Until doctors can find another drug that can treat his tuberculosis, Robert Daniels is spending the rest of his life in jail-like isolation.
Daniels has what the World Health O. dubbed as XDR-TB, or extremely drug resistant tuberculosis , which is virtually untreatable using current anti-TB drugs. Daniels was considered “uncooperative and a danger to the public” and was ordered locked up because he did not take precautions to avoid infecting others or even to wear a mask in public. Although currently rare in the US, XDR-TB broke out in Africa last year with an alarmingly high mortality rate. XDR-TB is …read more

Twenty five percent of 296 million people is 75 million .
That’s the number of people anticipated to become infected in a pandemic , and the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) wants states to purchase enough antivirals to treat this many number of people. The Bush administration plans to purchase enough drugs to treat 44 million people nationwide, or about 15 percent of each state’s population, but states will have to use their own funds to pay for the remaining courses of drugs, although the federal government will also subsidize a quarter of the cost.
California is allocating enough …read more

Docguide.com is reporting on an article in the May 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine which states: “High-dose influenza vaccines may increase elderly patients’ immune response without significant adverse effects, offering this vulnerable population additional protection against the flu.”

Vaccines containing inactivated influenza virus have been available for 50 years to prevent flu and its complications, according to background information in the article. Immune responses decrease with age, however, and currently available flu vaccines are not always effective in the elderly. Recommended vaccines contain 15 micrograms (mcg) of inactivated virus per strain.
Wendy A. Keitel, MD, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, …read more

The recent deaths of seven people in an Indonesian village has taught the WHO a powerful lesson; understanding the importance of early communication and education.
At the same time, many villagers have become convinced that the fatalities were not from the bird flu. “They are convinced black magic is at work, that ghosts now haunt their quiet Christian community of about 1,500 people.”
As their neighbors started dying, confusion and mistrust prompted villagers to stop cooperating with officials. Many refused to give blood samples, fearing they would later fall ill and suffer the fate of their neighbors.
The case has been a …read more

CNN.com is reporting on a chicken vaccine that may help prevent transmission of H5N1 bird flu at the source.
A bird flu vaccine piggybacked onto a widely used vaccine against another bird virus could be a quick and easy way to protect poultry against the H5N1 avian influenza virus, researchers said on Monday.
Two separate teams of researchers came up with a combination that is easy to make, protects chickens well and could be sprayed onto flocks.
Plus the vaccines are formulated in a way that answers the concerns that a bird flu vaccine could actually mask an outbreak, or could make trade …read more

In its continuing effort to develop a vaccine against a pandemic, the US government has awarded over one billion dollars in contracts to five drug companies to help them develop a bird flu vaccine as well as the technology to mass produce it in the event of a world wide pandemic.
The five companies to which the contracts have been awarded are Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline PLC, MedImmune Inc., Swiss firm Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, DynPort Vaccine Co. and Solvay Pharmaceuticals of Belgium.
“The announcement came a day after the White House released an action plan to counter any avian flu pandemic, amid fears …read more

May 9th is the day to be watching ABC if you like made for TV disaster movies. ABC will be airing “Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America” on this date, just as testing os wild birds in Alaska for bird flu begins.
It is feared that bird flu (H5N1) could mutate into a form that could be passed directy between humans, thereby igniting a global pandemic. The movie plays that notion up to the fullest.
One of the movies executive producers has stated, “We call this a plausible, worst-case scenario. This could actually happen. It may not be this bad …read more

Effect Measure is a blog that has a large protion of its focus on Avian Flu although you will find information and commentary on other topics of interest as well.
Quoting the Effect Measure site:
“Effect Measure is a forum for progressive public health discussion and argument as well as a source of public health information from around the web that interests the Editor(s).
In epidemiology an effect is the endpoint of a causal mechanism. An effect measure is an estimate of the influence of a particular factor on a population’s health. The Editors of Effect Measure are senior public health scientists and …read more

With the growing fear of a potential bird flu pandemic, researchers have used a computer model to help plan the best way of controlling a pandemic.
The model shows that fast treatment and isolation of everyone infected as well as the people they have been in contact with would be the most important aspect in controlling any type of flu outbreak.
The researchers have also recommended stockpiling flu vaccine even if the effectivness is minimal.
The article goes on to say: “But health-care workers will be key to beating back any outbreak, said Dr. David L. Katz, an associate professor of public …read more

If you have questions about Bird Flu that you are having trouble finding the answers to, Baldilocks can help.
There is an enormous amount of information here you. One of the biggest surprises is “Poultry imports and smuggling will probably bring H5N1 to North America [much more quickly] than wild bird migration.”
Check out Baldilocks for the answers to many of your questions.
Birds in Your Hands