Tag Archives: influenza

Biological warfare – not for Amateurs. Or is it?

From Carl Zimmer, writing on NYTimes.com, an excerpt from Amateurs Are New Fear in Creating Mutant Virus:

Just how easy is it to make a deadly virus?

This disturbing question has been on the minds of many scientists recently, thanks to a pair of controversial experiments in which the H5N1 bird flu virus was transformed into mutant forms that spread among mammals. After months of intense worldwide debate, a panel of scientists brought together by the World Health Organization recommended last week in favor of publishing the results. There is no word on exactly when those papers — withheld since last fall by the journals Nature and Science — will appear. But when they do, will it be possible for others to recreate the mutant virus? And if so, who might they be and how would they do it?

Not quite the DIY spirit we generally try to encourage. And we don’t have a ready policy answer. Comments solicited. Further  resources:

NIH: Avian influenza (H5N1)

Scientists Debate How to Handle Mutant H5N1 Virus

 

Tadataka Yamada, M.D. “Poverty, Wealth, and Access to Pandemic Influenza Vaccines” in N.E.J.M.

From Dr.  Tadataka Yamada’s  “Poverty, Wealth, and Access to Pandemic Influenza Vaccines”

in N.E.J.M (link is to free full-text article):

On June 11, 2009, Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), declared that the status of the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic had reached phase 6 — active transmission on a global scale. Until now, the case fatality rate of this influenza has been quite low, but history teaches us that the situation could take a turn for the worse during the next wave of the pandemic. If a 1918-like pandemic were to occur today, tens of millions of people could die, the vast majority of them in the world’s poorest countries.

Fortunately, the prospects for developing an effective vaccine to prevent infection with the current H1N1 virus are excellent, and the world’s pharmaceutical companies are working diligently at this task. In contemplating equal access to such a vaccine, it is important to consider three key issues: manufacturing capacity, cost, and delivery.

Only a few countries in the world have plants for manufacturing influenza vaccine, and three companies — GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, and Novartis — account for most of the world’s manufacturing capacity. The number of doses of vaccine against H1N1 influenza that could be produced with the existing capacity is very large, but the sobering truth is that even if production were switched over completely from seasonal influenza vaccine to pandemic influenza vaccine, there would not be nearly enough for everyone in the world. The size of the gap in potential supply depends greatly on the dose that is required, and it may be possible to reduce the necessary dose by as much as 75% with the use of an adjuvant. The challenging problem is that much, if not most, of the manufacturing capacity is already spoken for through purchasing contracts held by many of the world’s wealthy countries. Continue reading →

Swine Flu forces city officials to close 5 more schools in Queens

From the NY Daily News:

From Erin Einhorn and Meredith Kolodner Swine Flu forces city officials to close 5 more schools in Queens :

Five more schools inside three buildings in Queens will be closed Monday after dozens more students came down with flu symptoms, officials said Sunday.

The closures by the city’s Department of Health bring the total number of schools currently shuttered because of swine flu to 11, meaning thousands of kids will miss class this week.

None of the newly announced schools have confirmed cases of the illness, but enough students were feeling sick that officials thought closures were necessary to halt the spread.

In other words, this isn’t over yet.

Swine Flu Outbreak coverage

For the  lion’s share of urgent posts here – reports about contemporaneous threats – I;m lucky to have good access to a  number of physicians, medical  personnel epidemiologists and other informants. cynthia-rowley-cdc-photo-influenza-10072

But the single most useful resource is the blog The Pump Handle What’s more, Liz Borkowski and  Celeste Monforton, two of the Pump Handle Posse,  have been generous to us,answering questions and helping us out.

Ms. Borkowski is recommending Effect Measure’s coverage of the current influenza outbreak. We may yet be able to add some detail as things develop –  but if you want to stay on top of the issue – get on over to Effect Measure’.