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Avian Influenza Daily Digest
September 16, 2008 14:00 GMT
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Article Summaries ...
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
Togo: Recent bird flu outbreak is deadly H5N1
9/16/08 IHT--Togo state television says lab tests performed after a recent outbreak of bird flu have confirmed the presence of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, which has the potential to infect humans.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
Australia Boosts Bio-Security Defenses
9/16/08 Voice of America--[Download (MP3) audio clip]--Australia has opened a new National Center for Bio-Security to build its defenses against infectious diseases and biological weapons. Medical experts say it will help protect the country from threats such as SARS and bird flu as well as attacks by terrorists or rogue scientists. From Sydney, Phil Mercer reports.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
Science and Technology
Host restriction of avian influenza viruses at the level of the ribonucleoproteins
9/16/08 Annual Reviews of Microbiology--[full text]--Naffakh N, Tomoiu A, Rameix-Welti MA, van der Werf S. Unité de Génétique Moléculaire des Virus Respiratoires, URA CNRS 3015, Institut Pasteur, Paris, 75015 France; email: svdwerf@pasteur.fr. Although transmission of avian influenza viruses to mammals,...
AI Research
H5N1 VLP vaccine induced protection in ferrets against lethal challenge with highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza viruses.
9/16/08 PubMed [abstract]-- Mahmood K, Bright RA, Mytle N, Carter DM, Crevar CJ, Achenbach JE, Heaton PM, Tumpey TM, Ross TM. Novavax, Inc., Rockville, MD, USA. In this study, recombinant virus-like particles (VLPs) were evaluated as a candidate vaccine against...
Vaccines
New data backs benefits of Glaxo H5N1 flu vaccine
9/16/08 Reuters--Glaxo says new data shows pre-pandemic influenza vaccine Prepandrix confers persistent immune response against a number of H5N1 strains.
Vaccines
Body exhumed in fight against flu
9/16/08 BBC--The body of an aristocrat who died nearly 90 years ago has been exhumed in the hope that it will help scientists combat a future flu pandemic.
AI Research
Pandemic Preparedness
Expert says ground is more fertile for next pandemic
9/16/08 Canadian Press--Could it really happen again? Influenza scientists repeat like a mantra that when it comes to flu pandemics, the question is not if, but when. And yet 90 years after the worst one -- the Spanish flu of 1918-19 -- and 40 years after the most recent one, it's tempting to wonder why there hasn't been a pandemic since the Hong Kong flu of 1968.
Pandemic Preparedness
Full Text of Articles follow ...
AI Research
Host restriction of avian influenza viruses at the level of the ribonucleoproteins
9/16/08 Annual Reviews of Microbiology--[full text]--Naffakh N, Tomoiu A, Rameix-Welti MA, van der Werf S.
Unité de Génétique Moléculaire des Virus Respiratoires, URA CNRS 3015, Institut Pasteur, Paris, 75015 France; email: svdwerf@pasteur.fr.
Although transmission of avian influenza viruses to mammals, particularly humans, has been repeatedly documented, adaptation and sustained transmission in the new host is a rare event that in the case of humans may result in pandemics. Host restriction involves multiple genetic determinants. Among the known determinants of host range, key determinants have been identified on the genes coding for the nucleoprotein and polymerase proteins that, together with the viral RNA segments, form the ribonucleoproteins (RNPs). The RNP genes form host-specific lineages and harbor host-associated genetic signatures. The functional significance of these determinants has been studied by reassortment and reverse genetics experiments, underlining the influence of the global genetic context. In some instances the molecular mechanisms have been approached, pointing to the importance of the polymerase activity and interaction with cellular host factors. Better knowledge of determinants of host restriction will allow monitoring of the pandemic potential of avian influenza viruses.
Vaccines
H5N1 VLP vaccine induced protection in ferrets against lethal challenge with highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza viruses.
9/16/08 PubMed [abstract]--
Mahmood K, Bright RA, Mytle N, Carter DM, Crevar CJ, Achenbach JE, Heaton PM, Tumpey TM, Ross TM.
Novavax, Inc., Rockville, MD, USA.
In this study, recombinant virus-like particles (VLPs) were evaluated as a candidate vaccine against emerging influenza viruses with pandemic potential. The VLPs are composed of the hemagglutinin (HA), neuraminidase (NA), and matrix 1 (M1) proteins of the H5N1 A/Indonesia/05/2005 (clade 2.1; [Indo/05]) virus, which were expressed using baculovirus in Spodoptera frugiperda (Sf9) cells. Ferrets received either 2 injections of the VLP vaccine at escalating doses (based on HA content), recombinant HA, or were mock vaccinated. Vaccinated ferrets were then challenged with either H5N1 Indo/05 or H5N1 A/Viet Nam 1203/2004 (VN/04) wild-type viruses. All ferrets that received the VLP vaccine survived regardless of the VLP dose or challenge strain, whereas seven of eight mock vaccinated ferrets died. The VLP vaccine induced HAI antibodies against the homologous H5N1 clade 2.1 strain, as well as heterologous strains from H5N1 clades 1, 2.2, and 2.3. The magnitude of the HAI titers correlated with VLP dose. Neutralizing antibody responses against the Indo/05 and VN/04 strains showed a similar pattern. Affinity of the anti-HA antibodies raised by the H5N1 Indo/05 VLPs had a higher association rate to the homologous clade 2.1 HA than to the clade 1 (VN/04) HA; however, once bound, antibodies had similar slow disassociation rates. These results provide support for continued development of the H5N1 VLPs as a candidate vaccine against pandemic influenza. Exploration of immunologic correlates of protection for H5N1 vaccines beyond HAI and neutralizing antibody responses is warranted.
Vaccines
New data backs benefits of Glaxo H5N1 flu vaccine
9/16/08 Reuters--Glaxo says new data shows pre-pandemic influenza vaccine Prepandrix confers persistent immune response against a number of H5N1 strains.
* Prepandrix confers broad cross-clade immunity that is maintained when the second dose is given many months after the first dose, and even if the second dose is formulated from a different H5N1 strain
* New data shows Prepandrix administration flexibility for pandemic planning
* Results from two new clinical studies announced at the Third European Influenza Conference
Pandemic Preparedness
Expert says ground is more fertile for next pandemic
9/16/08 Canadian Press--Could it really happen again? Influenza scientists repeat like a mantra that when it comes to flu pandemics, the question is not if, but when. And yet 90 years after the worst one -- the Spanish flu of 1918-19 -- and 40 years after the most recent one, it's tempting to wonder why there hasn't been a pandemic since the Hong Kong flu of 1968.
With the current state of influenza knowledge, there is no satisfying answer to the question. Flu pandemics occur when they occur. There's no way to predict the timing of the next one or whether its impact on global health will be mild, moderate or severe.
"Forty years, 50 years, 30 years -- I think again the disease just sort of sets its own pattern for when it's going to cause another pandemic," says Dr. Keiji Fukuda, head of the World Health Organization's Global Influenza Program.
For Fukuda, one of the key lessons the world should take from the Spanish flu pandemic is that something that happened once can happen again.
"If anything, compared to 1918, the conditions that you need for these kinds of large epidemics of respiratory disease to harm a lot of people are worse now than they were back in 1918," he says, noting the world got an unpleasant reminder of that with SARS.
"You know, we have these enormous urban populations. We have more people than ever living in the world. And so in a lot of ways, for a pandemic virus the ground is just more fertile."
Jet travel means germs can cross vast distances in hours, not the weeks or months of eras past.
And a peculiar reality of modern urban life amplifies the vulnerability, says influenza expert Dr. Danuta Skowronski. In large cities, one's neighbours are as likely to be total strangers as they are to be friends.
"Today we're very interconnected globally on an international scale through air travel. . . . And yet we hardly know our neighbours, especially in urban areas," explains Skowronski, who is with the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver.
"And that may be an important lesson from the 1918 pandemic. Because when there is a pandemic soaring around the world, we may not have access to distant supplies. (But) we may need to rely on our closest communities far more than we are actually used to now."
Skowronski and some colleagues thought learning about how people coped through the Spanish flu would help public health authorities plan for a future event. About 18 months ago they started an effort to preserve first hand accounts of the time by interviewing people old enough to remember living through the outbreak.
More than 200 people responded to the BCCDC's appeal. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control undertook a similar effort, recently publishing "The Spanish Flu Storybook." (http://www.pandemicflu.gov/storybook/index.html)
"We wanted to know How did people manage? What were their individual responses? Because pandemics -- even the 1918 pandemic -- are not only about death. In fact, the vast majority of people who were affected in 1918 survived."
Published accounts of the event documented cases where some infected people died from neglect, not the illness, because healthy people were too frightened to help them.
But the stories Skowronski's team heard were of resiliency and neighbourliness. Sick people being cared for by family members or by a nurse who lived nearby. Neighbours and relatives sending soup or tending a sick family's livestock.
While those recollections may sound like the response of a long-gone era, stories that emerge after the next pandemic will likely sound very similar, Skowronski said.
"Even in our modern era, we won't have access to vaccines (in the early days)," she says.
"Antivirals and antibiotics will be in short supply. So some of those same community efforts, public health efforts we will have to use as well in the initial stages of a pandemic. So they are very relevant, even today."
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
Togo: Recent bird flu outbreak is deadly H5N1
9/16/08 IHT--Togo state television says lab tests performed after a recent outbreak of bird flu have confirmed the presence of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, which has the potential to infect humans.
No human cases have been detected so far in Togo, however.
State media reported Monday the lab tests were carried out by experts in Ghana and Italy after the outbreak was discovered last week among several thousand birds in Agbata outside the capital, Lome.
The Health Ministry says "precautionary measures have been taken to contain the situation."
At least 235 people have died of bird flu worldwide since 2003, according to the World Health Organization.
AI Research
Body exhumed in fight against flu
9/16/08 BBC--The body of an aristocrat who died nearly 90 years ago has been exhumed in the hope that it will help scientists combat a future flu pandemic.
Yorkshire landowner Sir Mark Sykes died in France in 1919 from Spanish flu.
Sir Mark was buried in a lead coffin which scientists hope may have helped preserve the virus.
They believe his remains will help piece together the DNA of Spanish flu, which could have a similar genetic structure to modern bird flu.
This knowledge, added to major breakthroughs by American scientists last year, could help prevent a modern pandemic through the development of new drugs.
A church court covering the Diocese of York has authorised the exhumation of the body of Sir Mark, who owned historic Sledmere House near Driffield, after permission was given by his grandchildren.
His body will have to be examined in a special air-tight laboratory to avoid any risk of contamination.
Death toll
Researchers from BBC One's Inside Out programme have tracked down contemporary records of Sir Mark's funeral at St Mary's Church, Sledmere, and other archive documents to help a medical team from St Barts and the Royal London Hospitals.
Sir Mark died towards the end of the Spanish flu outbreak which killed more than 50 million people when it took hold at the end of World War I. The death toll was compounded by large population movements during the war.
Sir Mark, who was also a politician tipped as a future prime minister and a diplomat, was working for the government in the Middle East where he helped draw up the national boundaries that still exist in the region today.
He sailed home from Syria via London, where it is thought he contracted the virus, and died on 16 February at the Hotel Lotti during peace negotiations in Paris.
BBC One viewers in Yorkshire can see more on the story on Inside Out on Wednesday at 1930 BST
Regional Reporting and Surveillance
Australia Boosts Bio-Security Defenses
9/16/08 Voice of America--[Download (MP3) audio clip]--Australia has opened a new National Center for Bio-Security to build its defenses against infectious diseases and biological weapons. Medical experts say it will help protect the country from threats such as SARS and bird flu as well as attacks by terrorists or rogue scientists. From Sydney, Phil Mercer reports.
Two emergency workers carry suspected material thought to contain toxic material in Melbourne (file photo)
Two emergency workers carry suspected material thought to contain toxic material in Melbourne (file photo)
The new bio-security center adds another layer to Australia's counterterrorism defenses. Its researchers will look at ways to combat biological warfare, naturally occurring diseases and the theft or misuse of sensitive research on micro-organisms. In addition, they will study the dangers posed by synthetic biology, where a virus or bacteria can be created from scratch.
The center's work will concentrate on 22 bacteria, viruses and poisons that the Australian government considers "agents of concern". They include anthrax, plague, smallpox and the toxin that causes botulism.
Experts fear diseases could be used in conflict
The facility's co-director, Dr. Christian Enemark, says researchers will be on the frontline of efforts to prevent the use of such potentially devastating diseases in conflict.
"It is still very difficult to assess the likelihood of a biological attack," he said, "but it's important to bear in mind that such an attack would be invisible and insidious and there are some who would argue that a terrorist attack has much more impact if it is physical and extremely visible. So, that leads me to suggest that conventional bombings and aircraft hijackings are likely to remain the terrorist tactics of choice but we should not blind ourselves to the possibility that biological agents might be used as a tool for terror."
The Australian government says the risk of a biological attack in the country is low and lists the current threat level as "medium".
Terrorists could deliberately spread diseases
But Peter Curson, a professor of population and security at the University of Sydney, says that diseases such as dengue fever, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, could be deliberately spread.
"It would be quite easy, for example, to get an infected person to visit a place like Australia, wander around, be perhaps bitten by a local mosquito and from that you might get a huge epidemic," he noted. "It's not a great extension of reality to suggest that could actually be used in a concentrated, deliberate way."
Australia has suffered serious outbreaks of infectious diseases in the past. In 1925, there were 600,000 reported cases of dengue fever.
Bio-Security center is a joint venture
The new bio-security unit is a joint venture between the Australian National University in Canberra and the University of Sydney. It will tap into the expertise of 50 researchers from a range of disciplines, whose job is to provide "independent and fearless" advice to politicians about biological security.
Scientists at the new center also will seek to bolster Australia's defenses against infectious diseases such as SARS - severe acute respiratory syndrome.
Dr. Enemark says the first SARS outbreak in Asia in 2003 caused massive problems, in large part because so little was known about the virus. To stop its spread, governments closed schools, many advised their citizens to avoid traveling and many social activities were canceled.
"Fewer than 800 people died of SARS out of just over 8,000 cases and yet there was a massive cost the Southeast Asian economy," he noted. "In the second quarter of 2003 alone there was a cost to East Asia of $60 billion. This demonstrates that disease can generate damage not just because it's killing people and making them ill, but because of the anxiety that can surround certain kinds of disease."
Embittered scientists could also pose threat
Australia has never suffered a direct terrorist attack. However, the bombings on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali in 2002, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, brought the continent to the frontline of international terrorism and its people were gripped by a sense of fear and vulnerability.
Security experts think the threat of terrorism is more likely to come from disaffected home-grown groups, such as the six Muslim men convicted this week for their part in a plot to bomb parts of Melbourne.
Bio-security specialists say that embittered scientists could pose also a threat, along with other radical groups, and that Australia must remain vigilant.
Australia's federal government is conducting a review of its bio-security defenses and its findings are to be released next month.
