Pandemic News/Awareness - Thread 3

I bet if the situation came to pass it would be much

higher than that. How many would need to be caregivers? Wouldn't

want to expose their children? I think only 30% of workers not working is

hopeful if you ask me.

You might be right, and for those of us who will continue to work because we

don't have children at home, and we know that some of us must try to help,

there is the distinct possibility of PTSD as well as the risk of disease. Some of

us can continue to work even while suffering from PTSD, others will become

incapacitated by their emotions from witnessing terrible death unfolding all

around them especially the death of children and young people. With a mass

catastrophic event occurring globally, no one is likely to be left unscathed, even

if you can't work, but health care workers on the job will bear the brunt of the

tragedy. Can we take this in, how devastating this will be to us? Try reading

John Barry's The Great Influenza as the doctors describe what the dying

military troops looked like.

An essay from my friend, Mike Coston who authors the Avian Flu Diary:

http://afludiary.blogspot.com/2008/08/other-prophylactic-for-health-care.html

Indonesia

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24148265-12377,00.html

A suspected outbreak in Indonesia has everyone guessing. Because of

the censorship in that country, we probably will not get any clear cut

answers either. If they can contain a wider spread outbreak in people,

it is entirely possible that they will deny that these cases are H5N1, if

indeed they are.

They don't seem to have any doubts about what the poultry are dying

from however. Forget scientific method, just bury the evidence and call

the human infections that coincidentally broke out at the same time

something else perhaps...

HUNDREDS of chickens and ducks have been slaughtered to contain

a suspected bird flu outbreak in Indonesia as 13 people with flu-like

symptoms await laboratory results.

Thirteen people were hospitalised earlier this week with fevers and

respiratory problems after a large number of chickens died suddenly

in their village in North Sumatra province.

Two of them, a baby boy and a seven-year-old girl, have been put in

a bird flu isolation unit at a hospital in the provincial capital Medan.

"We have taken measures since Tuesday when we found strong

indications of bird flu virus in some 100 chickens and ducks in several

places in Air Batu village," said local husbandary office chief Oktoni

Eryanto.

At least 400 birds have been slaughtered and burned, and officials

were continuing to spray backyard coops with disinfectant, he said.

"We don't need to send samples from the poultry to a laboratory

because it's pretty clear that the cause is the bird flu virus," he said.

(hat tip Avian Flu Diary)

To follow this particular story, you might want to check out this link

from Flutrackers where a collaboration of many people who are

translators, medical workers, scientists and news analysts are working

on it.

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=76074

If you follow that flutrackers link, you will learn that the WHO has been

on the scene which is very interesting as Indonesia has been fighting

with them about providing viral samples and reporting on cases.

The very fact that the WHO is present is both alarming and reassuring.

I am guessing that they will again successfully contain an outbreak with

the Tamiflu blanket, culling, disinfecting and isolating human cases.

WHO on the ground, culling finished in Air Batu village

Scott McPherson is the CIO of the Florida House of Representatives.

The following link is to his blog on bird flu with commentary on the

current supected outbreak in Indonesia.

http://tinyurl.com/5h4m3j

There is a stong belief that bird flu was/is in Air Batu; and that the

Indonesian government, expert at identifying (if not reporting) bird flu,

did not wait for test results before moving to kill every bird within a

kilometer of the suspected epicenter of the outbreak.

Someone has actually identified a suspected epicenter of the outbreak

- and it is a home.

Three are dead, thirteen are in hospital, and as many as 73 others are

complaining of flu-like symptoms. This is out of a village of 1,900 people.

The WHO was allowed in by the Indonesian government to find out what

in the Wide Wide World of Sports is a-going on down there. Good sign.

The WHO will be there for awhile.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080809/hl_afp/healthfluindonesia

What a surprise, the people are testing negative!

First the chickens die. No testing, just bury them. Then 3 people

die without testing, never mentioned again.

Inundate the village with Tamiflu, and call in the WHO even though

Indonesia is fighting with them. So why did they call them in?

No indication of whether or not testing is done before or after Tamiflu

treatment. I am betting both because that makes sense. Now they are

testing negative because Tamiflu is still effective, thank goodness. We

are left with a cloudy picture as expected. The WHO can continue

to say that H5N1 is not easily transmissible from H2H. Maybe, it would

be more truthful to say, Tamiflu still works for this clade of H5N1, eh?

And, we are lucky that it does. Another disaster averted...

Was this a first test prior to Tamiflu?

http://gbcghana.com/news/21773detail.html

The Veracity Drag

http://afludiary.blogspot.com/2008/08/veracity-drag.html

I am not the only one having a problem with the way this story has

has been presented. There was quite a bit of information that has

not been revealed that would have lent credibility to what they are

asking us to believe. I have to ask why wouldn't they have given

us the basic facts instead of a pronouncement with no explanation

of what disease those three people died of and what sickened the

rest. Why did they not test the chickens who coincidentally died

before the people did?

With the announcement this morning that the 13 suspect Bird flu

cases in North Sumatra tested negative for the H5N1 virus, many

veteran observers are left with a bit of a dilemma.

Whether or not to believe the `official story'.

I'd like to, of course.

I'd much prefer to believe that the past few days has been a false

alarm. And admittedly, right now, I see no solid evidence to counter

the Indonesian government's claim.

Unfortunately, Indonesia has squandered much of their credibility on

the bird flu issue over the past year or so by refusing to share virus

samples with the rest of the world, despite the fact that numerous

strains of the H5N1 virus now appear to be circulating in that nation.

http://pandemicchronicle.com/2008/08/indonesians_test_negative/

I will not belabor the issues of accuracy for the tests. We all know they

are fraught with false negatives. However, if all thirteen villagers have

indeed already recovered then it is highly unlikely that they were

suffering an H5N1 infection. Unlikely though it is, it is not guaranteed,

however at this point in time, it's a good enough assumption.

It's "good enough" because the Indonesian government has proven to

be less than fully transparent with the rest of the world, we have a test

that is officially only presumptive at best, but mostly because there isn't

a thing any of us can do about what is or isn't happening in the village

of Air Batu and to its residents.

Can we take comfort in the fact that WHO arrived on the scene and if

there were a genuine cause for greater concern we would be well served

by their presence and actions? Maybe. Maybe not.

H5N1 Clade 2.2.3 Migrates Into Nigeria

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/08110804/H5N1_Nigeria_223.html

This particular strain or clade as it is called, likely originated at Uvs

Lake, a 1300 square mile saline lake in Mongolia. It then spread to

Europe, and is now appearing in Nigeria where it has never been seen

before. It is improbable for it to have been brought there by trade or

smuggling yet the FAO and conservation groups are reluctant to consider

that wild birds that really do migrate between these area brought it down

into this part of Africa. At any rate, it's now there, and probably spreading

elsewhere on this continent where surveillance is extremely poor. And,

of course, the desire to uncover the facts must include using up to date

techniques and more sensitive assays by impartial researchers. The

clues are there that it was spreading, you just have to read them, no

mystery involved.

Almost exactly one year ago, clade 2.2.3 was detected in the heart of

Europe (Czech Republic, Germany, and France). The vast majority of the

outbreaks were in wild birds, even though migration in Europe in the

middle of the summer is minimal. The widespread outbreaks indicated

H5N1 had become endemic in wild birds and the reservoir in resident birds

lead to the outbreaks in domestic poultry.

Clade 2.2.3 then expanded in the fall and winter. All reported isolates in

Europe were clade 2.2.3 and the vast majority, including those detected

over the summer, were the Uvs Lake strain.

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/08110805/H5N1_WB_FAO_Denial.html

...migration to east Africa was expected. H5N1 sequences from Egypt

in the 2007/2008 season acquired clade 2.2.3 polymorphisms, indicating

the sub-clade was migrating through the region. Although clade

2.2.3 was not reported previously, the surveillance of H5N1 in Africa is

poor and most outbreaks appear in domestic poultry, because wild bird

deaths are not well monitored.

Thus, the presence of clade 2.2.3 in resident birds is below the surveillance

radar, as it was a year ago in Europe. However, this H5N1 eventually

causes outbreaks in poultry, which the FAO and consultants describe as

having a mysterious origin, as they try to link to trade.

After three years of transmission and transport of clade 2.2 H5N1 by

wild birds throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, it is time for

FAO to revise its press releases and increase surveillance in dead wild

birds, since the assays and techniques of the conservation groups do

not have the sensitivity to detect H5N1 in live wild birds.

North Sumatra Remains Under Alert

http://afludiary.blogspot.com/2008/08/north-sumatra-remains-under-alert.html

Despite declaring that the people have tested negative, The WHO is still

on the ground in Indonesia. The translators are saying that the villagers

have been fleeing due to the 3 deaths and sickness of the 13 others.

No is denying that the poultry died of bird flu. Just a coincidence, nothing

to worry about though...

Are they really doing autopies on people? That is amazing. They

never do this! I'll say it's got to be "an extraordinary occurrence"

going on over there for this to be happening.

Over the weekend Indonesia's Health Ministry announced that test

results on 13 villagers from North Sumatra were negative, and that

they were cleared of having the H5N1 bird flu virus.

Today we learn from the Jakarta Post that local Health Department

officials aren't completely ready to accept those results, and that

a KLB ("extraordinary occurrence") alert status remains in place.

...this newspaper story states that officials are awaiting `autopsy

reports' and a determination of the `cause of death' of the three early

victims of this outbreak.

We've been told, repeatedly, that the first three victims were buried

more than two weeks ago without testing. Autopsies are rarely

done in Indonesia due to religious and social objections, and

exhumations are even less likely. If exhumations and autopsies have

actually been performed, then officials have been taking extraordinary

steps (for Indonesia) to determine the cause of this outbreak.

From a translator:

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showpost.php?p=173563&postcount=214