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Avian Influenza Daily Digest
August 29, 2008 14:00 GMT
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Article Summaries ...
Quid Novi
Iraq: Reports of Chicken Die-offs on 70 Farms
Indonesia: Reports of poultry die-off in North Sumatera
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
Panama: Ministry Reserves 200,000 Doses of Tamiflu
8/29/08 ARGUS--A national source reports that the Ministry of Health has reserves of more than 200,000 individual doses of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) in the event of an avian influenza pandemic. In addition, the Gorgas Institute Commemorative will rely on a regional investigative lab to conduct a diagnosis in less than 24 hours. There has not been a case of avian influenza registered in Panama, but Panama is part of the migratory route for millions of birds from North to South America between September and October. The Ministry of Agricultural Development has identified locations where birds nest and feed en route along the Caribbean coast, far from farmlands. More than 7,000 samples of migratory birds have been analyzed; all tested negative for AI.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
OIE: UK Follow Up #3 (Final Report)
Highly pathogenic avian influenza, United Kingdom Information received on 28/08/2008 from Dr Nigel Gibbens, Chief Veterinary Officer, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, LONDON, United Kingdom Summary Report type Follow-up report No....
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
VIETNAM: Uphill battle to raise awareness of bird flu
8/29/08 Irin News--The key message that needs to be heard is that Avian Influenza (AI) is endemic in Vietnam and needs to be controlled, say UN officials involved in the battle to identify and contain avian influenza outbreaks.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
Kurdistan: Poultry production capacity falls
8/28/08 Kurdish Globe--Lack of basic services on poultry farms has, in addition to shutting down many farms, increased cost of production and decreased quantity of production.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
UK: Bird flu 'will stay in Britain for five years'
8/29/08 Edinburgh News--BIRD flu will arrive in Britain within months and stay for at least five years, the government's chief scientific adviser has predicted.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
FAO assures Bangladesh of support towards food security
8/29/08 Xinhua--A visiting high official of United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Friday assured Bangladesh of providing necessary support in its efforts to ensure food security.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
Australia: The battle to secure our borders against a tiny, but lethal, enemy force
8/28/08 Sydney Morning Herald--We once thought the battle against infectious disease was won. Security experts now tell us this is not so. In a globalised, interconnected world - where people, trade and goods move around like never before - people, their pets, livestock, wildlife and crops are still vulnerable.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
Science and Technology
Genotypic diversity of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses
8/29/08 Journal of General Virology--[Abstract]--Besides enormous economic losses to the poultry industry, recent H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIVs) originating in eastern Asia have posed serious threats to public health. Up to April 17, 2008, 381 human cases had been confirmed with a mortality of more than 60 %. Here, we attempt to identify potential progenitor genes for H5N1 HPAIVs since their first recognition in 1996; most were detected in the Eurasian landmass before 1996. Combinations among these progenitor genes generated at least 21 reassortants (named H5N1 progenitor reassortant, H5N1-PR1?21). H5N1-PR1 includes A/Goose/Guangdong/1/1996(H5N1). Only reassortants H5N1-PR2 and H5N1-PR7 were associated with confirmed human cases: H5N1-PR2 in the Hong Kong H5N1 outbreak in 1997 and H5N1-PR7 in laboratory confirmed human cases since 2003. H5N1-PR7 also contains a majority of the H5N1 viruses causing avian influenza outbreaks in birds, including the first wave of genotype Z, Qinghai-like and Fujian-like virus lineages. Among the 21 reassortants identified, 13 are first reported here. This study illustrates evolutionary patterns of H5N1 HPAIVs, which may be useful toward pandemic preparedness as well as avian influenza prevention and control. {dagger}Present address: Influenza Division, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA. The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the sequences reported in this paper are EU627685 and EU636682?EU636696. Supplementary material is available with the online version of this paper.
AI Research
Clinical trials of foreign-made flu vaccine to start in Japan next month
8/29/08 Japan Today--Clinical trials of a prepandemic flu vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline will start in Japan next month, the British company?s Japan unit said Thursday. GlaxoSmithKline KK plans to file an application with the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare possibly next year hoping the vaccine will be adopted for the Japanese government?s stockpiling program.
Vaccines
HHS, Homeland Security Release Pandemic Influenza Vaccine Guidance
8/28/08 Occupational Health and Safety--The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security have released Guidance on Allocating and Targeting Pandemic Influenza Vaccine. The purpose of the guidance is to provide a planning framework to help state, tribal, local, and community leaders ensure that vaccine allocation and use will reduce the impact of a pandemic on public health.
Vaccines
How Long Does Flu Immunity Last?
8/27/08 Time--Every year in the fall, physicians dispense a new flu vaccine. Typically it is designed to protect against the three flu strains that epidemiologists predict will be the most pervasive that season. But how often have patients received the flu shot, only to catch a bad illness anyway? The problem is that cold and flu viruses mutate so rapidly that sometimes they're unrecognizable to the antibodies created by the body in response to any particular vaccine. It turns out, however, that those antibodies ? unlike those against illnesses like tetanus or whooping cough ? can provide a formidable and life-long defense against the flu, as long as they're pitted against the correct strain. For an explanation, TIME asks Eric Altschuler, assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and co-author of a recent paper in Nature about antibodies to the 1918 pandemic flu virus.Q: How long do flu antibodies last?
AI Research
Full Text of Articles follow ...
Quid Novi
Iraq: Reports of Chicken Die-offs on 70 Farms
8/29/08 ARGUS--A local source reported chicken die-offs due to ?viral respiratory asphyxia? on 70 farms in Al Mahawil district in Babil province. The Secretary of the local council indicated that the death rate is 80% per farm, which led to closure and abandoning of farms by the owners due to the losses incurred. According to the source, the Secretary attributed the spread of the disease to lack of veterinary follow-up, in-effective vaccines that are available through the agricultural department, and poor quality feed, which is of unknown origin and mostly expired.
An international source reported that the Director of Babel veterinary hospital denied the news about the spread of a viral disease on 70 poultry farms in Babel. The Director of the veterinary hospital also denied the existence of any disease under the name of ?Respiratory Asphyxia?. He added that legal actions will be taken against 2 local media sources for publishing false news about the disease.
Article URL(s)
http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNewsAr.aspx?id=6689
http://www.sotaliraq.com/iraqnews.php?id=25009
http://www.alitthad.com/paper.php?name=News&file=article&sid=42724
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
Panama: Ministry Reserves 200,000 Doses of Tamiflu
8/29/08 ARGUS--A national source reports that the Ministry of Health has reserves of more than 200,000 individual doses of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) in the event of an avian influenza pandemic. In addition, the Gorgas Institute Commemorative will rely on a regional investigative lab to conduct a diagnosis in less than 24 hours. There has not been a case of avian influenza registered in Panama, but Panama is part of the migratory route for millions of birds from North to South America between September and October. The Ministry of Agricultural Development has identified locations where birds nest and feed en route along the Caribbean coast, far from farmlands. More than 7,000 samples of migratory birds have been analyzed; all tested negative for AI.
Article URL(s)
http://www.elsiglo.com/siglov2/Nacion.php?idsec=1&fechaz=26-08-2008&idnews=79521
Quid Novi
Indonesia: Reports of poultry die-off in North Sumatera
8/29/08 ARGUS--A local source reported that multi-focal bird die-offs in Sarang Giting village settlements (Dolok Masihul district, Serdang Bedagai regency, North Sumatera province) have killed an unspecified number of chickens since 25 August. These die-offs continue to occur, with an increasing number of chickens dying every day. Local authorities have yet to determine what is causing the die-offs but have conducted fumigation to curb ?any outbreaks?.
Article URL(s)
http://hariansib.com/2008/08/28/ayam-peliharaan-penduduk-di-dolok-masihul-mati-mendadak/
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
OIE: UK Follow Up #3 (Final Report)
Highly pathogenic avian influenza,
United Kingdom
Information received on 28/08/2008 from Dr Nigel Gibbens, Chief Veterinary Officer, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, LONDON, United Kingdom
Summary
Report type Follow-up report No. 3 (Final report)
Start date 22/05/2008
Date of first confirmation of the event 04/06/2008
Report date 28/08/2008
Date submitted to OIE 28/08/2008
Date event resolved 20/08/2008
Reason for notification New strain of a listed disease
Causal agent Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus
Serotype H7N7
Nature of diagnosis Laboratory (advanced)
This event pertains to the whole country
Related reports
* Immediate notification (05/06/2008)
* Follow-up report No. 1 (13/06/2008)
* Follow-up report No. 2 (18/07/2008)
* Follow-up report No. 3 (28/08/2008)
Outbreaks There are no new outbreaks in this report
Epidemiology
Source of the outbreak(s) or origin of infection
* Unknown or inconclusive
Epidemiological comments The final cleansing and disinfection on the single infected premises was completed on 20 August 2008.
The epidemiology report is available at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/index.htm.
The surveillance zone and disease control area restrictions that were put in place following the outbreak were lifted on 8 July 2008. Surveillance has shown that infection appears to have been contained to the single premises.
Control measures
Measures applied
* Stamping out
* Movement control inside the country
* Screening
* Zoning
* Disinfection of infected premises/establishment(s)
* Vaccination prohibited
* No treatment of affected animals
Measures to be applied
* No other measures
Future Reporting
The event is resolved. No more reports will be submitted.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
VIETNAM: Uphill battle to raise awareness of bird flu
8/29/08 Irin News--The key message that needs to be heard is that Avian Influenza (AI) is endemic in Vietnam and needs to be controlled, say UN officials involved in the battle to identify and contain avian influenza outbreaks.
According to the Vietnam Partnership for Avian and Human Influenza (PAHI), three provinces have reported new outbreaks in recent weeks. Since the start of 2008, 44 districts in 26 of Vietnam's 64 provinces have reported outbreaks, highlighting the challenge the country faces in controlling the disease.
Overall since 2003, Vietnam has had 106 cases of human avian flu and 52 deaths.
Yet compared to 2004 and 2005, when 90 cases of human infection occurred with 39 deaths, [] Vietnam has made huge strides, according to David Payne, the UN Development Programme avian influenza specialist in Hanoi, "with only five infections since March 2008, all of whom died".
Payne gives the Vietnamese government high marks for recognising early on the severity of the AI problem and turning to the UN and the humanitarian community for advice and support.
"The office of the UN resident representative for Vietnam - with the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN Children?s Fund (UNICEF) taking the lead - has worked closely with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and other relevant ministries," said Payne, adding that UN agencies have taken a united approach to assisting the government.
The key strategy of the government and UN agencies in confronting avian influenza is the Viet Nam Integrated National Operational Programme for Avian and Human Influenza 2006-2010, known as the "Greenbook".
It is a US$250 million five-year programme funded initially principally by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) but now including the World Bank and other donors. It includes improving surveillance abilities, culling and market controls and the goal of vaccinating 30 million poultry twice a year. It is also designed to strengthen overall health capacity, train epidemiologists and establish laboratories.
Awareness raising efforts
An aggressive public awareness programme overseen by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) is integral to the strategy.
UNICEF has supported the rental of mobile vans equipped with loudspeakers that travelled around key districts in eight high-risk provinces in the north in March/April 2008, informing residents of ways to safeguard against avian influenza transmission. They have also distributed posters and brochures.
According to Tran Minh Thu, UNICEF's avian influenza communications officer in Hanoi, UNICEF is working with the National Centre of Heath and Education on a variety of awareness raising efforts.
"In May 2007, we provided support for a mass radio and TV awareness campaign and also helped to train provincial and district level health staff on safeguards against AI and human avian influenza and in honing their communication skills," said Thu.
The key messages include hand washing, safe and sanitary slaughter of poultry, thorough cooking of meat, and keeping children away from contact with poultry and their faeces.
Photo: FAO
Community forums have proven instrumental in raising wareness levels of bird flu
Ha Nam Province
In Ha Nam Province, just south of Hanoi, the director of its Centre of Health Education, Pham Quang Mae, told IRIN that since 2003 the province had had five outbreaks of avian influenza with mass culling, and five human deaths.
Mae praised UNICEF's efforts but told IRIN: "We think people have become complacent. They still throw dead chickens into the rivers and the canals? "People are aware of the need to wash their hands but many don't? I believe that things will change, but it will take time."
UNICEF is currently evaluating with the government the next steps in raising community awareness, but Do Thi Dung, vice-director for communications for Ha Nam Province's Centre of Health Education said: "I think the campaign should now involve community health workers at the commune level, not just the provincial and district levels."
In one project, funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), UNICEF is helping to do just that.
Tran Thi Cham, chairwoman of the Women's Union in Ha Nam Province, told IRIN, "Since 2007, with the help of UNICEF, we've been training the women's union staff down to the commune level on avian influenza, organising and raising awareness. We do it through poems, singing and plays."
The Women's Union in Ha Nam Province has 24 "clubs" - groupings of 60 women - and hopes to expand the number to address the avian influenza problem.
Bui Thi Hang, Ha NaKim Bang District Women's Communication head, said: "Women are the ones who are directly involved in raising poultry so the Women's Union is the most effective means in reaching women with the key messages."
UNICEF acknowledges behaviour change is a long-term challenge. This was demonstrated on a visit to Hoang Thi Tien's duck farm in Que Commune, Kim Bang District.
"I sell the birds and slaughter them at home." Tien told IRIN. She says she vaccinates her chicks, which she buys from a safe hatchery, and even cleanses her motorbike after transporting the chickens and washes her boots with detergent. Nonetheless, her protective gloves are well-worn with tears all over. Worst of all, she lives no more than 100 metres from Le Thi Qanh's farm, and their ducks share a common waterway. Only recently Qanh's flock of 130 ducks were culled because of an AI outbreak.
"I just don't think I will have an avian flu outbreak here, Tien told IRIN. "It happens to others."
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
Kurdistan: Poultry production capacity falls
8/28/08 Kurdish Globe--Lack of basic services on poultry farms has, in addition to shutting down many farms, increased cost of production and decreased quantity of production.
The amount of imported frozen chicken is on the increase as the searing summer and lack of fuel and electricity have forced the majority of Kurdistan Region's poultry farms to close their doors.
According to statistic published by the Kurdistan Association for Raising Poultry, during the three months of May, June, and July 2007, around 1,080,000 chickens were produced in Suleimaniya's poultry farms, while during the same period of 2008, only 545,000 chickens re produced in those poultries.
This 50% decrease during one single year alarms owners and agriculture economists.
As one of the very few sectors of local production, poultry production used to satisfy most of the region's demand; the rest was imported from outside, and particularly from Brazil.
However, as the bird flu became a threat to the region's residents in 2006, imported chicken meat was banned by the Health Ministry as a preventive measure against the transmission of the epidemic from already affected regions. Hence, people were forced to buy locally produced chicken meat and eggs only. But even after the bird flu threat was over and imported chicken and eggs regained entry into Kurdistan, people were still afraid to consume imported poultry products and stuck to local products, something that continues today.
But now, as local production capacity has fallen significantly, the question is whether consumers can easily shift back to Brazilian chicken or are ready to pay more for local chicken?
Lack of basic services on poultry farms has, in addition to shutting down many farms, increased cost of production and decreased quantity of production. The increasing sales price in the market has already opened the way for imported frozen chicken.
Awat Hama Aziz, deputy director general of animal resources and health in Suleimaniya, says that in spite of the extraordinarily high temperatures of this summer, the public sector has failed to supply sufficient electricity to most of the farms and those who have electricity are using their own power generators. Besides, the farm owners are not able to afford all this fuel consumption of their generators.
"Most of the owners' capital goes to providing electricity and fuel," Aziz told a local newspaper. "The process of raising young chickens costs too much and using private power generators is a main part of the production cost, which in turn pushes the selling price up."
Aziz added that this lack of electricity and fuel is despite the fact that poultry farms are in need of 24-hour supply.
"This is because of many reasons; for example, the air refreshment system needs electricity to operate. Farms also need to use fridges and freezers in addition to food preparation machines," said Aziz.
Sarwar Karim Agha, head of Kurdistan Association for Poultry Raising, confirms Aziz's claims and says that if the government provides the poultry farms with continuous power supply, the farms would save US$1,800 per one production cycle.
Yet another challenge facing poultry farm owners is the notable increase in the price of corn, which is the main food for chickens. According to what Agha says, a chicken consumes between 4 and 5 kilograms of corn in 50 days, which is a very high level of corn consumption.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has allegedly allocated US$16 million for 800 projects for the production and preservation of animal protein in all three provinces of Erbil, Suleimaniya, and Duhok. However, as Agha claims, this amount has not been spent and none of the projects have entered the implementation phase. He also expressed his concern about the government's carelessness about poultry farms and claimed that it has to promote local production.
Many investors in local production sectors as well as economists are concerned about the fact that the KRG doesn't yet have a law to protect local production against imports and imported goods have already taken control over the Kurdish market. Even many economists believe that the system in the region is exactly opposite to most other economic systems in the world as it promotes imports and foreign products and favors them over locally produced goods.
All these difficulties facing poultry farms have disappointed investors and thus become threats to the poultry production in Kurdistan Region.
AI Research
Genotypic diversity of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses
8/29/08 Journal of General Virology--[Abstract]--Besides enormous economic losses to the poultry industry, recent H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIVs) originating in eastern Asia have posed serious threats to public health. Up to April 17, 2008, 381 human cases had been confirmed with a mortality of more than 60 %. Here, we attempt to identify potential progenitor genes for H5N1 HPAIVs since their first recognition in 1996; most were detected in the Eurasian landmass before 1996. Combinations among these progenitor genes generated at least 21 reassortants (named H5N1 progenitor reassortant, H5N1-PR1?21). H5N1-PR1 includes A/Goose/Guangdong/1/1996(H5N1). Only reassortants H5N1-PR2 and H5N1-PR7 were associated with confirmed human cases: H5N1-PR2 in the Hong Kong H5N1 outbreak in 1997 and H5N1-PR7 in laboratory confirmed human cases since 2003. H5N1-PR7 also contains a majority of the H5N1 viruses causing avian influenza outbreaks in birds, including the first wave of genotype Z, Qinghai-like and Fujian-like virus lineages. Among the 21 reassortants identified, 13 are first reported here. This study illustrates evolutionary patterns of H5N1 HPAIVs, which may be useful toward pandemic preparedness as well as avian influenza prevention and control.
{dagger}Present address: Influenza Division, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA.
The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the sequences reported in this paper are EU627685 and EU636682?EU636696.
Supplementary material is available with the online version of this paper.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
UK: Bird flu 'will stay in Britain for five years'
8/29/08 Edinburgh News--BIRD flu will arrive in Britain within months and stay for at least five years, the government's chief scientific adviser has predicted.
Professor Sir David King warned the disease could become "endemic" in the UK as it is in China, but he said he did not expect it to be as damaging as foot-and-mouth was in 2001.
Both he and Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs Secretary Margaret Beckett have said the vaccination of poultry is being kept under review but warn it may not be very effective.
Speaking at the Annual Conference of the Annual Farmers' Union, Sir David said: "I would anticipate that avian flu will arrive at some point in the UK. We also have to anticipate that it will be here for five years plus.
"We are talking about the possibility of this disease being endemic here in the UK as it was in China. It's a long-term factor."
He said he expected bird flu to reach the UK in months rather than in days or weeks due to the pattern of bird migration.
Sir David said: "I feel - and I am prepared to stand here and say this - rather more optimistic about a potential H5NI outbreak in poultry holders in the UK than I would have been about foot-and-mouth back in 2001."
Vaccines
Clinical trials of foreign-made flu vaccine to start in Japan next month
8/29/08 Japan Today--Clinical trials of a prepandemic flu vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline will start in Japan next month, the British company?s Japan unit said Thursday. GlaxoSmithKline KK plans to file an application with the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare possibly next year hoping the vaccine will be adopted for the Japanese government?s stockpiling program.
Currently, all prepandemic vaccines stockpiled by the government are domestically developed ones. GSK?s vaccine would be the first foreign-made one to be stockpiled in Japan. The government has stored prepandemic flu vaccines for about 20 million people and plans to add vaccines for another 10 million people. Like domestically produced vaccines, GSK?s vaccine was made from the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus, which has been spreading in Asia. But its vaccine has a uniquely-developed immune-enhancing agent, GSK says.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
FAO assures Bangladesh of support towards food security
8/29/08 Xinhua--A visiting high official of United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Friday assured Bangladesh of providing necessary support in its efforts to ensure food security.
Making a courtesy call on caretaker government Finance and Planning Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam, FAO Asia Pacific Region head Hey Cheng Chyue also assured to provide assistance in the country's fight against bird flu, ongoing agriculture census and agriculture research activities, according to private news agency UNB.
"Bangladesh has got what is necessary for food security. If the country can utilize the potential, food security will be ensured, "he told reporters after the meeting.
Azizul said that the FAO official emphasized on developing hybrid as well as deep and saline water-resistant seeds to increase food production in the country while assuring technical assistance in this regard, if necessary.
He said Cheng appreciated Bangladesh for taking food security measures like increasing endowment fund for agriculture research and climate change fund.
Vaccines
HHS, Homeland Security Release Pandemic Influenza Vaccine Guidance
8/28/08 Occupational Health and Safety--The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security have released Guidance on Allocating and Targeting Pandemic Influenza Vaccine. The purpose of the guidance is to provide a planning framework to help state, tribal, local, and community leaders ensure that vaccine allocation and use will reduce the impact of a pandemic on public health.
Target groups are defined in the guidance by a common occupation, type of service, age group, or risk level and are clustered into four broad categories: homeland and national security, health care and community support services, critical infrastructures, and the general population. These four categories together cover the entire population.
Across these categories, according to the document, vaccine should be allocated and administered according to tiers where all groups designated for vaccination within a tier have equal priority for vaccination. Groups within tiers vary depending on pandemic severity.
For more information, visit www.pandemicflu.gov/vaccine/allocationguidance.pdf.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
Australia: The battle to secure our borders against a tiny, but lethal, enemy force
8/28/08 Sydney Morning Herald--We once thought the battle against infectious disease was won. Security experts now tell us this is not so. In a globalised, interconnected world - where people, trade and goods move around like never before - people, their pets, livestock, wildlife and crops are still vulnerable.
Animal and human diseases and insects respect no national borders. They move easily across time and space. Infections and insect pests once thought limited to certain parts of the world are now able to spread easily and quickly to Australia. And we still do not fully appreciate that human health is intimately connected to animal health and that wildlife and domestic animals and insects continue play a huge part in whether our livestock and crops prosper and whether we remain healthy.
SARS, Avian influenza and equine flu demonstrated quite clearly how poorly prepared we are for such events and the vulnerability of our trade, tourism, agricultural industry, biodiversity and human health to introduced diseases.
There are many potential threats to Australia's biosecurity. Some, such as invasive alien species, invertebrate and vertebrate pests, as well as animal infections, threaten the viability of our wildlife and rural industries, on occasions reaching out to affect us as well. The equine flu disaster and the Hendra virus outbreak in Queensland demonstrate this only too clearly. Others, such as avian influenza or a new pandemic of human flu, threaten the health of millions of citizens.
Most Australians believe that only developing nations have to worry about insect-borne diseases. Yet over the last 200 years, mosquitoes and fleas have been responsible for thousands of deaths and sickened millions of people in Australia.
We remain vulnerable to a wide range of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue, Ross River virus and Barmah Forest virus. Naturally occurring infectious diseases and invasive pests are the predominant threat, but what about insects or disease purposely released for political reasons? You might think it far-fetched, but perhaps our next terrorist attack will come on six legs and target our agricultural industry.
One of the cheapest, most easily obtained and potentially most destructive means available to terrorists is not anthrax or smallpox, but insects. They are easy to sneak into the country, they reproduce and spread quickly, and the effect would be devastating for livestock and crops.
The economic consequences of such an attack could be vast. The social, economic and political impact of human disease outbreaks, whether natural or deliberate, could well be greater. Infectious diseases do not just make our bodies sick, they can also poison the well of community spirit and damage our faith in governments.
Natural disasters such as bushfires, floods and droughts bring out the best in people, but when everyone is a potential carrier of deadly germs, there is less enthusiasm for volunteer relief services.
Most people would assume that infectious diseases could only seriously affect the politics of the developing world, yet Australian history is littered with examples of widespread public hysteria and disputes between local, State and Commonwealth governments over how best to respond to epidemics.
The lessons from this are clear. Infectious disease is never far away. To protect all Australians we need to better understand the ecology of emerging infections, the significance of wild and domestic animals in the disease transmission process and the vulnerability of Australia to infectious disease, whether natural or deliberate, as well as to insects and alien species.
The sooner we appreciate the critical links between all these things the sooner we will be able to develop a coordinated and all encompassing national and regional biosecurity surveillance and response system that provides 24/7 protection for all Australians.
Peter Curson is professor of population and security, and Jonathan Herington is projects officer (biosecurity), in the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney.
AI Research
How Long Does Flu Immunity Last?
8/27/08 Time--Every year in the fall, physicians dispense a new flu vaccine. Typically it is designed to protect against the three flu strains that epidemiologists predict will be the most pervasive that season. But how often have patients received the flu shot, only to catch a bad illness anyway? The problem is that cold and flu viruses mutate so rapidly that sometimes they're unrecognizable to the antibodies created by the body in response to any particular vaccine. It turns out, however, that those antibodies ? unlike those against illnesses like tetanus or whooping cough ? can provide a formidable and life-long defense against the flu, as long as they're pitted against the correct strain. For an explanation, TIME asks Eric Altschuler, assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and co-author of a recent paper in Nature about antibodies to the 1918 pandemic flu virus.Q: How long do flu antibodies last?
A: According to our study, it appears they can last the entire lifespan of the human organism ? 90 years plus.
In our study we were looking for antibodies to the 1918 flu. This flu virus was reconstructed a number of years ago in the lab, so we were able to test to see if 90 years later we could still find antibodies. I recruited survivors, people who were born in 1915 or earlier and thus presumably survived the 1918 flu. We found that virtually all the people born in 1915 or earlier ? about 90% of them ? had good "titers" to the 1918 flu, which means they still had reasonably high concentrations of the antibodies in their blood, whereas among controls, people who were born in 1926 or later, it was only about 10%. That was really quite a remarkable finding.
The important question in this study is whether the antibodies still work after all that time, and I think my colleagues really found some very decisive results. I sent the blood samples from the survivors to my colleagues, Chris Basler at Mount Sinai, who's a professor of microbiology, and James Crowe at Vanderbilt, who's in pediatrics, microbiology and immunology. Dr Crowe and his colleagues at Vanderbilt isolated five different antibodies to the 1918 flu. Then Dr. Basler and colleagues looked at how those antibodies bind to the virus. It was quite strong and specific. We tried to compare it to other viruses, studying, for example, whether the antibody would bind to the flu of 1999 or to earlier ones, like the 1943 flu. Most antibodies bound to 1918, and only 1918. One of them bound, but much more weakly, to a couple of others. So that was really quite good evidence, we thought.
I think the most definitive experiment we did was in mice. If you give mice the 1918 influenza, it kills them quite rapidly. It's very lethal. Terry Tumpey at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention infected mice with the various strains that made up the 1918 flu. Then we treated the mice either with our five antibodies or with controls. (There were two controls. One was human gamma globulin, which are just pooled antibodies that bind to a lot of different things. The other was the antibody to one of the modern bird flus.) And all of the control-treated mice, whether they got the gamma globulin or the bird-flu antibody, they all died. All of those mice died. Meanwhile all the mice that were treated with the highest doses of our antibodies survived. That's really very strong evidence ? the strongest ? that these antibodies are functional against this virus.
I think that diseases, other viruses and other pathogens, can behave differently. Antibodies are made by something called memory B cells, and the memory B cells for the 1918 flu clearly live for the lifespan of the human organism, which is wonderful. It raises important questions for looking at other pathogens, however, and it's important to try to look at these questions for different pathogens individually. Evidence shows it's important to get a regular tetanus booster, for example. Still, our new study may suggest another angle to look at things, which is how long do memory B cells last for this or that? Maybe there's some underlying biology that could explain why one thing might last longer than another.
Podcast
How Long Do Antibodies Last?
TIME talks to Eric Altschuler, assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
