Oct 2, 2008

DNI Avian Influenza Daily Digest

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Intelink Avian Influenza Daily Digest

Avian Influenza Daily Digest

October 2, 2008 14:00 GMT

This digest is produced by the United States Government, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Washington DC, USA. Articles and resource documents in this digest are from open sources and unclassified.

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Article Summaries ...

Announcement

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Announcement

Regional Reporting and Surveillance

DEFRA: Changes to GB wild bird survey for Avian Influenza
10/2/08 DEFRA--Defra has today announced changes to the way it identifies wild birds that may be carrying avian influenza. The GB surveillance strategy for 2008-2009 will help identify any change in risk to poultry and other kept birds from avian influenza (AI) in wild birds ("the Survey").
Regional Reporting and Surveillance

West Africa: Ghana, Togo, Benin Parley Over Bird Flu
10/2/08 All Africa--Ghana's Veterinary Services Directorate, alarmed at the resurgence of avian influenza (bird flu) in Nigeria, is seeking a meeting with its eastern neighbours, Togo and Benin Republic to discuss common measures to prevent it from spreading to their countries.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance

Singapore: Stockpiling Tamiflu
10/2/08 The Straits Times--Singapore wants to buy 650,000 more courses of bird flu drug Tamiflu to add to its stock of 1.05 million courses of Tamiflu and 50,000 courses of Relenza, also a bird flu drug. With the new purchases, Singapore will have enough bird flu drugs to treat 1.5 million patients. - The president and chief executive of Global Testing Corp. Paul Yang, has been asked by the firm's board to take an indefinite leave of absence over alleged improper payments.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance

Myanmar: Migratory birds pre-entry alerts Myanmar against bird flu
10/2/08 Xinhua--The pre-entry of migratory wild birds into Myanmar territory two months ahead of winter has alerted the country to take preventive measures against probable recurrence of bird flu, according to Thursday's local Biweekly Eleven journal.
Regional Reporting and Surveillance

Science and Technology

VaxInnate?s Second Flu Vaccine Candidate Enters Clinical Development; Results Expected In Early 2009
http://www.farmanux.com/wpnews/2008/10/vaxinnates-second-flu-vaccine-candidate-enters-clinical-development-results-expected-in-early-2009/
Vaccines

Genetic Flu Test Approved in U.S. to Detect Virus in Four Hours
10/2/08 Bloomberg--A new genetic test made by Applied Biosystems Inc. was approved by U.S. regulators to detect different strains of the flu virus, including avian flu.
Science and Technology

Stopping Pandemic Bird Flu: A broad-acting vaccine might be key
10/2/08 Technology Review--Bird flu tops the list of the world's next "potential pandemic"--virulent influenza strains that spread rapidly across the globe--but figuring out how to fight it has been far less clear-cut. So far, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a few vaccines that may be able to fend off the virus, but all of those are grown in chicken eggs, take up to six months to produce, and are each effective against only one strain of the virus. A brand-new DNA vaccine, which scientists hope to soon test in humans, may provide much broader protection.
Science and Technology, Vaccines

FDA approves test for human and bird flu
10/10/08 AFP--The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a new test that can rapidly diagnose and identify human influenza infections and human bird flu, the agency announced.
Science and Technology

Pandemic Preparedness

Who Should Be Considered ?Essential? During a Pandemic Flu Outbreak
10/2/08 Digital Journal--An article by researchers at Johns Hopkins University saysnot only are doctors, nurses, and firefighters essential during a severe pandemic influenza outbreak but so are truck drivers, communications personnel, and utility workers.
Pandemic Preparedness

GAO Report: INFLUENZA PANDEMIC: HHS Needs to Continue Its Actions and Finalize Guidance for Pharmaceutical Interventions
10/2/08 GAO--[full text link]--What GAO Found Highlights of GAO-08-671, a report to congressional requesters The emergence of the H5N1 avian influenza virus (also known as ?bird flu?) has raised concerns that it or another virus might mutate into a virulent strain that could lead to an influenza pandemic. Experts predict that a severe pandemic could overwhelm the nation?s health care system, requiring the rationing of limited resources. GAO was asked to provide information on the progress of the Department of Health and Human Services?s (HHS) plans for responding to a pandemic, including analyzing how HHS plans to (1) use pharmaceutical interventions to treat infected individuals and protect the critical workforce and (2) use nonpharmaceutical interventions to slow the spread of disease. To conduct this work, GAO reviewed government documents and scientific literature, and interviewed HHS officials, state and local public health officials, and subject-matter experts on pandemic response. What GAO Recommends GAO recommends that HHS expeditiously finalize guidance to assist state and local jurisdictions to determine how to effectively use limited supplies of antivirals and pre-pandemic vaccine in a pandemic, including prioritizing target groups for pre-pandemic vaccine. In comments on a draft of this report, HHS described additional actions it has taken and plans to take relating to GAO?s recommendation, including releasing for public comment in the near future proposed guidance on pre-pandemic vaccine allocation. HHS plans to make existing federal stockpiles of pharmaceutical interventions available for distribution once a pandemic begins. These interventions would include antivirals, which are drugs to prevent or reduce the severity of infection, and pre-pandemic vaccines, which are vaccines produced prior to a pandemic and developed from influenza strains that have the potential to cause a pandemic. HHS has established a national goal of stockpiling 75 million treatment courses of antivirals in the Strategic National Stockpile and in jurisdictional stockpiles. According to HHS, these public sector stockpiles are intended to be used primarily for the treatment of individuals sick with influenza. HHS intends to oversee the distribution and administration of pre-pandemic vaccine to individuals identified as members of the critical workforce. Members of the critical workforce?estimated to be about 20 million?include workers in sectors that are considered necessary to keep society functioning, such as health care and law enforcement personnel. HHS?s strategy for using pre-pandemic vaccine is to keep society functioning until a pandemic vaccine?a vaccine specific to the pandemic-causing strain?becomes widely available. HHS anticipates that initial batches of a pandemic vaccine may not be available until 20 to 23 weeks after the start of the pandemic. As batches of the pandemic vaccine become available, HHS plans for state and local jurisdictions to provide it to members of targeted groups based on factors such as occupation and age, instead of making it available to the general public. HHS faces challenges implementing its strategy for using pharmaceutical interventions during a pandemic, including the lack of vaccine manufacturing capacity in the United States. HHS is currently making large investments to expand domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity. In 2008, HHS released guidance on prioritizing target groups for pandemic vaccine and draft guidance on antiviral use during a pandemic. HHS has not yet released draft guidance for public comment on prioritizing target groups for pre-pandemic vaccine.
Pandemic Preparedness

Flu pandemic would ?overwhelm? U.S. health care system, report finds
10/2/08 Northwestern--In the case of an influenza pandemic, the U.S. health care system would be inadequately prepared to meet the needs of an infected population, according to a report released this week by a government watchdog agency.
Pandemic Preparedness


Full Text of Articles follow ...


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Pandemic Preparedness

Who Should Be Considered ?Essential? During a Pandemic Flu Outbreak


10/2/08 Digital Journal--An article by researchers at Johns Hopkins University saysnot only are doctors, nurses, and firefighters essential during a severe pandemic influenza outbreak but so are truck drivers, communications personnel, and utility workers.

The article to be published in the Journal of Biosecurity and Bioterrorism. The report, led by Nancy Kass, Sc.D, Deputy Director of Public Health for the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, provides ethical guidance for pandemic planning that ensures a skeletal infrastructure remain intact at all times.

Dr. Kass says, ?when preparing for a severe pandemic flu it is crucial for leaders to recognize that if the public has limited or no access to food, water, sewage systems, fuel and communications, the secondary consequences may cause greater sickness death and social breakdown than the virus itself.?

The authors represent a wide-range of expertise in several areas of pandemic emergency planning both at the state and federal levels. They examined several accepted public health rationing strategies that give priority to all healthcare workers and those most susceptible to illness and then proposed a new strategy that gives priority to a more diverse group.

. ?Alongside healthcare workers and first responders, priority should be given to the people who provide the public with basic essentials for good health and well-being, ranging from grocery store employees and communications personnel to truck drivers and utility workers,? says Dr. Kass.

The report recognizes that given the widespread and sustained nature of a pandemic, federal assistance will be spread thin and local jurisdictions must develop their own preparedness plans to ensure they are capable of sustained self-sufficiency.

Encouraging and working with local businesses to develop their own response plans can help reduce the burden on local governments during a pandemic. Similarly, individuals and families who can afford it should do their best to prepare for any disaster.

The more initiative the general public exercises in stockpiling several weeks? worth of food, water, paper goods, batteries medicines, and other needed supplies, the less vulnerable they will be to a break in the supply chain. It is important for leaders to communicate to the middle class and the wealthy that it is their responsibility to prepare for self-sufficiency in order to free up scarce supplies and allow first responders to direct their attention towards those too poor or vulnerable to prepare themselves.

The article includes a set of ethics rules and principles to help guide and frame a pandemic response strategy that is evidence-based, transparent, fair, and recognizes the burdens the public may face.

Dr. Kass points out the ?consideration of ethics are critical not only in having respectful and inclusive discussion and engaging with the public fairly, but it also improves the likelihood of public health and medical success through increased cooperation and understanding of government plans.?

Other authors of this paper include: Jean Otto, DrPH, Senior Epidemiologist, Department of Defense, Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System, Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research; Daniel O?Brien, JD, Principal Counsel, Office of the Maryland Attorney General, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; and Mathew Minson, MD, Senior Medical Officer for Strategic Initiatives, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Vaccines

VaxInnate?s Second Flu Vaccine Candidate Enters Clinical Development; Results Expected In Early 2009


10/2/08 PharmaBlog--VaxInnate Corporation, a biotechnology company pioneering breakthrough technology to develop novel seasonal and pandemic influenza vaccines, today announced that its second influenza vaccine candidate has entered clinical development. The Phase I study is expected to yield important information about the safety and immunogenicity - or ability to generate an immune response -- of VaxInnate's hemagglutinin (HA)-flagellin flu vaccine candidate.

Regional Reporting and Surveillance

DEFRA: Changes to GB wild bird survey for Avian Influenza


10/2/08 DEFRA--Defra has today announced changes to the way it identifies wild birds that may be carrying avian influenza. The GB surveillance strategy for 2008-2009 will help identify any change in risk to poultry and other kept birds from avian influenza (AI) in wild birds ("the Survey").

The changes, which come into immediate effect, are being brought in as a result of increased scientific knowledge and practical experience in handling incidents of avian influenza.

Under the changes, which have been recommended by epidemiologists, discussed with expert ornithologists and endorsed by the Animal Disease Policy Group, skilled wild bird ecologists and wardens will make year-round patrols in designated reserves. They will screen and assess both live and dead wild birds, in particular gulls, ducks, geese, swans and waders, for avian influenza testing.

In addition, members of the public are from now on being asked to report incidents only where they find 10 or more dead birds in the same place and at the same time.

Birds shot as part of normal wildfowling activities will not be sampled because the extended warden patrols will provide the coverage required. Other methods of sampling, including sampling of shot birds may still be used if needed in future, for example if a case of highly pathogenic avian influenza in wild birds resulted in a Wild Bird Control Area being declared. The likelihood of a wild bird found dead being infected with avian influenza remains very small. Dead wild birds are screened because they are a useful source for sampling and not because their death is likely to be due to avian influenza.

Chief Veterinary Officer, Nigel Gibbens, said:

"The Wild Bird Survey has operated since October 2005 and we are able to improve its focus as our scientific knowledge and experience of AI incidents increases. I am confident that this change will enable us to identify any increased risk to domestic poultry from wild birds through better targeting of our surveillance effort. We will continue to keep the survey under review and update it when necessary".

If members of the public are concerned about dead wild birds that they have found, they should follow the guidance on the Defra website at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/diseases/notifiable/disease/ai/wildbirds/index.htm#reporting

Notes to editors

1. The Survey for AI in Wild Birds commenced in October 2005 and became more targeted in 2006 based on increased scientific knowledge.

Public enquiries 08459 335577;

Press notices are available on our website http://www.defra.gov.uk

Defra's aim is sustainable development

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Pandemic Preparedness

GAO Report: INFLUENZA PANDEMIC: HHS Needs to Continue Its Actions and Finalize Guidance for Pharmaceutical Interventions


10/2/08 GAO--[full text link]--What GAO Found
Highlights of GAO-08-671, a report to congressional requesters The emergence of the H5N1 avian influenza virus (also known as ?bird flu?) has raised concerns that it or another virus might mutate into a virulent strain that could lead to an influenza pandemic. Experts predict that a severe pandemic could overwhelm the nation?s health care system, requiring the rationing of limited resources. GAO was asked to provide information on the progress of the Department of Health and Human Services?s (HHS) plans for responding to a pandemic, including analyzing how HHS plans to (1) use pharmaceutical interventions to treat infected individuals and protect the critical workforce and (2) use nonpharmaceutical interventions to slow the spread of disease. To conduct this work, GAO reviewed government documents and scientific literature, and interviewed HHS officials, state and local public health officials, and subject-matter experts on pandemic response.

What GAO Recommends
GAO recommends that HHS expeditiously finalize guidance to assist state and local jurisdictions to determine how to effectively use limited supplies of antivirals and pre-pandemic vaccine in a pandemic, including prioritizing target groups for pre-pandemic vaccine. In comments on a draft of this report, HHS described additional actions it has taken and plans to take relating to GAO?s recommendation, including releasing for public comment in the near future proposed guidance on pre-pandemic vaccine allocation.
HHS plans to make existing federal stockpiles of pharmaceutical interventions available for distribution once a pandemic begins. These interventions would include antivirals, which are drugs to prevent or reduce the severity of infection, and pre-pandemic vaccines, which are vaccines produced prior to a pandemic and developed from influenza strains that have the potential to cause a pandemic. HHS has established a national goal of stockpiling 75 million treatment courses of antivirals in the Strategic National Stockpile and in jurisdictional stockpiles. According to HHS, these public sector stockpiles are intended to be used primarily for the treatment of individuals sick with influenza. HHS intends to oversee the distribution and administration of pre-pandemic vaccine to individuals identified as members of the critical workforce. Members of the critical workforce?estimated to be about 20 million?include workers in sectors that are considered necessary to keep society functioning, such as health care and law enforcement personnel. HHS?s strategy for using pre-pandemic vaccine is to keep society functioning until a pandemic vaccine?a vaccine specific to the pandemic-causing strain?becomes widely available. HHS anticipates that initial batches of a pandemic vaccine may not be available until 20 to 23 weeks after the start of the pandemic. As batches of the pandemic vaccine become available, HHS plans for state and local jurisdictions to provide it to members of targeted groups based on factors such as occupation and age, instead of making it available to the general public. HHS faces challenges implementing its strategy for using pharmaceutical interventions during a pandemic, including the lack of vaccine manufacturing capacity in the United States. HHS is currently making large investments to expand domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity. In 2008, HHS released guidance on prioritizing target groups for pandemic vaccine and draft guidance on antiviral use during a pandemic. HHS has not yet released draft guidance for public comment on prioritizing target groups for pre-pandemic vaccine.

Pandemic Preparedness

Flu pandemic would ?overwhelm? U.S. health care system, report finds


10/2/08 Northwestern--In the case of an influenza pandemic, the U.S. health care system would be inadequately prepared to meet the needs of an infected population, according to a report released this week by a government watchdog agency.

The report, published by the Government Accountability Office, criticizes the Department of Health and Human Services? influenza pandemic preparedness, finding concerns about ineffective means of dispensing treatment and a lack of organization in getting the program up and running.

?HHS has made a lot of progress in preparedness planning, but it still need to continue actions and finalize some of the guidelines necessary for state and local health,? GAO spokeswoman Marcia Crosse said.

The GAO recommends that HHS, the governmental body responsible for overseeing health services nationwide, improve guiidance for officials to assure they react effectively during an outbreak.

In a pandemic situation, the government relies on people at the local and community levels to provide limited supplies of antiviral medications and to handle nonpharmaceutical interventions. That includes isolating sick people and quarantining those exposed to the virus.

?How would your business function? How would you hold school?? Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Von Roebuck said in a telephone interview. ?There has been a lot of work with those issues in addition to how we can protect ourselves. It?s the local communities that will play the crucial role. We see them as being key and want to help them as much as possible.?

When it comes to pandemics, experts worry about a repeat of the 1918-1919 pandemic, or the ?Spanish flu,? which infected approximately 500 million people worldwide.

Crosse said there would not be enough staffed hospital beds or supplies in the U.S. to deal with an outbreak on par with the Spanish flu.

Although vaccines are currently available for certain strains of influenza, a pandemic occurs in cases where a new strain is introduced to the population. Any novel strain that has not yet circulated widely among humans could become widespread because people have not developed antibodies to the infection and scientists have not developed treatments.

The GAO estimates that, in the midst of a crisis, a pandemic vaccine could take 20 weeks to 23 weeks to develop. Normally, in an unaccelerated, non-crisis situation, a vaccine takes six months to develop.

During a pandemic, the government plans to distribute pre-pandemic vaccines to citizens pegged as members of the ?critical workforce,? which could include health care workers and law enforcement officials. As batches of the pandemic vaccine then become available, they would be distributed to more civilians based on their ages and occupations.

The GAO?s research into this issue was spurred by concerns in Congress and in the health care community about the possibility of an influenza epidemic. Fears were raised in early 2005 after the avian influenza virus, commonly known as ?bird flu,? broke out in Southeast Asia. However, the GAO, an arm of Congress, has suggested since 2000 that Health and Human Services needs to do more to improve its influenza pandemic preparedness.

The findings, based on government documents, interviews with experts and conversations with HHS representatives, were directed to the Senate Health, Labor and Education Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee.

The cabinet agency, HHS, did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.
Related Links
GAO report on influenza pandemic preparedness
Issues explored in the GAO report

1. Pharmaceutical interventions available to reduce the health, societal and economic impacts of a pandemic

2. Nonpharmaceutical interventions available to prevent the spread of the influenza virus

3. Challenges faced by the Department of Health and Human Services in the event of a pandemic, which include lack of vaccine manufacturing capacity in the U.S. and the difficulties associated with executing quarantine requirements

Science and Technology

Genetic Flu Test Approved in U.S. to Detect Virus in Four Hours


10/2/08 Bloomberg--A new genetic test made by Applied Biosystems Inc. was approved by U.S. regulators to detect different strains of the flu virus, including avian flu.

The test can identify strains of the human influenza, as well as H5N1, a strain of bird flu, within four hours and in multiple samples simultaneously, said Dan Jernigan, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's influenza division. The tests will be available for the flu season at the CDC's 100 approved laboratories for tracking the virus, he said.

The new device takes genetic material secreted by the virus from a patient's nose or throat. Those materials are isolated and labeled with fluorescent molecules that can be analyzed. The test is more accurate than those used in most hospitals and will help notify health officials of a potential flu outbreak, according to the Atlanta-based health agency.

``This provides the ability to provide a very high, accurate and valid test that will be the same wherever it's done,'' Jernigan said today in a telephone interview. ``This is not something that will be at all hospitals and at the bedside. That's not the purpose of this test.''

Applied Biosystems, based in Foster City, California, develops early warning systems to find pathogens. The company agreed to be bought for $6.7 billion by Invitrogen on June 12. The deal is expected to be completed in the second half of 2008, Applied Biosystems said in a statement today.

Regional Reporting and Surveillance

West Africa: Ghana, Togo, Benin Parley Over Bird Flu


10/2/08 All Africa--Ghana's Veterinary Services Directorate, alarmed at the resurgence of avian influenza (bird flu) in Nigeria, is seeking a meeting with its eastern neighbours, Togo and Benin Republic to discuss common measures to prevent it from spreading to their countries.

Dr Enoch Koney, Acting Director, said a similar cross border meeting had been planned with Cote d'Ivoire to the west and Burkina Faso to the north.

Nigeria is sited to the east of Ghana. Ghana declared itself free from the disease about two years ago after culling and other measures.

Speaking on Tuesday in Kumasi at a day's simulation exercise on avian influenza, he said all regional directors of agriculture as well as veterinary officers had been informed about the new case in Nigeria.

Koney said this was to strengthen surveillance in all avian influenza risk-prone areas and asked them not to be complacent in their prevention and control measures.

He urged them to have a constant check at all live bird markets and monitor the staging posts of migratory wild birds at wetlands while they strictly enforced import permits for poultry and poultry products.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned that a new strain of avian influenza never before reported in Africa has been identified in Nigeria.

It said tests conducted by Nigeria and by the FAO showed that the new virus strain which was similar to strains identified last year in Italy, Afghanistan and Iran was genetically distinct from other forms detected in Nigeria in 2006 and 2007.
Relevant Links
West Africa
Food, Agriculture and Rural Issues
Benin
Ghana
Health and Medicine
Nigeria
Sustainable Development
Togo

It pointed to other avenues the virus could have taken to Nigeria, such as international trade or illegal and unreported movement of poultry. "This increases the risk of an avian influenza spread to other countries in Western Africa,"

Regional Reporting and Surveillance

Singapore: Stockpiling Tamiflu


10/2/08 The Straits Times--Singapore wants to buy 650,000 more courses of bird flu drug Tamiflu to add to its stock of 1.05 million courses of Tamiflu and 50,000 courses of Relenza, also a bird flu drug.

With the new purchases, Singapore will have enough bird flu drugs to treat 1.5 million patients. - The president and chief executive of Global Testing Corp. Paul Yang, has been asked by the firm's board to take an indefinite leave of absence over alleged improper payments.

Science and Technology > Vaccines

Stopping Pandemic Bird Flu: A broad-acting vaccine might be key


10/2/08 Technology Review--Bird flu tops the list of the world's next "potential pandemic"--virulent influenza strains that spread rapidly across the globe--but figuring out how to fight it has been far less clear-cut. So far, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a few vaccines that may be able to fend off the virus, but all of those are grown in chicken eggs, take up to six months to produce, and are each effective against only one strain of the virus. A brand-new DNA vaccine, which scientists hope to soon test in humans, may provide much broader protection.

Avian influenza, caused by a variant of the H5N1 virus, has afflicted hundreds of millions of birds worldwide. The virus mutates quickly: some of the mutations, upon making the jump to humans, have proved fatal. So far, bird flu has killed at least 250 people.

"Everyone fears that the virus only needs to make a few mutations to become virulent and transmissible human to human, so this is certainly one of the biggest pandemic threats that we face," says David Ho, a professor at Rockefeller University and the scientific director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, in New York. "It obviously continues to be a threat, even though it's no longer on everyone's radar screen."

The bird flu's rapid mutations are precisely what make the virus so difficult to fight. The few vaccines that are currently approved to treat it were created using existing viruses, and therefore, each immunizes against only a single virulent mutation. To develop a more broadly acting vaccine, Ho and his colleagues at Taiwan's Academia Sinica took a DNA-based approach. DNA-based vaccines are made up of DNA that's been genetically modified to elicit a specific immune response and thus allow a greater level of control over design than do traditional vaccines.

Ho and his colleagues focused on the gene for hemagglutinin, which produces the virus's outer protein and the one against which human immune systems respond. They created a DNA sequence for the gene that produces hemagglutinin, using pieces of the gene that are shared among different strains of H5N1, rather than a sequence obtained from a single strain of the virus.

DNA vaccines have many benefits: they are long-lived, stable, require no refrigeration, can be hastily modified, and can be cheaply and quickly manufactured. But they do have one drawback: injections into muscle tissue result in very inefficient DNA uptake. To address this, Ho and his collaborators turned to a technique called electroporation, a method that has shown promise in preliminary studies. In electroporation, the vaccine is combined with small electrical stimuli at the injection site; the resulting electrical field enhances DNA uptake by the muscle cells.

The study results, published in a recent edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "show that when you use the consensus sequence to immunize mice, the mice will mount an antibody response that's pretty broadly neutralizing for viruses in different branches of the H5N1 tree," Ho says. And when the researchers exposed the mice to different strains of the virus, they found that the protection had breadth as well.

"This is a very interesting, imaginative, and novel approach," says virologist Peter Palese, head of the microbiology department at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York. "It takes advantage of several technological advances, and should be given a chance to be tested in humans."

Part of what makes the approach so appealing, he notes, is the vaccine's ability to stimulate immunity to multiple virus strains. "The present vaccines are very limited to a particular variant, and if the circulating variant is very different, then we have a problem," says Palese. "The new vaccine will cover more variants around the original strain."

Regional Reporting and Surveillance

Myanmar: Migratory birds pre-entry alerts Myanmar against bird flu


10/2/08 Xinhua--The pre-entry of migratory wild birds into Myanmar territory two months ahead of winter has alerted the country to take preventive measures against probable recurrence of bird flu, according to Thursday's local Biweekly Eleven journal.

It was noticed that migratory birds have started to fly in the Inlay Lake region, southern part of Shan state, over the past week and by December when the cold season fully sets in, there would be large gathering of such birds in Myanmar territory that constitutes threat of spreading the disease, the report said.

Migratory birds are scientifically considered as the carrier of deadly H5N1 virus from one place to another.

Inlay lake is a place where about 250 species of various birds rest.

The warning against movement of such migratory birds also covered that to Indawgyi Lake and Moein region in northernmost Kachin state. Other areas are listed as western coastal Rakhine state's Budidaung and Maungtaw.

Migratory birds from different regions across the world used to fly over Myanmar territory during the winter season period between November and February, especially December, said experts.

The authorities have also called for keeping awareness about the modes of infection of the avian influenza and intensifying precautionary and educational measures to prevent any occurrence in humans and birds.

Meanwhile, Myanmar is cooperating with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in prevention against avian influenza.

In April this year, the World Animal Health Organization (OIE) declared Myanmar as a bird-flu-free country three months after the country was proved that there was no residual bird flu virus remained over the period since January.

Over the past two years since February 2006 until the last in December 2007, there were numerous outbreaks of the avian influenza in Myanmar covering 25 townships of six states and divisions.

All of the occurrences were blamed for infecting from abroad especially that the virus was carried into the country by migratory birds from the cold regions in the world infecting local birds, according to the Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department.

Myanmar reported outbreak of the avian influenza in the country for the first time in some poultry farms in Mandalay and Sagaing divisions in early 2006, followed by those in Yangon division in early 2007, in Mon state's Thanbyuzayat and western Bago division's Letpadan in July and in eastern Bago division's Thanatpin and inYangon division's Hmawby in October the same year.

Despite the declaration as a bird-flu-free country, the Myanmar livestock authorities continued to call for the country's people to exercise a long-term precaution against the deadly H5N1 bird flu.

Science and Technology

FDA approves test for human and bird flu


10/10/08 AFP--The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a new test that can rapidly diagnose and identify human influenza infections and human bird flu, the agency announced.

The test, developed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will be available to CDC-qualified laboratories this year, the FDA said in a statement Tuesday.

It uses molecular analysis of viral genetic material taken from secretions in a patient's nose and throat to detect and identify commonly circulating human influenza viruses as well as H5N1 viruses and other strains.

The Human Influenza Virus Real-Time RT-PCR Detection and Characterization Panel isolates and amplifies the viral genetic material and labels it with fluorescent molecules, the FDA statement said.

The material is then analyzed by a diagnostic instrument, the Applied Biosystems 7500 Fast Dx, also approved by the FDA Tuesday for use simultaneously with the Flu Panel.

Results can be obtained in just four hours and the system can test multiple samples at once, the FDA said.

"This is a significant achievement for public health surveillance," said Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.

"This test allows us to better support laboratories on the front line of influenza testing in the United States and abroad.

"The application of the test to detect an emergent influenza virus would be especially important in the early stages of a pandemic," Leavitt added.

The FDA's chief scientist Frank Torti added: "Because the test can tell the difference between seasonal human influenza viruses and novel viruses, it will also provide qualified laboratories with a means to rapidly detect new influenza viruses that have not been identified yet and that could pose a pandemic risk."

Scientists are concerned that the H5N1 bird flu virus, which currently kills mainly animals, could mutate into a disease that is easily transferable from human to human and spark a global pandemic.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says 243 people have died from bird flu worldwide since 2003, the vast majority of them in Asia.

"H5N1 viruses circulate widely in birds in Asia, Africa and Europe, and have caused human illnesses and death," the FDA statement said.

UNCLASSIFIED