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Some slightly related from Technorati and Google.
[My Big White Hairy Ass] Bye Bye Birdie: ” Over the past month, people in Qinghai province, China have been reporting that migratory birds in the mostly-rural region were dropping dead of an unknown disease, later diagnosed as a few hundred cases of “an isolated case” [sic] of influenza strain H5N1, a.k.a. bird flu. Three weeks later, the Chinese government admitted that actually about a thousand birds had died of bird flu in the province.
[medmusings] links for 2005-06-05: Family Medicine Notes: apple service sucks for Jacob's new G5 iMac with a power supply that's on the fritz
[sciencexplained] Ten years later.: Unlike chickens and ducks, the natural hosts for H5N1, pigs could be infected with both "bird" and "human" flu viruses. Pigs provided a melting pot in which the "bird" virus, which could not be transmitted between people but which they had no immunity to, could recombine its DNA with "human" flu viruses that had already infected humans, i.e. that were capable of jumping from person to person, but which humans had immunity to. Dave's team had two major goals; 1) track the changes in the DNA and animal hosts of the virus to try and predict where and when the most likely outbreaks of human transmission might occur and 2) if a human infectious virus strain did emerge, to rapidly analyze its DNA to (a) determine if pre-existing vaccines might be useful and (b) provide a template for production of new vaccines.
[Effectmeasure.blogspot.com] Effect Measure: Good summary of bird flu H5N1: Good summary of bird flu H5N1. For those who wish a concise technical summary of avian ... Am. J. of Bioethics/Editor's Blog; BrooklynDodger; Code Blue Blog ...
[Effectmeasure.blogspot.com] Effect Measure: H5N1 not confirmed: French case not Bird Flu: French press sources in Alsace have just reported that the 69 year old male who returned with respiratory difficulties after a 15 day vacation visit to Vietnam and Cambodia earlier in the week does not appear to have influenza A (H5N1). Because of heightened concern over a possible pandemic from this virus (see earlier post), the patient was isolated in an intensive care unit at Central University Hospital in Nancy, pending diagnostic tests. Blood and tissue samples were sent to the Pasteur Institute in Paris where it was determined that H5N1 virus was not present. The cause of his current illness is still not determined.
[Effectmeasure.blogspot.com] Effect Measure: Bird flu and bullshit: High level political support requires making a serious concern visible and public so that adequate resources can be allocated by cash-strapped state health departments who need urgent reasons to shift around the paltry contents of their shrinking pots of money. This didn't (and wasn't going to) happen during the election campaign when the Bush Administration didn't want to remind people about the flu vaccine fiasco, how dependent we were on the rest of the world or how we face threats not related to the "axis of evil."
[Effectmeasure.blogspot.com] Effect Measure: Faulty bird flu tests: It will not be news to readers of this blog there have almost certainly been many "false negatives" in the diagnosis of H5N1 cases in Vietnam. Now, thanks to excellent reporting by Canadian journalist Helen Branswell we have some indication of the cause.
[Radio.weblogs.com] Kevin Schofield's Weblog: Well, the first piece of good news is that the WHO, the CDC, and in particular Asian govenrments, are mobilizing now. China is on top of their latest outbreak (and applying all the lessons they learned form SARS). Vietnam is stepping up too. As draconian as it seems, we might have to drastically limit international travel until the vaccine is available. And we can all practice better hygiene -- I think we're all going to be washing our hands a lot more often next winter.
Reflected tags on Technorati: Blog, H5n1, Bird Flu Monitor