Avian Flu - What we need to know

Effect Measure on antiviral "fireblankets"

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GlaxoSmithKline to start vaccine trials in April

Drug maker GlaxoSmithKline PLC hopes to start clinical trials in early April for its vaccine against the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain, a company executive said Thursday.

The London-based company would test the vaccine with two different boosters and the first results should come about three months later, said David Stout, president of the company's pharmaceutical operations.

Production is slated to start by year's end, he said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting.

Source.

Another human case in Indonesia

An Indonesian chicken seller in Jakarta is in hospital after being infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus according to local test results, a senior Health Ministry official said on Wednesday.

Hariadi Wibisono, director of control of animal-borne diseases at the ministry, said the 22-year-old man was being treated in a Jakarta hospital designated for bird flu patients.

"Local tests show he was positive for bird flu. He is a chicken vendor in a traditional market," Wibisono said, adding blood samples had been sent to a Hong Kong laboratory recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) for confirmation.

Source.

Addendum: the vendor died on Thursday, making this the 15th bird flu casualty in Indonesia.

Human case reported in North Korea

A Japanese group helping defectors from North Korea said on Wednesday a woman in Pyongyang was infected with bird flu last month after chickens carrying the disease were found in the capital.

Lee Young-wha, head of Rescue the North Korean People! Urgent Action Network, did not elaborate on how members of his group had found the woman to be affected, but said she was reported to have been admitted to a Red Cross hospital in December.

He had the group, strongly critical of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, make checks after scientists from a group representing pro-Pyongyang Koreans living in Japan went to North Korea carrying 10 packs of the anti-flu drug Tamiflu.

Lee, however, said members of the group could not verify whether the woman had been infected with the virulent H5N1 strain of avian influenza or a less virulent strain.

Source.

The WHO's negotiations with China

Read this Chosun.com discussion on the WHO's frustration with trying to get China to share bird flu samples.

China announces 10th human case

China's Ministry of Health announced the country's 10th human case of bird flu infection on Monday after a 29-year-old woman from the southwest of the country was diagnosed with the H5N1 virus.

The woman, surnamed Cao, ran a dry goods shop in a farm goods market in Jinhua Town in Sichuan Province, a notice on the ministry's website said.

Jinhua lies in the rural outskirts of Chengdu, the provincial capital, which has a total population of close to 10 million, including many farmers.

She was the province's second human case of bird flu this month, after the Chinese health ministry announced on Wednesday that a 35-year-old woman from there died of it on Jan. 11.

Source. See ProMedMail for the cumulative number of laboratory-confirmed human H5N1 cases.

Addendum: the 29-year-old woman was confirmed dead on Wednesday.

Cyprus tests for bird flu

Two suspected cases of avian flu were found on a farm in northern Cyprus, but it was early to say if it was the deadly H5N1 strain, Turkish Cypriot authorities said on Monday.

Samples from a dead turkey and a chicken were taken from close to Incircli, a village on the eastern part of the island which is also known by the Greek name Makrasykas,.

"There were two birds, one a turkey and one a chicken, and two suspicious deaths. Preliminary tests proved positive (for a form of bird flu)," said Turkish Cypriot health minister Esref Vaiz.

Source. Cyprus started culling free roaming poultry today in an effort to stop the spread of the virus.

Turkey hopeful the crisis is fading

"We have no (bird flu) patients in serious condition at this time," the chief physician at Van University Hospital, Huseyin Avni Sahin, told AFP Sunday.

Eight patients treated for the virus have recovered enough to leave hospital, including two brothers, aged five and two, who were discharged from an Ankara hospital on the weekend.

Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker told the Anatolia news agency Sunday that "the spread of the disease is losing steam."

He added that 1.16 million birds have been culled so far as the government seeks to contain the virus.

Government officials said the apparent improvement in the situation was due to heightened public awareness of the disease, its risks and its vectors of contamination. Most of those who had been infected contracted H5N1 by coming into contact with sick chickens raised in yards by poorer families.

Source.

WHO factsheet on avian flu

Read the latest information released by the agency here.

Two more human cases confirmed in Indonesia

Indonesia's confirmed death toll from the bird flu virus rose to 14, while three patients suspected of carrying the virus were being treated in hospital, health officials said.

Two siblings from Indonesia's West Java died last week and tests by a World Health Organisation (WHO)-accredited laboratory showed they were infected with the H5N1 strain, health ministry official Hariyadi Wibisono said.

"The results from Hong Kong arrived earlier today (Saturday) and confirmed that the two had died of bird flu," he told AFP.

Wibisono said the pair, aged four and 13, were residents of Indramayu -- site of the fifth cluster case in Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation -- and were in contact with dead chickens near their home.

Source.