death of 306 people. But whether these chickens will be safe to eat is yet to be determined.

“Chickens are potential bridging hosts that can enable new strains of flu to be transmitted to humans,” says lead investigator Laurence Tiley of University of Cambridge. “Preventing virus transmission in chickens should reduce the economic impact of the disease and reduce the risk posed to people exposed to the infected birds.”

In this new study, chicken cells produced an RNA ‘decoy’ that resembles the viral genome. It binds to an important part of the virus, preventing its spread.

In particular, the researchers introduced a new gene into these chickens that produces a small molecule that mimics a vital enzyme of the H5N1 flu virus. The decoy tricks the virus’s production machinery into recognizing the decoy instead of the virus’s genome. This makes the enzyme useless, interfering with the replication of the virus.

And none of their cagemates – engineered or not – caught the flu. That means that only one or a few chickens would become infected if the virus entered a flock.

This strategy of developing chickens genetically resistant to infection has advantages over vaccinating the birds. Vaccination, the authors say, still allows the virus to circulate undetected through flocks of chickens, possibly mutating and developing resistance.

It costs approximately $79,000 to produce “a small number of stable transgenic birds you can characterize and breed from,” says study author Helen Sang of University of Edinburgh.

A truly disease-resistant bird wouldn’t be available any time soon, but the chicken method could help develop flu-fighting pigs, ducks, quail and turkeys.

Science reports:

Transgenic chickens could theoretically replace nontransgenic breeds worldwide in a few years, says Michael Greger, director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at the Humane Society of the US. That’s because the trade in both broiler and egglaying chickens has become consolidated in a handful of companies, which essentially determine what stocks are used by chicken farmers worldwide.

It would inevitably be more expensive, not to mention that these companies don’t sell to the vast number of people in the developing world who have a small flock in their backyard or on their rooftop – and that’s where avian influenza has been the most difficult to control [Science].

The study was published in Science last week and was partly funded by Cobb-Vantress, a major international chicken-breeding company.

Image by Norrie Russell, courtesy of Valerie White and The Roslin Institute

H5N1: AVIAN Flu death in Vietnam

A 38-year-old woman has become the first victim of bird flu in Vietnam in 2010, bringing the country's toll from avian influenza to 58, the health ministry said Friday.

The woman died Tuesday in the southern province of Tien Giang after two days of unsuccessful hospital treatment, said the ministry in an online statement.

The victim had killed and cooked sick waterfowl, the statement added.

Vietnam's last death from the H5N1 virus was in December.

At present, outbreaks of bird flu among poultry have been reported in five provinces.

Vietnam ranks second after Indonesia for the highest bird flu death toll, according to the World Health Organization.

The H5N1 virus typically spreads from birds to humans via direct contact, but experts fear it could mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans, with the potential to kill millions in a pandemic.

H1N1: WHO uncertain whether the Pandemic is over of just Beginning

Senior World Health Organisation official Keiji Fukuda said Thursday that it was too early to declare the swine flu pandemic over, as it continues at "high levels" in parts of Europe and central Asia.

Although the A(H1N1) flu virus is peaking and even declining in parts of the northern hemisphere, and is hardly present in the south, Fukuda said there was an unproven possibility that there could be another wave later in the winter.

"It really probably remains too early to call the pandemic over," Fukuda said in a weekly telephone news conference.

Fukuda, Special Adviser to the WHO Director-General on Pandemic Influenza, said flu "activity continues at quite high levels in several different countries" notably the Czech Republic, France, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Switzerland.

Fukuda also noted that the signs of a peak and a decline in the caseload in North America and parts of Europe had occurred "extraordinarily early for influenza," with several months of the winter left.

As a result, the WHO could not rule out the possibility of another wave of illness in late winter or early spring.

"We simply are unable to answer this question right now. We continue to assess, right now we cannot predict whether we will see another upsurge in activity in the earlier parts of 2010," Fukuda said.

H1N1: North Korea finally confirms pandemic swine flu outbreak

Finally, North Korea announced for the first time that it has several cases of swine flu, confirming overseas reports of an outbreak in the secretive and impoverished communist state.

The health ministry has reported a total of nine cases of (A)H1N1 in the capital Pyongyang and the city of Sinuiju on the Chinese border, the official Korean Central News Agency said.

Authorities put a quarantine system in place and centres have been set up nationwide to check for new cases, it said.

The World Health Organisation is working with Pyongyang to help stem the outbreak and assess the scope of infections, WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi told South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

"We are working closely with the government to see what is required and if they need any assistance from WHO," she said.

Yonhap quoted Bhatiasevi as saying there are likely to be more cases of the virus than announced, as people who have mild symptoms are not tested.

The South's unification ministry said it would send a message to the North offering swift deliveries of Tamiflu and other medicine.

"Assistance must be provided swiftly as the disease could quickly spread in North Korea where conditions are not so good," President Lee Myung-Bak said.

Most government-to-government aid was suspended after cross-border relations worsened last year, although private South Korean groups still send shipments northwards.

Observers say the virus could pose a particular threat to the impoverished North because of malnutrition amid persistent food shortages and a lack of drugs.

Good Friends, a Seoul-based aid group with cross-border contacts, reported Monday the disease has been spreading rapidly because Tamiflu is rare there. Although, given the reported ineffectiveness of Tamiflu, it will be interesting to monitor how quickly the virus spreads.

It said seven youths died in Pyongyang in November while two others reportedly died in Pyongsong north of the capital.

Schools last Friday started their winter vacation a month early to guard against the spread of the disease, the group said.

Public health conditions are also dire with medical equipment and medicine in short supply and clean drinking water and sanitised items frequently problematic, it said.

Drugs for Leaders only
The conservative Dong-A Ilbo newspaper quoted unidentified sources as saying that North Korea has secured Tamiflu and other drugs through foreign missions in Europe but only for leader Kim Jong-Il and other top officials.

North Korea refused Tamiflu
In May, the WHO supplied a total of 2.4 million courses of Tamiflu to 72 countries, but Seoul officials said the North's likely share of this would be grossly inadequate.

"Considering the North's population is 24 million, and the infection rate going up to 20 to 30 percent in underdeveloped countries, the North would need the drug by the millions," said Kwon Jun-Wook, a swine flu specialist at the South Korean health ministry.

North Korea has a high death rate from pneumonia, which rises when there is a food shortage.

Kwon told Yonhap the (A)H1N1 virus has an even higher infection rate than pneumonia and would be more dangerous to the North Korean people.

H1N1: Britain probes transmission of drug-resistant swine flu

British health authorities said Friday they are investigating what could be the world's first cases of person-to-person transmission of a strain of drug-resistant swine flu. Five people in a hospital unit in Wales have a strain of the A(H1N1) virus that is resistant to Tamiflu and "three of these appear to have acquired the infection in hospital", the public health service in Wales said.

"Although further epidemiological investigation is under way, it would seem likely that transmission of oseltamivir-resistant H1N1 virus has taken place," added the Health Protection Agency (HPA) in a separate statement.

This was a possible world first. The HPA noted that while almost 60 incidences of Tamiflu-resistant flu had been reported worldwide, "there have been no documented episodes of person-to-person transmission." It said the risk of drug-resistant flu remained "low" noting the five patients affected had severe underlying health conditions and were being treated at a special unit at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.

The emergence of influenza A viruses that are resistant to Tamiflu is not unexpected in patients with serious underlying conditions and suppressed immune systems. The resistant strain "does not appear to be any more severe than the swine flu virus that has been circulating since April", and Tamiflu, made by Swiss drugs giant Roche, remained partly effective for most other people.

Scientific research confirms that Tamiflu and Relenza were never the 'cure all' drug that they were marketed as being.

The HPA said that another leading antiviral drug, Relenza, was being used to treat the five Welsh patients and they were "responding well". Two patients had recovered and been discharged from hospital, one remained in critical care and two others continue to be treated, officials said.

Britain is the European country most affected by swine flu, with about 715,000 cases of the virus and 100 deaths since the pandemic began.

The latest data from the World Health Organisation showed that around 6,750 people worldwide had died from swine flu since the virus was first uncovered in Mexico and the United States in April.

H5N1: Bird Flu, Sexually Transmitted Disease - in Ducks

Bird flu may be a sexually transmitted infection – at least in ducks. That's the suggestion of an analysis of flu prevalence and mating behaviour that also proposes an easy way to spot duck populations most at risk of harbouring avian flu.

Surprisingly, the more rampant the sex a particular duck species indulges in, the lower the chance of spreading the virus. It's all to do with penis size and the complexity of the females' vagina.

Lethal strains of avian flu virus can evolve from harmless versions and then jump to other species, so it is important to also monitor less dangerous strains in wild birds. Ducks are the main wild hosts of bird flu, but surveillance is difficult without easy markers of infection risk.

Now Gergely Hegyi at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, and colleagues think they may have found just such a marker: the "covert" wing patches that ducks display during mating. This finding builds on the previous work by the team, in which they found that species with large penises tend to have smaller wing patches, which are also more likely to be a single colour.

Sexual arms race
Most ducks form monogamous pairs but the males also often force sex on females because, unlike most birds, they have a phallus. This has led to an evolutionary "arms race" between the sexes, with males evolving longer penises the better to inseminate the female, and females responding by evolving more complex vaginal anatomy to make insemination by unwelcome partners less likely.

When the researchers compared data on the prevalence of low-pathogenic bird flu strains in different duck species with what is known about the anatomy of duck reproductive parts and mating behaviour, they found that ducks with the smallest penises and tamest sex lives had the highest flu levels.

"This is intriguing and a bit counter-intuitive because a long phallus prolongs copulation, and forced copulations characteristic to species with a large phallus should further promote virus transfer," says Hegyi.

The explanation may lie in the counter-adaptation of the female ducks. "Long and elaborate vaginas may hinder unwanted fertilisation but may also make it difficult for viruses acquired during copulation to reach the site of egg formation," Hegyi says.

Infection peak
This idea might help to explain why infections often peak during the breeding season. The researchers think that mating may spread flu by pushing water contaminated with the virus onto developing eggs and so infect chicks before or during hatching – and that this will happen more readily in ducks with less complex vaginas.

Bird flu specialist John McCauley at the National Institute for Medical Research in London says that the idea of sexual flu transmission and its dependence on reproductive anatomy and copulation habits is interesting. "It's quite feasible that they are right, but it will be important to make sure that the epidemiological evidence is robust and not biased by differences in sampling methods."

Because duck species with small penises have larger and more colourful wing patches, Hegyi hopes that confirmation of the link between sex and flu might help to identify which wild populations are most likely to spread bird flu. Monitoring effort can then be concentrated on these populations.

In addition, recognition of sexual transmission "may require different biosafety measures in captive birds than those currently implemented," he says.

Journal reference: Behavioral Ecology, DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arp133

H1N1 Swine Flu: A Serving UK Soldier dies after contracting the virus

A serving UK soldier has been revealed as the latest patient to die after contracting H1N1, swine flu virus.
Bombardier Lee Porter, from Coleraine in Northern Ireland, died last week, two weeks after contracting the bug - it is reported that he had underlying health problems.

The 30-year-old member of the Royal Artillery is thought to be the first UK serviceman to have fallen victim to the bug.

According to the announcement, Bombardier Porter died on Friday at Frimley Park hospital in Surrey, making him the 28th person known to have died after getting swine flu in England.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: "It is with great sadness that the MoD must confirm the death of Bombardier Lee Porter, who contracted Swine Flu two weeks ago, which complicated existing health problems. Our thoughts go out to his family, who were at his bedside at the time."

110,000 New Cases
The latest figures on swine flu show that cases of the virus "may have plateaued", according to the Government. Their data, released today, showed that there were 110,000 new cases in England last week.

That represents a 10 per cent rise on the 100,000 new cases estimated in the previous weeks. Twenty seven people in England have died from swine flu, while 793 patients are being treated in hospital, that figure is down on the 840 of last week.

UK Schoolgirl on Life-Support
A British schoolgirl being treated in Greece for swine flu is on a life support machine but is showing signs of improvement and is said to be 'a little better.'

Natasha Newman, 16, from Highgate, north London, is in an Athens hospital after falling ill on the island of Cephalonia. Doctors at the intensive care unit of Penteli Children's Hospital described her condition as 'serious but stable.'

Pneumonia
One doctor, who did not wish to be named, said: "She has better lung function than yesterday and the day before. She has pneumonia, which is not something easy, but she has no lasting damage to her lungs and she is not in a dangerous condition."

H1N1: 'First' Official Swine-flu death in African Continent

South Africa has confirmed its first death from swine flu, believed to be the first officially documented fatality from the virus in sub-Saharan Africa.

Health officials said a 22-year-old student had died on 28 July, and tests had confirmed the cause of death as the onset of Pneumonia following the initial infection by the H1N1 influenza virus.

150 Confirmed Cases

The country has had at least 150 confirmed swine flu cases, the highest officially reported rate in sub-Saharan Africa. This may be due to more stringent testing and reporting methods carried out by the South Africans.

Cases Unreported

The illness has caused hundreds of deaths in North and South America. Dozens more have died in Asia and Europe. Africa was thought to be one of the last continents to be hit by the virus and so far the number of officially reported cases are low.

ECDPC report

South Africa confirmed its first case of the disease on 18 June 2009 and has had 151 cases in total, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The SA health ministry called the student's death "unfortunate and deeply regretted".

Pneumonia

A statement from the ministry said he had been ill for about a week before going to a Western Cape hospital, where he was treated with antibiotics for the onset of pneumonia, often the final stage of the disease. Unfortunately the treatment was unsuccesful and he died two days later.

Mild Cases

The ministry's statement added: "We are encouraged by the fact that the majority of cases in South Africa have so far been mild and we hope that this will remain so, despite this unfortunate death."

Young Children suffer Tamiflu side-effects

pa.press.net

More than half of children taking Tamiflu suffer side-effects such as nausea, insomnia and nightmares, researchers have said.

Two studies from experts at the Health Protection Agency (HPA) showed a "high proportion" of British schoolchildren reporting problems after taking the anti-viral drug.

Data was gathered from children at three schools in London and one in the South West who were given Tamiflu earlier this year after classmates became infected.

The researchers behind one study said that, although children may have attributed symptoms that were due to other illnesses to the use of Tamiflu, "this is unlikely to account for all the symptoms experienced".

Their research, published in Eurosurveillance, looked at side-effects reported by 11 and 12-year-old pupils in one school year in a secondary school in South West England. The school was closed for 10 days in response to a pupil being confirmed with swine flu on return from a holiday in Cancun, Mexico.

A total of 248 pupils took part in the study and were given Tamiflu prophylactically. Compliance with prophylaxis was high, with 77% of children taking the full course, the researchers said. But they added: "Fifty-one per cent experienced symptoms such as feeling sick (31.2%), headaches (24.3%) and stomach ache (21.1%).

The researchers said "likely side-effects were common" and the "burden of side-effects needs to be considered" when deciding on giving Tamiflu to children prophylactically. The researchers concluded that a "high proportion of school children may experience side-effects of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) medication".

H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccine - Human Trials start in Australia

The number of people calling in sick with swine flu symptoms has tripled in a week, with 130,000 people staying away from work.

Worldwide, 700 people have died!

News of the increase in absenteeism came as the British death toll from the virus rose to 31, with a 51-year-old woman from Wiltshire and the 15-year-old from Glasgow the latest victims.

Greatest Challenge to NHS
Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, yesterday warned that swine flu “almost certainly” posed the biggest challenge to the NHS for a generation. Fears of swine flu crisis grow as six-year-old girl and doctor dieAlmost 130,000 people stayed off work with flu, coughs and colds on July 14, up from 45,000 a week before, according to FirstCare, an absence management company.

Absentees triple
While absences tripled, the number of people who have actually contracted the virus is thought to have only doubled over the same period, highlighting how fear of infection is damaging business.

Septic Shock
Meanwhile, it has emerged that Chloe Buckley, the girl thought to have been the first healthy young victim of swine flu, died from septic shock after a bout of tonsillitis, a post mortem examination indicated. The death of Chloe, six, from West Drayton, west London, alarmed parents of young children.

Dr Simon Tanner, London’s regional director of public health, said it was impossible “to say to what degree swine flu contributed to her death”.

Andrew McCombe, a leading surgeon, said it was rare for a child to die from septic shock after contracting tonsillitis. “Normally septic shock affects old people,” he said.

Human Vaccine Trials to Begin
Human trials of a vaccine to protect against the H1N1 swine flu virus have begun in Australia.
Vaxine and CSL have both started injecting human volunteers this week, but it will be at least six weeks before the initial results are known.

Morbidity rate increases
The overall morbidity figure is likely to climb on Thursday when the Department of Health gives its weekly update. Worldwide, more than 700 people have died.

H1N1 Pandemic: Sudden Spike in swine flu alerts GPs & MDs

pa.press.net

GPs have seen a leap of almost 50% in the numbers of people contacting them with fears they have swine flu in the last week, new figures reveal.

Around 40,000 people a week in England and Wales are now complaining to their doctor of "flu-like illness", with a dramatic rise in the number of young children being affected.

The Royal College

The figures, from the Royal College of GPs' monitoring system, showed 50.3 people per 100,000 were reporting flu-like illness between June 29 and July 5, but this leapt by 46% to 73.4 people per 100,000 between July 6 and 12.

Financial Times

Almost one in eight workers are likely to be kept at home with the virus in the next few weeks, according to Government figures. This could leave many businesses struggling to run as normal, the Financial Times reported.

Sir Liam Donaldson is expected to announce that 30% of the population is likely to be infected during this first wave of the pandemic, the FT newspaper said.

Young at most Risk
Wednesday's weekly report from the Royal College of GPs said: "National incidence of influenza-like illness increased for all regions and is now evident in all age groups but remains highest in five to 14 age groups."

Central England Hotspot
The study said the highest number of cases was being seen in central England but the North had seen "a marked increase compared to previous weeks".

There has been a small decrease in the number of cases being seen in London although the capital remains a major hot spot for the virus.

Statistics
The rate of influenza-like illness is highest among those aged five to 14, at 159.57 per 100,000 population. The next most affected group is youngsters and babies aged up to four, at 114.12 per 100,00 population. This is followed by people aged 15 to 44, those aged 45 to 64 and then people aged 65 and over.

Ant-viral Vaccine
The Government has insisted that the swine flu vaccine should begin arriving at the end of August, amid genuine fears of a delay in this delivery date, and further delay before people receive jabs.

The UK claims, it is in line to get around 60 million doses of the vaccine - enough to cover half the population - by the end of December, with the rest of the doses following next year.

Vaccine Production Delayed
This is a substantial turn around in their earlier claims and the first phase of the virus should have run its course by then. The mutated second phase will take over and the vaccine will be ineffective against it.

Virus Dictates Timeline
It is impossible to determine how the H1N1 virus will mutate, so scientists are unable to prepare in advance for this strain. Only when the new strain is identified will they be able to start on development of a new anti-viral vaccine.

So, the development, testing and distribution of a second antiviral vaccine will need to start after January 2010 and is therefore unlikely to be in production before the Spring 2010.

H1N1 Swine Flu Deaths caused by Obesity

According to shocking new US statistics, overweight people are 50% more likely to die of swine flu.

The majority of the victims that have died from H1N1 swine flu have had an underlying health problem that weakened their ability to fight off the virus. Among the conditions recognised as increasing the risk from flu are; hypertension, diabetes, chronic lung obstruction and coronary disease. Now it is time to add obesity to the list.

Unpublished figures reported at a recent meeting of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, show that of 99 people who died in the early stages of the pandemic in the US, 45 were obese. Arguably, only 26 per cent of US adults are obese, this demonstrates that obesity doubles the risk of a fatality with swine flu.

The figures have shocked and surprised most flu researchers. "In 40 years of studying flu, I have never heard anything about obesity," says virologist John Oxford of Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of London. Obesity specialists, however, say it fits with what they have learned in recent years.

Swine Flu Vaccine Delayed: Further tests on swine flu victims

Whilst the world waits, anxiously for the new vaccine against this outbreak of Swine Flu, news of further delays in production and testing come to light.

Meanwhile the number of victims and fatalities increase.

Further post-mortem tests are to take place this week, to determine the causes of death of a six-year-old girl and a GP who both died after contracting the disease.

Chloe Buckley, from north west London, and Bedfordshire GP, Dr Michael Day, died after suffering from the virus. Their deaths took the number of UK deaths linked to swine flu to 17.

On Monday health bodies, the British Medical Association (BMA) and the The Royal College of General Practitioners, urged the public not to panic.

Chloe died last Thursday at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington. A post-mortem is due to be carried out to determine if she had underlying health conditions.

Dr Day died on Saturday in the Luton and Dunstable Hospital. A subsequent swab test revealed he had swine flu although it is not yet known if this was the cause of his death.

Health Secretary Andy Burnham said the UK was well placed to deal with the outbreak but could not rule out further deaths.

He said: "Although the swine flu virus is proving generally mild in most people, in some cases it is more severe. Unfortunately, as with seasonal flu, people may develop complications and in some cases will die."

The first British patient without underlying health problems died on Friday after contracting swine flu. The patient, from Essex, died in Basildon.

Nearly 10,000 Britons have been confirmed with the swine flu infection but hundreds of thousands more are thought to have the virus.

Confirmed sufferers are dosed with Tamiflu and confined to their home with minimal or no contact with the outside world.

H1N1: Vaccine Production Delayed

Flu viruses contain eight genetic elements. Vaccine strains contain two genes for the main surface proteins of the virus the vaccine is aimed at, plus six from a strain that grows well in chicken eggs, which is where most flu vaccines are produced.

These vaccine strains are produced either by reverse genetics, in which the eight genetic elements are artificially combined using genetic technology; or by allowing the two viruses to mix naturally. WHO collaborating labs used both methods to produce seed strains for the pandemic virus to make sure there were no unforeseen problems with one or the other.

Yet both methods have performed equally badly, each producing one of the two fastest-growing strains. The other strains are presumably growing even more slowly.

Vaccine companies are trying to tweak the vaccine strains to select faster growing ones, while WHO collaborating laboratories are feverishly generating new strains, which they hope will grow faster.

H1N1 Vaccine Production delayed: Poor most at risk

The WHO says countries such as China and India expect to produce their own vaccine supplies, but smaller low- and middle-income countries representing 2.7 billion people have "no current access to H1N1 vaccine".

The report was presented to a closed, extraordinary meeting last week of the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation (SAGE), a panel of independent scientists who advise the WHO on vaccine issues.

Wenqing Zhang of the WHO's flu programme told SAGE that five different "seed" viruses have been produced and evaluated (pdf format). But the two highest yielding strains are growing only half as fast as the seasonal H1N1 viruses used to make vaccine for ordinary flu.

H1N1 Slow growing flu vaccine; Critically Delayed Production

Vaccine producers have hit a snag making vaccine against the swine flu pandemic. According to a report by the World Health Organisation, the fastest-growing of all the vaccine strains tested so far grows only half as fast as ordinary vaccine viruses.

Vaccine companies must fill pandemic vaccine contracts with countries such as Britain, Australia, France and the US before they can start making vaccine for the rest of the world – notably developing countries. Marie-Paul Kieny, the WHO's head of vaccines, told a meeting in Geneva last week (pdf format) that if the pandemic vaccine virus grew as fast as ordinary strains, these contracts could be filled by November 2009.

That date applies only if the vaccine works at half the dose of ordinary vaccines, with one shot enough to induce the required immune reaction. If the usual dose and two shots are needed, the contracts cannot be filled until April 2010.

But the slow-growing virus means these dates could be pushed back to January 2010 and June 2010 respectively. If the current pandemic behaves like the last H1N1 pandemic in 1918, the next, possibly worse waves of infection could be long over by then.

H1N1 Swine Flu; UK Government covering their backs and capitulating to pharmaceutical lobbyists

'Plan' to vaccinate whole UK for flu is a knee-jerk reaction from a beseiged government and political system, with dubious strategic or tactical value!

In what would be the biggest vaccination programme of the last 50 years, experts are already drawing up a priority list of patients to be given immunity before the bug becomes more virulent.

This is clearly a politically motivated ass-covering measure by the UK authorities, admitting defeat in the face of overwhelming odds.

It comes after the first British patient without underlying health problems died from the disease, taking the number of swine flu-linked deaths in the UK to 15.

Risk and Perspective
In reality the risk of dying from the influenza pandemic is very low. The number of casualties of this disease is also extremely low, especially if you consider the hundreds and thousands who die each year from smoking, diabetes and chronic heart disease. All of which are preventable. The greatest cause of death in the younger ages groups is still RTA's - Road Traffic Accidents.

The mis-use of NHS funds in the face of mis-diagnosed threat levels

Pharmaceutical donations

This move by the UK Government will further please the pharmaceutical companies and will bring a welcome boost to their dwindling profits. Hopefully, the political parties will, in return, be assured of increased funding and support in the coming years.

H1N1: How pandemic swine flu kills

As the H1N1 swine flu pandemic continues to spread around the world, most cases are still mild but reports are starting to emerge of people who sicken and die very quickly of what appears to be viral pneumonia.

Now two independent groups of scientists have now found out why and it's all down to where the virus binds within the body.

H1N1 swine flu comes from pigs, so it binds well to cell-surface molecules in the respiratory tracts of other mammals, including humans but there are slight differences in the way different flu proteins bind to these receptors.

Two separate teams – one led by Ron Fouchier at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and the other by Terrence Tumpey at the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia – both report that the pandemic virus binds deeper than ordinary flu in the respiratory tract of ferrets, the animal most like humans when it comes to flu.

A virus of the same H1N1 family as the pandemic flu has been circulating as ordinary seasonal flu since 1977. Both groups found that the seasonal virus binds almost exclusively to cells in the ferrets' noses. But, the pandemic H1N1 binds deeper, in the lung's trachea, bronchi and bronchioles. The pandemic virus also replicated more, and caused more damage, though none of the ferrets were severely ill.

Pneumonia

Viral and bacterial pneumonia is ever present in the human body. It is kept at bay by the body's normal defense mechanisms, referred to as the immune system. When the immune system is severely weakened and then overwhelmed by other infections, the pneumonia gets a chance to take hold and as it is already endemic in the respiratory system, it can very quickly reach fatal levels. The build up of fluid in the lungs, effectively drowns the patient i.e. the lungs are unable to absorb oxygen in gaseous form.

This is why so many older people or people suffering from long term chronic conditions, can succumb and die from the pneumonia, rather than the original illness or infection that they were diagnosed with or receiving treatment for.

Treat respiratory system and chest infections with greater concern during the H1N1 outbreak.

• Be quick to seek help
  
• Be quick to take the doctor's advice
  
• Be quick to take the treatment
  
• Finish the course of treatment,
  
• ......even after you feel better
• Don't give Pneumonia a chance!
  

H1N1 - Swine flu claims fourth UK victim

© ITN 2009 An H1N1 swine flu sufferer has died in London, health officials have announced.

This is the fourth person to die in the UK is understood to have been a 19-year-old man from south London who had serious underlying health problems. He died on Wednesday and tests afterwards found he had the virus.

His was announced a day after it was revealed that the number of new cases could reach 100,000 per day by the end of next month.

Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson, who confirmed on Thursday that the UK has moved past the stage of containing the swine flu outbreak and into the "treatment phase", said there was no need for people to resort to the internet to self-medicate amid fears over the spread.

He said Britain had a massive stockpile of the now discredited, Tamiflu and would be one of the first countries to have access to a new potent vaccine, when the first supplies started arriving at the end of August, if all goes well with the testing and certification. By which time, the virus is likely to will have burned itself out and the death toll will have risen dramatically.

H1N1 Pandemic: Tamiflu proven ineffective

The National Health Board of Denmark has announced the first public declaration of pandemic H1N1 flu resistance to the antiviral drug Tamiflu.

They stress, though, that "there is no evidence" that the virus has spread, but further mutation is normal.

Although this case is said to be isolated, it throws further doubt on the doubtful and knee-jerk policy, introduced in most European countries, of giving low doses of Tamiflu to people in contact with infected people. Although, this is politically safe and very desirable and lucrative for the pharmaceutical companies, it is certainly not the correct strategy neither is it addressing the problems. It also allows the virus to mutate and develop resistant strains.

The Danish case, a contact of someone who caught swine flu abroad, was given Tamiflu as prophylaxis to prevent her getting sick, but she developed symptoms anyway. She was then given Relenza, another antiviral drug, and recovered but there is evidence that she would have recovered anyway.

The State Serum Institute in Copenhagen found that her virus carried a mutation giving further resistance to Tamiflu, and assumes (guessed) this emerged during treatment (contamination) rather than having been there already. Unfortunately, this guessing approach is not very scientific or clinical and is neither conclusive or acceptable as evidence based. There inability to prevent contamination is also worrying.

In defending the product and himself, David Reddy, head of the pandemic taskforce at Swiss company Roche, which produces Tamiflu says "Such a development is no surprise from a scientific point of view. Like antibiotics, antiviral drugs favour the survival of resistant strains."

Meaning, that Tamiflu has become even more ineffective against the resistant virus, than the original one, allegedly.