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- New anti-viral even blocks bird flu
- Getting ready for the bird flu
- Prisoners, Eskimos Mobilize for Alaskan Bird-Flu Surveillance
- Churches, families urged to prepare for possible bird flu pandemic
- It's time to prepare your bird-flu plan
- Bird flu - has it gone P2P?
- Officials in Chester County are working to establish contingency plans in the event of a global avian flu pandemic.
- Some precautions to take against bird flu
- Response plan set if bird flu is found
- Alaska villagers living in bird flu's flight path
- Bird Flu 'Canaries' in Alaska
- Is New Bird-Flu Vaccine Just a Stopgap? Added 3/2/2007
Getting ready for the bird flu
June 18, 2006 Ventura County Star
- Prepare for daily life disruptions, including closures of schools, banks, government offices and grocery stores. Have a supply of food, water, medicine and some cash on hand to get by for several days.
- Consider how to handle special needs care for the elderly, disabled or chronically ill if regular medical and other services aren't available.
- Seek options for working from home and plan for a loss of income in case you are unable to work.
- Plan home study and recreation activities for children in case schools or day care facilities are closed.
- If you rely on public transportation, consider alternatives for getting essential supplies such as food and water if the transportation system is shut down.
- Stay healthy by practicing good hygiene. Wash your hands frequently with soap and water (experts suggest spending a minimum of 30 seconds scrubbing). Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, or use your upper sleeve if a tissue isn't available. Stay home if you're sick.
- Identify ways you might be able to assist your neighbors or the community in the event of a crisis. Volunteer groups may need additional help. Local health officials are trying to establish a database of healthcare workers — including doctors, nurses, dentists, even respiratory therapists who can assist with mass vaccinations or other caregiving.
Prisoners, Eskimos Mobilize for Alaskan Bird-Flu Surveillance
June 9 (Bloomberg) -- As millions of migrating birds from Asia descend on Alaska to breed, prison inmates and back-country hunters are joining wildlife biologists in the state's largest- ever surveillance for the deadly bird flu.
At the Point MacKenzie Correctional Farm north of Anchorage, State Veterinarian Robert Gerlach says he taught guards how to screen chickens and turkeys for signs of the virus. Inmates got a lesson on spotting sick or dead birds among the flocks of sandhill cranes and geese that feed in the prison's barley fields.
The vast state, twice the size of Texas, is the focus of expanded U.S. Screening because it is at the crossroads of bird migration from Asia, where the H5N1 virus, which has killed at least 127 people, started in 2003. Of 100,000 wild birds the U.S. Hopes to screen this year, 19,000 will be in Alaska, the most of any state.
``That's the first place where these migratory birds from Asia are going to land,'' says Gail Keirn, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colorado. ``That's why there's such an intense effort up there.''
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the inspection service, said in March that avian influenza might arrive in the U.S. This year, threatening chicken stocks and enhancing the risk the virus will mutate into a form that can pass more easily among humans. The U.S. Is spending $29 million on the expanded screening to prevent a deadly epidemic.
58 Field Sites
Screening 19,000 birds across Alaska's 572,000 square miles (1.48 million square kilometers), is no easy task. Samples of the birds' fecal matter, which may contain evidence of the virus, will come from 58 field sites across the state, some of them reachable only by float plane. The bird must be captured and an anus swab taken.
As of June 1, 2,523 samples had been collected in Alaska, according to Bruce Woods, a Fish and Wildlife spokesman. Of the 758 tested so far, all have been negative.
Gerlach, the state vet in Anchorage, is in charge of screening 2,000 birds used for food, including farm and backyard poultry.
``There are a large number of backyard operations,'' he says. ``We have an owner that has a flock of about 20 or 30 chickens all the way out on one of the remote islands at the end of the Aleutian chain.'' The islands southwest of Anchorage jut into the Bering Sea.
Teaching Hunters
To gather samples from subsistence hunters in villages south of the Arctic Circle, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service contracted with Kawerak Inc., a non-profit company in Nome that coordinates government grants for 20 native tribes.
Timothy Kroeker, a biologist at Kawerak, says he's teaching two hunters in each village how to screen birds after they've been killed. His task is made harder by fears of catching the virus.
``Some people are so concerned that they are not even hunting this year,'' says Kroeker, who has gathered 600 samples so far. ``For somebody in the villages not to hunt, that's quite serious.''
In a typical year, subsistence hunters take 20,000 Northern pintails, a duck that breeds in Alaska after wintering in Asia.
``I'm just afraid,'' says Raymond Seetook, an Inupiat Eskimo reached by telephone in Wales, a coastal village of 162 people about 80 miles (129 kilometers) from Russia. ``I hope we don't get it.'' His household of eight survives on hunting by his two sons.
Seetook, 59, says two of his grandparents died in the 1918 flu epidemic, when about 50 million people worldwide are believed to have died from a virus that jumped from birds to humans. The population of Seetook's village fell by half.
Latex Gloves
During a field trip to a coastal wildlife refuge last month, U.S. Geological Survey biologists, equipped with goggles and latex gloves, strung a fine-mesh net between poles to catch 10 pectoral sandpipers.
The birds winter in Southeast Asia, then interact with others in Siberia. The Siberian birds later migrate through Alaska to South America. Temperatures have been colder than normal, so the birds are passing through Alaska quickly, says Robert Gill, a Geological Survey biologist who led the expedition.
``We are running slightly behind schedule,'' he says. ``They are not staying around.''
Gill would catch the sandpipers, attach a numbered metal band, take measurements, then gather blood and feather samples. Finally, he swabbed the birds for the fecal sample and put that into a vial, which was then stored in a liquid-nitrogen tank and sent to a laboratory in Wisconsin.
28 Species
Even with the expanded screening, Alaska will test a tiny portion of the state's 500 species. The sampling list contains only the 28 wild-bird species considered most likely to carry the virus and most practical to sample.
Gerlach visited the correctional farm north of Anchorage, which slaughters 1,000 chickens a month for consumption in the state's prisons, after Superintendent Joseph Schmidt called him, worried that a chicken might catch the virus from swarms of migrating birds.
``When one is spooked and takes off, the sky would turn dark,'' Schmidt says. ``There were thousands and thousands of them.''
To contact the reporter on this story:
Choy Leng Yeong in Seattle at clyeong@bloomberg.net
Churches, families urged to prepare for possible bird flu pandemic
By Pat Norby
6/19/2006Catholic News Service (www.catholicnews.com)
EXCELSIOR, Minn. – Churches will be in the forefront of the bird flu issue, as they are among the organizations that will be called upon to communicate information and serve as immunization or triage sites or temporary housing or health care sites, said a scientist who has studied the issue.
The world is statistically overdue for a flu pandemic, said Bruce Johnson, chief strategist for Bioingenuity and chairman of the avian flu task force at Westwood Community Church in Excelsior. A former researcher with a major feed company, he holds a doctorate in animal science.
"The sky in my world is not falling," despite the many warnings that a bird flu pandemic could, someday soon, kill half the world's population, he said.
Johnson spoke at a community preparedness forum on the bird flu at Westwood Community Church. The forum drew church staff members from St. Luke Catholic Church in St. Paul, Minn., to St. Hubert Catholic Church in Chanhassen, Minn., and elsewhere.
A pandemic is a disease that starts locally and spreads worldwide. The bird flu – known as the H5N1 virus – has caused 128 human deaths as of June 6, according to World Health Organization reports.
According to information from WHO and both the national and Minnesota pandemic influenza plans, the flu is highly contagious and affects both domestic and migratory birds. (This is a rather new statement - Migratory birds were suspected, now they are added)
Experts predict that the virus will be in migratory birds that will reach the United States by the end of June, most likely in Alaska or California. The virus already has been found in migratory birds in the United Kingdom and Scotland.
The worry is that the bird virus will mutate into a human-to-human virus, similar to the 1918-1919 Spanish flu, Johnson said. Some 20 million to 40 million people died worldwide in that epidemic. Unofficially, it may have been 100 million, Johnson said.
In a worst-case pandemic flu scenario, Minnesota's Human Health Services estimates that 30,000 people in Minnesota could die over an eight-week period. In an average year, 38,000 people die from all causes in Minnesota.
About 40 percent of the workforce would be home ill or caring for ill family members or self-isolating for two weeks or more during the eight weeks of the first wave of the influenza. Those most at risk would be school-age children, young adults and pregnant women.
Rev. Dave Trautmann, adult ministries pastor at Westwood Community Church in Excelsior, said the June 1 gathering was a grass-roots effort that developed from a previous gathering of 30 church, medical and public health leaders in Carver County.
Bryan Higgins and Susan Danzeisen from the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis were among the people who heard about the June 1 forum through the National Association of Church Business Administrators.
Higgins, the basilica's night and weekend coordinator, said, "Overall, we're trying to plan ahead." With many social service programs and about 250 meetings a week, the parish needs to have a plan to meet the needs, he told The Catholic Spirit, newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis.
Danzeisen, administrative assistant to basilica facilities, said she believes many people are in denial about the bird flu.
"Look at New Orleans," she said. Poor emergency planning left people stranded for days in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
"Families should have a plan," she said, because people can't depend on the federal government.
Tim Remington, Westwood communications director, said he heard a talk by the CEO of an oil company in New Orleans that had a plan in place for its employees to get back to work after a hurricane. The company was back to work weeks before other companies after Katrina because it had cash, food and temporary housing set up in advance.
"I thought, 'If this oil company can do that for their employees, do we have a plan for our employees as a church? Do we have a plan for our communities of faith and those outside of our community?'" he said. "We certainly have a higher call than what business does.... Those who prepare will be more able to be the hands and feet of Jesus." If Ye Love me, Feed My Sheep"
Posted on Sat, Jun. 24, 2006 (Herald Today - Sarasota, FL)
It's time to prepare your bird-flu plan
Jerry Osteryoung
Business writerAs business owners [Families and family members] and managers, our responsibilities include preparing for the uncertain future. While no one knows for sure the extent of the threat posed by a pandemic bird flu, we still need to confront the potential risk.
During the 20th Century there were three major pandemics. The first was the Spanish flu of 1918-1919 during which, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 500,000 people died in the United States. Then, in 1957-58 the Asian flu caused the deaths of 70,000 people throughout the nation. Finally, the 1968-1969 Hong Kong flu resulted in 34,000 American deaths. Bottom line is that these pandemic flu outbreaks are fairly common and very costly.
The CDC estimates that a medium-level pandemic could easily cause at least 89,000 deaths, over 700,000 hospitalizations and somewhere between 20 to 40 million outpatient visits. About 25 percent of the population could be affected.
According to the World Health Organization, there have been 191 diagnoses of bird flu resulting in 108 deaths since 2003. As of now the virus is not easily spread from human to human but that could change. Obviously, you should have a plan in place before a pandemic reaches your community. Clearly, you do not want to scare people but on the other hand you need to make adequate preparation and have all staff involved in this planning process.
The plan should measure the impact the flu will have on your business [ Family] in every area of operations. What will happen if you cannot get your supply of raw materials? What will happen if 50 percent of your labor force is ill for a month? How will you adjust to reduced cash-flow in these scenarios?
Think through the options for maintaining clear lines of communication very carefully. Who will be in charge of this and who will be the back-up? How will you maintain contact with your staff, customers and vendors to let them know how you are faring?
Try running an exercise to test how well your planning can be implemented and where it needs improvement. A practice run is invaluable for revealing any flaws in your preparations.
Think about any adjustments to your sick-leave policy if this flu hits. What will you do if an employee has to go home and care for a sick spouse or family member?
The government has a great web site at www.pandemicflu.gov provides information that will help you plan for this potential crisis.
One additional thing I would strongly recommend is to encourage your staff to get their flu shots. According to the CDC, a flu shot won't inoculate you against a pandemic flu virus but it will help keep you healthy, thereby minimizing your chance of getting sick.
Planning for a potential pandemic, like any other catastrophe, is just good business. Now go out and make sure you have a great plan.
Jerry Osteryoung is an FSU finance professor and executive director of the Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship at Florida State University's College of Business. He writes a weekly column dispensing small business advice and has authored eight books, including "So You Need to Write a Business Plan!" He can be reached by email at jostery@comcast.net or by phone at (850) 644-3372.
It seems like all's been quiet on the H5N1 front recently. The disease is spreading throughout the world's bird populations, as far as Western Europe for now, although the Americas will probably have their turn as migrations start. The disease is now endemic in wild bird populations in Asia.
So, bad news for poultry farmers, but what of the rest of us? Since 2003, H5N1, the particular strain of influenza virus that is causing so much worry, has claimed around 120 lives. Right now, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is concerned about a cluster of deaths in Sumatra, Indonesia. Seven family members all succumbed to the disease in May, and the WHO has good reason to believe that human to human transmission was responsible for these deaths, although they do not believe that the disease has mutated to a more infectious form.
Earlier this year we reported on research that explained why H5N1 is so deadly and yet at the same time why human to human transmission is so difficult. Although there may have been a mutation in one of these seven cases, it is not believed that this has made human-human transmission easier.
Meanwhile, there are questions being raised over whether or not the Chinese had H5N1 deaths up to two years before they officially admitted such a thing happening. A letter was published in the New England Journal of Medicine claiming that a death in 2003 that was attributed to SARS was in fact caused by H5N1. China was criticized in the past for concealing the extent of the SARS epidemic.
Man-made and natural threats that occurred across the globe in the last 10 years -- including bioterrorism, SARS, terrorist attacks, tsunamis and hurricanes -- convinced local officials that plans should be in place should bird flu in humans become the world’s next great disaster.
The great fear among people studying avian flu is that it could spark a global pandemic in humans that rivals or surpasses the Spanish Flu of 1918, said Charleen Faucette, director of infection, prevention and control at Chester County Hospital.
That strain of flu spread across the globe in three waves over the course of four months and killed tens of thousands of people in this country alone, said Dr. John Maher, director of the Chester County Health Department.
"We’ve never really had anything like that before or since that I’m aware of," he said. "We’re long overdue for a pandemic."
Maher said the state has the ability to call on the federal government to deploy the national stockpile if Chester County runs out of supplies.
Faucette warned that relying on the help of the federal government in the case of a pandemic is risky.
"Realistically, knowing what we learned from Katrina, the first few days after a disaster we have to rely on what we have locally," she said, referring to the hurricane that devastated the Gulf Coast last August and prompted widespread criticism of the government’s response.
The Chester County Health Department and the Chester County Department of Emergency Services are working together and in concert with area schools and hospitals to create an all-hazard plan for the county.
The strategy developed with the help of a consulting firm recommends creating 23 or 24 "points of distribution (PODs)," or one for every 20,000 residents,Maher said. These PODs should be able to treat and vaccinate the population in 48 hours.
"An almost impossible task," Maher said.
Officials have 23 possible sites on paper, complete with aerial photographs, and will spend the summer evaluating if each is a logistically feasible location for a POD, said Carl Mehn, deputy director for emergency management with the Department of Emergency Services.
Currently, most of the proposed POD sites are in schools.
The consensus throughout the Philadelphia area is that fewer, larger PODs would be more effective, said Betsy Walls, director of the Chester County Bureau of Personal Health Services, who thinks that one POD for every 40,000 residents is a more realistic goal.
"All these mathematical models have not taken into consideration the human challenges that are required," Walls said, citing staffing issues as her biggest obstacle. (Note that during a pandemic event, even the health providers are often unable to serve. The entire community infrastructure is shut down)
Projections plan for 40 percent absenteeism in the event of a real disaster, said Maher.
Walls said Chester County began a school-based immunization program in 1997. This program, which provides a central location for residents to obtain yearly influenza vaccinations, has proven that the POD concept is workable, Walls said.
"This is not something that’s new to us," Walls said of using points of distribution to disperse vaccinations, "but how we’re going to staff it is the problem for the future."
One of the main objectives for the PODs is to keep people from overwhelming area hospitals.
Faucette said that although the PODs have yet to be tested on a large scale, she thinks the concept is a good one.
"In an event like (pandemic flu) we’re not going to be able to rely on people getting to their family doctor," she said.
Hospitals already have disaster plans and surge capacity plans, Faucette said, but now Chester County Hospital is working on a pandemic plan.
"The extra piece to this is that this is an infectious disease," she said. "It can spread in the community and inside the hospital."
The factor that makes avian flu less of a concern to the average person -- and harder to plan for -- is that the disease has not yet developed to be communicable between humans. (In my many discussions, I find that a large percentage of individuals still feel the flu chatter is all smoke generated by alarmist with too much time on their hands. This is sad and frustrating for folks like myself)
"The number one defense is the agricultural awareness and preparedness," said Maher. "The main issue right now is to keep it in the birds."
As of December 2004, Pennsylvania ranked fourth in the nation in total chicken inventory.
However, Mehn argued that poultry raised in the United States is mostly housed inside and separately from humans, which makes poultry far less likely to spread disease to humans versus migratory birds.
Despite the reality that bird flu has produced fewer than 250 human fatalities, the case fatality rate is high, which frightens people, Maher said.
Concrete game plans for emergencies are difficult to formulate, officials said.
"We’re nowhere near perfect, but we’re far better than we were before 9/11," Maher said.
Faucette said the most difficult hindrance to the hospital’s preparations is that so little is known about avian flu.
"Everybody’s plan is kind of nebulous because we don’t know how contagious it will be," she said.
Stockpiling vaccines and other proactive measures are not possible until the path the disease takes is known, she said.
"We can’t make a vaccine until the virus exists," she said.
Another wrinkle in the planning involves the 28 percent of Chester County residents with special needs -- whether that means lacking access to transportation or having sight, hearing or movement limitations, Mehn said.
"It’s our challenge to get to them," he said.
Challenges aside, Mehn said planning for an avian flu pandemic is not altogether different from preparing for any of the other emergencies he faces.
"That’s what we do," he said. "We manage emergencies."
He compared his task to conducting an orchestra.
"The whole objective is to take all these disparate groups and make sure they’re all on the same sheet of music," he said.
This fall, Walls said the pandemic trial run using the common flu vaccine will resemble a real disaster even more realistically because volunteers will not know their specific task before reporting to work.
This method is in keeping with the incident command system, said Mehn, which is job-specific, not person-specific.
Emergency Services began training first responders in the incident command system two years ago, Mehn said.
©Daily Local News 2006
Some precautions to take against bird flu
By Karen Dandurant
kdandurant@seacoastonline.comPORTSMOUTH -- For those concerned enough to want to plan for a possible pandemic, the Department of Health and Human Services has put together some tools.
Mary Ann Cooney, director of the state DHHS, said there is a vital need for public health networks -- partnerships between towns, health care providers, schools, businesses and people.
"We want all cities and towns to have a plan in place," Cooney said. "Hospitals will need alternative sites for treatment. We need local buy-in and an assessment of what you have and what you need to put in place. Prepare for a pandemic, and you are ready for anything."[ This is an alternative name for the "POD" concept in last week's article]
Cooney said the federal Centers for Disease Control is releasing money for a pandemic plan. New Hampshire has $813,000 to help communities prepare.
For families, the planning is to have enough of what is needed in the event of an extended at-home stay. Storing two weeks worth of food and water is recommended. (This has been lengthened to 3-4 weeks suggested by the Red Cross.) Talking to doctors about having an extra supply of medications and stocking up on nonprescription drugs like aspirin and cold medication are good ideas. (This idea has been suggested through the Chef Noah SeminarI program. Doctors have become more willing to extend prescriptions for such programs.)
Among some of the suggested items to have on hand are ready-to-eat canned meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, beans and soups. Stock up on pet food, baby food, formula, bottled water, and other nonperishable staples.
Also good to have are soap, a thermometer, batteries, a portable radio, manual can opener, garbage bags, tissues, toilet paper and disposable diapers.
To limit the spread of the virus, parents are advised to teach their children the importance of frequent hand washing, of covering coughs and sneezes with tissues, and of staying away from people who are ill.
Businesses are advised to identify key positions and train several people for the jobs in the event the person doing it is out sick. They should create a plan with one person in place to oversee it. Then they should do frequent drills to work out any bugs in the system and to ensure employees are versed in the procedure.
DHHS also advises that companies look at creating special sick-leave policies to cover the possibility that some may be out of work for a long time. They should educate their employees about reducing direct contact from things such as hand shaking, shared work spaces and seating in meetings.
Schools need a plan as they will face the same consequences as businesses. They may be forced to close for some time. (The traditional school sessions will be operating when the predicted bird flu may enter the country in the fall).
While I scour the world for bird flu updates, it's encouraging to find a report being generated by my home state. While the article provides little community action, it does illustrate the level of serious preparation our government has in place.
Response plan set if bird flu is found
Richmond Times-Dispatch
July 17, 2006As part of its surveillance plan for avian flu, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has established what will happen if its testing finds H5N1 in a wild bird.
While notifying various federal and state agencies, the game department will notify the state public health veterinarian, Julia Murphy, first within the health department, she said.
The game agency can establish a surveillance zone with an 5- to 10-mile radius for heavy surveillance and testing of birds as well as certain mammals considered susceptible to the virus, Virginia wildlife veterinarian Jonathan Sleeman said.
Health and agriculture agencies at the state and federal levels would handle public- and animal-health issues, he said.
Health department officials said their actions would depend on the number of infected birds, the species infected and the population of the area where the bird was found. They might request area physicians to be on the alert for patients with certain respiratory symptoms.
Virginia Commonwealth University public health specialist Christopher Buttery, who once served as Virginia's health commissioner, reviewed the plan. He called appropriate the game department's selection of birds to test, the sampling methodology and personal protection requirements for those conducting the testing.
"Even when such birds are found, this does not mean that a human epidemic is inevitable," he said.
Still, the possibility of human illness should not be discounted, said Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, recalling that investigators of the country's first outbreak of West Nile virus in 1999 realized that a cluster of unexplained human deaths could have provided clues to the cause of the avian die-off.
"The real secret here and the clue in making Virginians safe is how rapidly that information [of positive avian test results] is passed on to public health officials so they can look back and make sure no one's sick," Benjamin said. -- A.J. Hostetler
New anti-viral even blocks bird flu
MADISON, Wis., Oct. 5 (UPI) -- A new anti-viral compound protects mice against a wide range of influenza viruses, including the deadly avian flu, say U.S. Researchers.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found a small protein molecule called a peptide that keeps flu viruses from entering cells -- a new approach to anti-virus protection.
In contrast, current anti-viral drugs work by either preventing viruses from reproducing inside cells or preventing viruses from being released from cells into the bloodstream.
In the team's cell culture and mouse experiments, the new drug conferred 100 percent protection against all flu viruses tested, including H5N1 viruses, if it was administered before infection took place.
It was also highly effective in treating animals in the first stages of disease. Untreated infected animals died within a week, but infected animals treated with small doses of the drug at symptom onset survived, researchers noted.
The team emphasized that the new drug shows great promise, but its optimal dosage and safety need to be determined before it can be tested on human patients.
They said the potential treatment could become part of an anti-influenza drug cocktail such as those used to treat HIV.
The study authors said their work was spurred by the fact that most available anti-viral drugs are losing their potency and fear of a global pandemic is very high.
The study results are published in the Oct. 4 online issue of the Journal of Virology.
Alaska villagers living in bird flu's flight path
What has brought the Eskimos sustenance for generations now may carry the deadly virus into North America
<> By JIA-RUI CHONG, Times Staff Writer October 22, 2006The 800 Yup'ik Eskimos in this wet and lonely village knew the situation was serious when government scientists began swooping in on bush planes.
Except for a few doctors that fly in each year to give villagers checkups, outsiders rarely visited this outpost of scattered gray plywood homes and prefab structures plopped in the middle of the tundra.
Soon, latex gloves appeared on store shelves and Wild West-style posters started popping up around town: "Wanted: Birds of the Delta." Researchers camped out in the town's tribal council offices, preparing for trips to nearby Kwigluk Island with vials, swabs, nets and needles.
They came bearing a warning: The wild birds that the Yup'ik have hunted for millenniums may be carrying the first traces of the deadly bird flu virus from Asia into North America.
"It's kind of scary, you know," said resident Ronnie Peter, 39. "That's like, our food, you know."
The H5N1 avian influenza emerged in China 10 years ago and has since spread into Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Though the virus mainly infects fowl, since 2003 it has sickened 256 people and killed 151 around the world.
Kipnuk lies at the crossroads of an invisible freeway system linking migratory birds that journey along the East Asia-Australia flyway with those from the Pacific Americas flyway.
Tens of millions of birds flock every year to this seemingly endless expanse of soggy land in the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge to feast on insects, grasses, worms and mussels before heading back south in the winter to Asia, Australia and other parts of the Americas.
"If it's going to show up in wild birds, Alaska is the most likely place where it's going to happen," said Brian McCaffery, a federal wildlife biologist who was camped a few miles down the coast from Kipnuk collecting bar-tailed godwit droppings for testing.
Federal officials have identified 29 bird species that are most likely to carry the deadly virus from Asia, and they have enlisted local hunters to help provide birds for testing.
In the old days, the Yup'ik Eskimos felled the uqsuqaq, metraq and kanguq with bows and throw sticks tipped with sharpened walrus ivory.
Now, the men use 12-gauge shotguns and reach remote hunting spots in motorboats.
Little else has changed — until now.
"Oh Lord, what are we going to eat? Store-bought food?" thought Steven Mann, who oversees tribal operations in town, when he first started receiving faxes on bird flu safety in the spring.
The nervousness has waned through the summer, said the 58-year-old ex-Army sergeant, but still, "We don't joke about what we eat here."
Mann's son, Danny, a lanky 27-year-old who used to work as a bilingual parent liaison for the school, took on the job of bird flu testing manager in Kipnuk for the tribal health agency, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. He gets $15 for every bird he samples.
At the tribal council offices, he was on the phone, checking in with hunters. "Got any birds?" he asked Peter, who goes hunting just about every day except Sunday.
"How many?" Danny Mann asked. "Can I come over and check them?"
Mann threw on a jacket, grabbed a blue Nike duffel bag and headed out. As a light drizzle enveloped the village, he strode across the boardwalks that lie across the marshiest parts of town. The hollow sound of his steps echoed in the still afternoon.
The residents of Kipnuk, which means "bend in the river" in Yup'ik, are a little bewildered that their speck of a village has been drawn into the battle against the bird flu virus.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006 - FreeMarketNews.com
In case you haven't gotten tired of hearing about the coming threat of avian flu in America, Whitley Strieber's Unknown Country has more on the subject. He cites a Los Angeles Times story from the weekend, pointing at an isolated native tribe in Alaska who might become the canaries in the coal mine if this disease does begin to spread from birds to humans.
The article investigates the Yup'iks, whose actions are being noticed by lower-48 health officials, even up to their receiving regular medical checkups from physicians flying in from government public health departments. The reason for this: the tribe's main food source is wild birds, who might be considered more likely to be carrying the H5N1 virus, in their migrations from Asia. The story quotes a federal wildlife biologist Brain McCaffery as saying, "If it's going to show up in wild birds, Alaska is the most likely place where it's going to happen."
Strieber notes that the nearby Yukon National Wildlife Refuge draws "millions of wild birds," who land there to rest before turning back to their winter flights to Australia and Asia. And while they are resting, the local tribesmen kill them and eat them for food, which could lead to the spread of the virus.
Is New Bird-Flu Vaccine Just a Stopgap?
By Andrew Bridges
February 28, 2007 - Sci-Tech Today
Studies now under way are examining immune boosters, called adjuvants, that could improve the effectiveness of the Sanofi H5N1 vaccine. Not only would they make the shots better, they also could shrink the needed dose for a pandemic vaccine closer to what's now used in seasonal shots. For now, the Sanofi vaccine is given in two shots that contain 12 times the 15-microgram dose contained in a single regular winter flu shot.
Even as U.S. health officials decide whether to approve the first bird flu vaccine, Sanofi Aventis SA and others are studying ways of fending off a pandemic with even better shots. The Food and Drug Administration is considering a recommendation from an outside panel of expert advisers that it approve the Sanofi vaccine. Those experts endorsed the vaccine's safety and efficacy Tuesday, but with a caveat: that it's only the first step in developing a way of successfully immunizing humans against the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.
Sanofi said it recognizes the vaccine is only an interim solution, since evidence suggests it wouldn't protect most people against the flu strain. Still, the government is stockpiling the vaccine, regardless of whether the FDA approves it. Officials plan to use it to immunize emergency and health care workers in an outbreak.
Those officials hope the Sanofi vaccine eventually will be replaced by better vaccines, perhaps juiced up with immune boosters. Other companies, including Novartis AG and GlaxoSmithKline PLC, are developing bird flu vaccines.
"I hope we never have to use it," said Dr. Melinda Wharton, deputy director of the national immunization program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an FDA adviser. "But this is the vaccine we have now."
Another adviser, Dr. Jack Stapleton of the University of Iowa Hospital Clinic, called the Sanofi vaccine "better than nothing."
Additional studies now under way are examining immune boosters, called adjuvants, that could improve the effectiveness of the H5N1 vaccine. Not only would they make the shots better, they also could shrink the needed dose for a pandemic vaccine closer to what's now used in seasonal shots.
For now, the Sanofi vaccine is given in two shots that contain 12 times the 15-microgram dose contained in a single regular winter flu shot.
Scientists are also studying how to produce cell-based vaccines, which would be faster to crank out in an outbreak than are current egg-based vaccines.
Even a mismatched vaccine produced in advance and given to people before an outbreak could provide some benefit, perhaps by blunting the impact of a pandemic, officials said.
The Sanofi vaccine appears to provide protection to just 45 percent of adults who received the highest dose. The FDA has said it would like to see a vaccine prompt a protective immune response in 70 percent of patients.
With vaccines, "less effective" still counts for something. A bird flu vaccine's effectiveness is measured by the antibodies patients develop against the strain.
"The more antibodies, the better. But even at lower levels, there is a possibility of protection," said Dr. Jesse Goodman, FDA's chief of biologic products.
Since it began ravaging Asian poultry farms in late 2003, the H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed at least 167 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Health officials worldwide worry the strain could mutate into a form that spreads easily from person to person, sparking a pandemic.
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