Евразия ответила Америке на птичий грипп гриппом собачьим? -------- Новый вирус-убийца действует молниеносно
Андрей БУЗЫКИН, 27 сентября, 05:56
Масса всякой заразы в последнее время с бешеной скоростью носится по миру и становится смертельно опасной то для одного, то для другого вида живых существ. Таинственная болезнь, доселе неизвестная ученым, теперь косит ряды четвероногих любимцев в США. Тесты, взятые у больных собак, показали, что это новый вирус гриппа, сходный с уже известным H3N8, который раньше убивал только лошадей. Его быстрая приспособляемость поразила ученых обычно грипп мутирует в новые разновидности постепенно, но лошадиная зараза сделала это молниеносно. Специалисты обнаружили, что смертельное лошадино-собачье заболевание распространилась уже по всей стране.
Так как эта болезнь для организмов четвероногих друзей человека новая и неизвестная, никакого иммунитета против нее они не имеют. Поэтому она довольно опасна заболевание протекает тяжело и в ряде случаев заканчивается смертельным исходом.
Человеку вряд ли грозит заболеть лошадиным гриппом вызывающий его вирус отличается и от той разновидности, которой болеем мы, и от куриного гриппа, уже унесшего жизни миллионов пернатых. Впрочем, кто знает вдруг он также молниеносно "перескочит" с собаки на человека. Ведь в Таиланде какой-то несчастный бобик умудрился заразиться птичьим гриппом.
Напомним, что птичий грипп с самого начала не слишком замечали и только недавно с помощью компьютерных моделей ученые рассчитали, что он может распространиться по миру за какие-то три месяца. Причем эпидемия по последствиям может быть намного худшей, чем пандемия "испанки", начавшейся в 1918 г. и унесшей жизни почти 40 млн человек.
Слухи о вспышке нового смертельного заболевания среди собак появились еще в прошлом году. С июня по август 2004 г. было зарегистрировано 14 случаев в 6 штатах, а в январе-мае нынешнего 20 случаев в 11 штатах. Ветеринары пытались успокоить хозяев, заявляя, что преждевременно говорить о собачьем море, ведь это могла быть всего лишь обычная простуда. Теперь они подтверждают, что новое заболевание могло распространиться среди собак задолго до того, как было признано его существование, где-то между 1999 и 2003 годами.
У последней черты Пандемия "птичьего гриппа" грозит Великой депрессией
Специалисты Всемирной организации здравоохранения заявляют, что пандемия "птичьего гриппа" неизбежна, а экономисты начинают подсчитывать убытки. По исследованиям ученых Ноттингемского университета Великобритании и Банка "Монреаль" в Канаде, только Объединенному Королевству "птичий грипп" может обойтись в 95 млрд. фунтов стерлингов. В результате в ближайшее время власти Великобритании могут обратиться к России, США, Китаю и Канаде с просьбой выделить средства для предотвращения дальнейшего распространения вируса.
В соответствии с новыми исследованиями Всемирной организации здравоохранения (ВОЗ) пандемия "птичьего гриппа" неизбежна. На сегодняшний день заболевание может передаваться человеку только непосредственно от заболевшей птицы, а передачи от человека к человеку не зафиксировано.
Между тем из 112 заболевших 65 погибли. При этом, по данным ВОЗ, в ближайшее время вирус может мутировать и стать более опасным для людей. В результате мутации он сможет проще распространиться на большие расстояния. Тогда уже в следующем году миру угрожает столкновение с катастрофически быстрым распространением этого заболевания, от которого может погибнуть от одного до семи миллионов человек. «Возможно, мы находимся у последней черты, после которой возникнет пандемический вирус. Вопрос о том, случится ли пандемия этого заболевания или нет, уже не стоит. Теперь важно понять другое - когда начнется пандемия», - заявил в интервью Reuters директор департамента ВОЗ по инфекционным заболеваниям, доктор Джай Нараин.
По его словам, на сегодняшний день единственная страна, которая теоретически сможет успешно противостоять заболеванию, - Таиланд. «У них есть план на случай пандемии и запасы вакцины», - заявил Джай Нараин. Тем временем большинство бедных стран Азии предпочитают бороться с вирусом "птичьего гриппа", убивая домашнюю птицу: фермерские хозяйства просто не могут позволить себе тратиться на вакцинацию. Так поступают, к примеру, в двадцати провинциях Индонезии, где зафиксировано уже шесть смертей от этого заболевания. В Джакарте закрываются зоопарки и птицефермы, а заболевших птиц убивают. По словам специалистов, подобные меры давно потеряли свою эффективность, учитывая то, что, к примеру, в Россию вирус "птичьего гриппа" был занесен перелетными птицами.
мониторинг пернатых
Единственный способ удержать пандемию, по мнению специалистов ВОЗ, - надеяться на своевременную вакцинацию и мониторинг.
В середине сентября европейский комитет, объединяющий ветеринаров из 25 стран ЕС, принял решение выделить 800 тыс. евро на мониторинг "птичьего гриппа". Президент США Джордж Буш создал Международное партнерство по борьбе с заболеванием. В эту организацию вошли не только страны ЕС, но и Великобритания, Канада, Китай и Россия. Задача все та же: изыскивать средства для борьбы с возможной пандемией.
Россия, присоединившись ко всем комитетам и партнерствам, уже отправила ветеринаров в Монголию для мониторинга. «Падеж дикой птицы на озерах Монголии был зафиксирован в августе: мы сможем изучить распространение "птичьего гриппа" на дальних подступах к российской территории», - сказал заведующий лабораторией по изучению и мониторингу зоонозных инфекций ГНЦ "Вектор" Александр Шестопалов. Однако основным очагом, откуда зараженные птицы попадали на территорию России, остается не Монголия, а Китай, пока не проявивший желания принимать у себя российских специалистов.
подсчет убытков
Пока ученые-медики пытаются предотвратить распространение заболевания, британские и канадские специалисты подсчитывают возможные убытки от пандемии "птичьего гриппа". Исследования Ноттингемского университета Великобритании и Банка "Монреаль" (Канада) показывают, что представляемая ВОЗ как неизбежная пандемия "птичьего гриппа" только Объединенному Королевству обойдется минимум в 95 млрд. фунтов стерлингов. Кроме того, она может привести к потере 900 тыс. рабочих мест и к возникновению экономической депрессии, подобной той, что мир пережил в 1930-х годах. В соответствии с моделью распространения заболевания, которую создали специалисты вирусологи в Великобритании, только в этой стране от "птичьего гриппа" может погибнуть от 50 тыс. до 2 млн. человек.
28.09.2005 / Татьяна Сейранян Материал опубликован в "Газете" №184 от 29.09.2005г.
Генсек ООН назначил координатора по борьбе с эпидемией птичьего гриппа
01:50 | 30/ 09/ 2005
НЬЮ-ЙОРК, 30 сен - РИА Новости, Андрей Лощилин. Генеральный секретарь ООН Кофи Аннан назначил в четверг британца Дэвида Набарро специальным координатором усилий сообщества наций по борьбе с эпидемией птичьего гриппа.
Перед 56-летним врачом, до последнего времени работавшим в Женеве на руководящих постах во Всемирной организации здравоохранения, поставлена задача подготовить агентства ООН к возможной пандемии птичьего гриппа среди людей и предотвращению ее последствий. Как заявил Набарро на пресс-конференции в Нью-Йорке, мутация вируса H5N1 в передающийся от человека к человеку "весьма вероятна", и было бы ошибкой игнорировать эту опасность. По его словам, пандемия птичьего гриппа среди людей может унести до 150 миллионов жизней.
Из своего офиса в Нью-Йорке Набарро будет координировать реализацию стратегии предотвращения и пресечения птичьего гриппа, разработанной Продовольственной и сельскохозяйственной организацией ООН (ФАО), а также руководить усилиями по созданию необходимых для борьбы с эпидемией запасов лекарственных препаратов.
Последняя пандемия гриппа разразилась в 1918 году после Второй мировой войны и унесла свыше 40 миллионов человеческих жизней. Как отметил Набарро, глобальные эпидемии 1957 и 1968 годов были существенно меньшими по масштабам, но вызвали очень серьезное социальное напряжение.
С конца 2003 года в ходе охватившей Юго-Восточную и Восточную Азию эпидемии птичьего гриппа от этого заболевания погибли 66 человек, в основном находившиеся в ежедневном тесном контакте с зараженными животными. В регионе было забито более 140 миллионов кур, и потери птицеводческой индустрии оцениваются в $10-15 миллиардов.
Недавно птичий грипп был обнаружен в России и Казахстане. В этих странах опасный вирус пока не коснулся людей, однако эксперты опасаются его мутации в смертельное заболевание, передающееся от человека к человеку.
Жертвами пандемии птичьего гриппа могут стать 150 миллионов человек
Пандемия птичьего гриппа может привести к гибели 150 миллионов жителей Земли, считают эксперты Всемирной организации здравоохранения (ВОЗ), сообщает Reuters.
Существует реальная опасность того, что вирус птичьего гриппа в ближайшее время может мутировать и начать поражать людей, заявил в четверг представитель ВОЗ Дэвид Набарро (David Nabarro). Если не принять оперативные меры по защите от грозящей опасности, то от пандемии гриппа может погибнуть ло 150 миллионов человек, сообщил он.
Если мировое сообщество примет необходимые меры по профилактике заболевания и созданию необходимых для борьбы с эпидемией запасов лекарственных препаратов, то число жертв пандемии удастся сократить до 5 миллионов человек, сказал Набарро. Последняя пандемия гриппа, начавшаяся в 1918 году, унесла жизни 40 миллионов человек, напомнил он.
Набарро в четверг назначен генеральным секретарем ООН Кофи Аннаном координатором программ этой организации по борьбе с эпидемией птичьего гриппа.
С конца 2003 года в ходе охватившей Юго-Восточную и Восточную Азию эпидемии птичьего гриппа от этого заболевания погибли 66 человек, в основном находившиеся в тесном контакте с зараженными животными. В регионе было забито более 140 миллионов кур, и потери птицеводческой индустрии оцениваются в 10-15 миллиардов долларов.
Недавно птичий грипп был обнаружен в России и Казахстане. Однако ни одного случая поражения опасным вирусом людей в этих странах пока не зафиксировано.
Ссылки по теме - Flu pandemic could kill 150 million, UN warns - Reuters, 30.09.2005 - В Тюменской области обнаружен новый очаг птичьего гриппа - Lenta.ru, 30.08.2005 - Вирус птичьего гриппа достиг Европейского Союза - Lenta.ru, 27.08.2005 - У новосибирской журналистки не нашли птичьего гриппа - Lenta.ru, 15.08.2005 - Госпитализирована женщина с подозрением на птичий грипп - Lenta.ru, 13.08.2005 - Евросоюз запретил несуществующий импорт птицы из России - Lenta.ru, 06.08.2005 - Российских военнослужащих вакцинируют для учений в Китае - Lenta.ru, 02.08.2005
Добавлено в [mergetime]1128054633[/mergetime] Ну и америкосы допаниковались до Strategic Thermonuclear sterilization. К счастью, пока только на форумах
Sunday, Oct 02, 2005 TORONTO (CP) - A flu pandemic could fundamentally alter the world as we know it, warns the public health veteran charged with co-ordinating UN planning for and response to the threat. Inadequate - and inequitably shared - global resources and the uncertainties inherent in trying to predict the behaviour of influenza combine to create planning dilemmas that are "monster difficult," Dr. David Nabarro said in an interview describing his new job and the challenges ahead.
Progress will demand appealing "to people's recognition that we're dealing here with world survival issues - or thesurvival of the world as we know it," Nabarro explains.
"And therefore we just can't go on approaching it with sort of business-as-usual type approaches."
Theformer head of the World Health Organization's crisis operations was seconded to the UN to co-ordinate world response to both the ongoing avian influenza outbreak in Southeast Asia and preparations for a human flu pandemic.
A native of Britain, Nabarro says the decision to appoint a planning czar reflects surging political concern that the world may be facing a pandemic springing from the H5N1 avian flu strain, which is decimating poultry in Asia and has already killed at least 60 people in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia.
"Governments have realized that this is something to be worried about," he says, adding the UN must harness that concern and the resources it frees up.
"It's a rare thing, political commitment to deal with a health issue. And when you've got it, you must use it well," he insists.
"We're not going to have such an excellent window of opportunity to really start moving forward with this for long. And so we must take advantage of it now."
One of the monster dilemmas Nabarro describes relates to antiviral drugs, which may be able to blunt the blow of pandemic flu.
But there are only two drugs which, in laboratory settings, work against all possible pandemic strains, oseltamivir (sold as Tamiflu) and zanamivir (sold as Relenza). Both are expensive and made in limited quantities. And there appears to be no quick or easy way to ramp up production.
In addition, the supplies that exist - as well as most of those that will be made in theforeseeable future - are spoken for. They are either squirreled away in or destined for stockpiles held by the world's wealthy nations.
"So we're going to have very little stuff and it's already stuck away in stockpiles . . . that people will protect with their lives. And yet we're going to have to find some way to ration these things so that they are given to the folk who need them the most," Nabarro says.
That statement may reflect Nabarro's position on the pandemic learning curve. Setting priorities for who will and won't get antiviral drugs is a responsibility of governments, not the UN or the WHO.
Nabarro also made several missteps in his initial news conference at the UN on Thursday, including straying far afield from the WHO's estimate of thenumber of deaths a new pandemic might exact. He suggested between five million and 150 million people might die.
Less than 24 hours later the Geneva-based WHO reeled back in Nabarro's estimate, saying its own longstanding projection of two million to 7.4 million excess deaths was more likely. The official WHO estimate was calculated using a mathematical model based largely on the Hong Kong flu of 1968, the mildest pandemic of the last century.
If Nabarro is still learning the myriad intricacies of his new subject, he appears to already understand that the eventual death toll is only a portion of the damage a pandemic would wreak.
"It would really disturb many, many systems and our capacity to cope in many countries would not be that great," he says, predicting food supplies in the developed world - where diets are comprised almost exclusively of purchased (not home-grown) food - "would be particularly badly hit."
A leading advocate for pandemic preparedness, Dr. Michael Osterholm, has warned a pandemic would have a substantial and highly disruptive impact on the production and movement of goods, leading to shortages of many products critical to daily life.
He says at this point, planning for ways to keep society functioning must be the priority task.
"We basically are going to have a lot of the world's population who are going to come through this," says Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
"But just as we saw, very painfully in the Gulf States (after Hurricane Katrina), a lot of people are going to suffer a great deal who are going to live.
"And we need to plan about how we're going to minimize that suffering and get those people through so they don't die from other collateral damage-related concerns. Like lack of other medications. Lack of food. Water."
Nabarro acknowledges the challenges ahead are enormous.
"My base point is: How to deal with an issue that's so impossibly difficult that we're bound to end up saying 'We didn't get it right' if there is a pandemic, or, if there isn't a pandemic where people are going to say 'You scared us all for nothing.' "
The Writing Committee of the World Health Organization (WHO) Consultation on Human Influenza A/H5
An unprecedented epizootic avian influenza A (H5N1) virus that is highly pathogenic has crossed the species barrier in Asia to cause many human fatalities and poses an increasing pandemic threat. This summary describes the features of human infection with influenza A (H5N1) and reviews recommendations for prevention and clinical management presented in part at therecent World Health Organization (WHO) Meeting on Case Management and Research on Human Influenza A/H5, which was held in Hanoi, May 10 through 12, 2005.1 Because many critical questions remain, modifications of these recommendations are likely.
Incidence
The occurrence of human influenza A (H5N1) in Southeast Asia (Table 1) has paralleled large outbreaks of avian influenza A (H5N1), although the avian epidemics in 2004 and 2005 have only rarely led to disease in humans. Thelargest number of cases has occurred in Vietnam, particularly during the third, ongoing wave, and the first human death was recently reported in Indonesia. The frequencies of human infection have not been determined, and seroprevalence studies are urgently needed. The expanding geographic distribution of avian influenza A (H5N1) infections, with recent outbreaks in Kazakstan, Mongolia, and Russia, indicates that more human populations are at risk.2,3
View this table: [in this window] [in a new window] Table 1. Cumulative Number of Virologically Confirmed Cases of Avian Influenza A (H5N1) in Humans Reported to the WHO since 2003.
Transmission
Human influenza is transmitted by inhalation of infectious droplets and droplet nuclei, by direct contact, and perhaps, by indirect (fomite) contact, with self-inoculation onto the upper respiratory tract or conjunctival mucosa.4,5 The relative efficiency of the different routes of transmission has not been defined. For human influenza A (H5N1) infections, evidence is consistent with bird-to-human, possibly environment-to-human, and limited, nonsustained human-to-human transmission to date.
Animal to Human
In 1997, exposure to live poultry within a week before the onset of illness was associated with disease in humans, whereas there was no significant risk related to eating or preparing poultry products or exposure to persons with influenza A (H5N1) disease.6 Exposure to ill poultry and butchering of birds were associated with seropositivity for influenza A (H5N1)7 (Table 2). Recently, most patients have had a history of direct contact with poultry (Table 3), although not those who were involved in mass culling of poultry. Plucking and preparing of diseased birds; handling fighting cocks; playing with poultry, particularly asymptomatic infected ducks; and consumption of duck's blood or possibly undercooked poultry have all been implicated. Transmission to felids has been observed by feeding raw infected chickens to tigers and leopards in zoos in Thailand17,18 and to domestic cats under experimental conditions.19 Transmission between felids has been found under such conditions. Some infections may be initiated by pharyngeal or gastrointestinal inoculation of virus.
View this table: [in this window] [in a new window] Table 2. Serologic and Clinical Characteristics of Avian Influenza A (H5N1) Infection among Contacts of Patients or Infected Animals.
View this table: [in this window] [in a new window] Table 3. Presentation and Outcomes among Patients with Confirmed Avian Influenza A (H5N1).
Human to Human
Human-to-human transmission of influenza A (H5N1) has been suggested in several household clusters16 and in one case of apparent child-to-mother transmission (Table 3).20 Intimate contact without the use of precautions was implicated, and so far no case of human-to-human transmission by small-particle aerosols has been identified. In 1997, human-to-human transmission did not apparently occur through social contact,8 and serologic studies of exposed health care workers indicated that transmission was inefficient9 (Table 2). Serologic surveys in Vietnam and Thailand have not found evidence of asymptomatic infections among contacts (Table 2). Recently, intensified surveillance of contacts of patients by reverse-transcriptasepolymerase-chain-reaction (RT-PCR) assay has led to the detection of mild cases, more infections in older adults, and an increased number and duration of clusters in families in northern Vietnam,21 findings suggesting that the local virus strains may be adapting to humans. However, epidemiologic and virologic studies are needed to confirm these findings. To date, the risk of nosocomial transmission to health care workers has been low, even when appropriate isolation measures were not used10,11 (Table 2). However, one case of severe illness was reported in a nurse exposed to an infected patient in Vietnam.
Environment to Human
Given thesurvival of influenza A (H5N1) in the environment, several other modes of transmission are theoretically possible. Oral ingestion of contaminated water during swimming and direct intranasal or conjunctival inoculation during exposure to water are other potentialmodes, as is contamination of hands from infected fomites and subsequent self-inoculation. The widespread use of untreated poultry feces as fertilizer is another possible risk factor.
Clinical Features
The clinical spectrum of influenza A (H5N1) in humans is based on descriptions of hospitalized patients. The frequencies of milder illnesses, subclinical infections, and atypical presentations (e.g., encephalopathy and gastroenteritis) have not been determined, but case reports12,21,22 indicate that each occurs. Most patients have been previously healthy young children or adults (Table 3).
Incubation
The incubation period of avian influenza A (H5N1) may be longer than for other known human influenzas. In 1997, most cases occurred within two to four days after exposure13; recent reports15,16 indicate similar intervals but with ranges of up to eight days (Table 3). The case-to-case intervals in household clusters have generally been 2 to 5 days, but the upper limit has been 8 to 17 days, possibly owing to unrecognized exposure to infected animals or environmental sources.
Initial Symptoms
Most patients have initial symptoms of high fever (typically a temperature of more than 38°C) and an influenza-like illness with lower respiratory tract symptoms1 (Table 3). Upper respiratory tract symptoms are present only sometimes. Unlike patients with infections caused by avian influenza A (H7) viruses,23 patients with avian influenza A (H5N1) rarely have conjunctivitis. Diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, pleuritic pain, and bleeding from the nose and gums have also been reported early in the course of illness in some patients.14,15,16,24 Watery diarrhea without blood or inflammatory changes appears to be more common than in influenza due to human viruses25 and may precede respiratory manifestations by up to one week.12 One report described two patients who presented with an encephalopathic illness and diarrhea without apparent respiratory symptoms.22
Clinical Course
Lower respiratory tract manifestations develop early in the course of illness and are usually found at presentation (Table 3). In one series, dyspnea developed a median of 5 days after the onset of illness (range, 1 to 16).15 distress, tachypnea, and inspiratory crackles are common. Sputum production is variable and sometimes bloody. Almost all patients have clinically apparent pneumonia; radiographic changes include diffuse, multifocal, or patchy infiltrates; interstitial infiltrates; and segmental or lobular consolidation with air bronchograms. Radiographic abnormalities were present a median of 7 days after the onset of fever in one study (range, 3 to 17).15 In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, multifocal consolidation involving at least two zones was the most common abnormality among patients at the time of admission. Pleural effusions are uncommon. Limited microbiologic data indicate that this process is a primary viral pneumonia, usually without bacterial suprainfection at the time of hospitalization.
Progression to respiratory failure has been associated with diffuse, bilateral, ground-glass infiltrates and manifestations of the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). In Thailand,15 the median time from the onset of illness to ARDS was 6 days (range, 4 to 13). Multiorgan failure with signs of renal dysfunction and sometimes cardiac compromise, including cardiac dilatation and supraventricular tachyarrhythmias, has been common.14,15,16,24 Other complications have included ventilator-associated pneumonia, pulmonary hemorrhage, pneumothorax, pancytopenia, Reye's syndrome, and sepsis syndrome without documented bacteremia.
Mortality
The fatality rate among hospitalized patients has been high (Table 3), although the overall rate is probably much lower.21 In contrast to 1997, when most deaths occurred among patients older than 13 years of age, recent avian influenza A (H5N1) infections have caused high rates of death among infants and young children. The case fatality rate was 89 percent among those younger than 15 years of age in Thailand. Death has occurred an average of 9 or 10 days after the onset of illness (range, 6 to 30),15,16 and most patients have died of progressive respiratory failure.
Laboratory Findings
Common laboratory findings have been leukopenia, particularly lymphopenia; mild-to-moderate thrombocytopenia; and slightly or moderately elevated aminotransferase levels (Table 3). Marked hyperglycemia, perhaps related to corticosteroid use, and elevated creatinine levels also occur.16 In Thailand,15 an increased risk of death was associated with decreased leukocyte, platelet, and particularly, lymphocyte counts at the time of admission.
Virologic Diagnosis
Antemortem diagnosis of influenza A (H5N1) has been confirmed by viral isolation, the detection of H5-specific RNA, or both methods. Unlike human influenza A infection,26 avian influenza A (H5N1) infection may be associated with a higher frequency of virus detection and higher viral RNA levels in pharyngeal than in nasal samples. In Vietnam, the interval from the onset of illness to the detection of viral RNA in throat-swab samples ranged from 2 to 15 days (median, 5.5), and the viral loads in pharyngeal swabs 4 to 8 days after the onset of illness were at least 10 times as high among patients with influenza A (H5N1) as among those with influenza A (H3N2) or (H1N1). Earlier studies in Hong Kong also found low viral loads in nasopharyngeal samples.27 Commercial rapid antigen tests are less sensitive in detecting influenza A (H5N1) infections than are RT-PCR assays.15 In Thailand, the results of rapid antigen testing were positive in only 4 of 11 patients with culture-positive influenza A (H5N1) (36 percent) 4 to 18 days after the onset of illness.
Management
Most hospitalized patients with avian influenza A (H5N1) have required ventilatory support within 48 hours after admission,15,16 as well as intensive care for multiorgan failure and sometimes hypotension. In addition to empirical treatment with broad-spectrum antibiotics, antiviral agents, alone or with corticosteroids, have been used in most patients (Table 3), although their effects have not been rigorously assessed. The institution of these interventions late in the course of the disease has not been associated with an apparent decrease in the overall mortality rate, although early initiation of antiviral agents appears to be beneficial.1,15,16 Cultivable virus generally disappears within two or three days after the initiation of oseltamivir among survivors, but clinical progression despite early therapy with oseltamivir and a lack of reductions in pharyngeal viral load have been described in patients who have died.
Pathogenesis
Characterization of Virus
Studies of isolates of avian influenza A (H5N1) from patients in 1997 revealed that virulence factors included the highly cleavable hemagglutinin that can be activated by multiple cellular proteases, a specific substitution in the polymerase basic protein 2 (Glu627Lys) that enhances replication,28,29 and a substitution in nonstructural protein 1 (Asp92Glu) that confers increased resistance to inhibition by interferons and tumor necrosis factor (TNF-) in vitro and prolonged replication in swine,30 as well as greater elaboration of cytokines, particularly TNF-, in human macrophages exposed to the virus.31 Since 1997, studies of influenza A (H5N1)32,33,34 indicate that these viruses continue to evolve, with changes in antigenicity35,36and internal gene constellations; an expanded host range in avian species37,38and the ability to infect felids17,18; enhanced pathogenicity in experimentally infected mice and ferrets, in which they cause systemic infections39,40; and increased environmental stability.
Phylogenetic analyses indicate that the Z genotype has become dominant33 and that the virus has evolved into two distinct clades, one encompassing isolates from Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam and the other isolates from China, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea.21 Recently, a separate cluster of isolates has appeared in northern Vietnam and Thailand, which includes variable changes near the receptor-binding and one fewer arginine residue in the polybasic cleavage of the hemagglutinin. However, the importance of these genetic and biologic changes with respect to human epidemiology or virulence is uncertain.
Patterns of Viral Replication
The virologic course of human influenza A (H5N1) is incompletely characterized, but studies of hospitalized patients indicate that viral replication is prolonged. In 1997, virus could be detected in nasopharyngeal isolates for a median of 6.5 days (range, 1 to 16), and in Thailand, the interval from the onset of illness to the first positive culture ranged from 3 to 16 days. Nasopharyngeal replication is less than in human influenza,27and studies of lower respiratory tract replication are needed. The majority of fecal samples tested have been positive for viral RNA (seven of nine), whereas urine samples were negative. The high frequency of diarrhea among affected patients and the detection of viral RNA in fecal samples, including infectious virus in one case,22 suggest that the virus replicates in the gastrointestinal tract. The findings in one autopsy confirmed this observation.41
Highly pathogenic influenza A (H5N1) viruses possess the polybasic amino acid sequence at the hemagglutinin-cleavage that is associated with visceral dissemination in avian species. Invasive infection has been documented in mammals,28,29,39,40 and in humans, six of six serum specimens were positive for viral RNA four to nine days after the onset of illness. Infectious virus and RNA were detected in blood, cerebrospinal fluid, and feces in one patient.22 Whether feces or blood serves to transmit infection under some circumstances is unknown.
Host Immune Responses
The relatively low frequencies of influenza A (H5N1) illness in humans despite widespread exposure to infected poultry indicate that the species barrier to acquisition of this avian virus is substantial. Clusters of cases in family members may be caused by common exposures, although the genetic factors that may affect a host's susceptibility to disease warrant study.
The innate immune responses to influenza A (H5N1) may contribute to disease pathogenesis. In the 1997 outbreaks, elevated blood levels of interleukin-6, TNF-, interferon-, and soluble interleukin-2 receptor were observed in individual patients,42 and in the patients in 2003, elevated levels of the chemokines interferon-inducible protein 10, monocyte chemoattractant protein 1, and monokine induced by interferon- were found three to eight days after the onset of illness.27 Recently, plasma levels of inflammatory mediators (interleukin-6, interleukin-8, interleukin-1, and monocyte chemoattractant protein 1) were found to be higher among patients who died than among those who survived (Simmons C: personal communication), and the average levels of plasma interferon- were about three times as high among patients with avian influenza A who died as among healthy controls. Such responses may be responsible in part forthe sepsis syndrome, ARDS, and multiorgan failure observed in many patients.
Among survivors, specific humoral immune responses to influenza A (H5N1) are detectable by microneutralization assay 10 to 14 days after the onset of illness. Corticosteroid use may delay or blunt these responses.
Pathological Findings
Limited postmortem analyses have documented severe pulmonary injury with histopathological changes of diffuse alveolar damage,27,41,42 consistent with findings in other reports of pneumonia due to human influenza virus.43 Changes include filling of the alveolar spaces with fibrinous exudates and red cells, hyaline-membrane formation, vascular congestion, infiltration of lymphocytes into the interstitial areas, and the proliferation of reactive fibroblasts. Infection of type II pneumocytes occurs.41,42 Antemortem biopsy of bone marrow specimens has shown reactive histiocytosis with hemophagocytosis in several patients, and lymphoid depletion and atypical lymphocytes have been noted in spleen and lymphoid tissues at autopsy.13,15,27,42 Centrilobular hepatic necrosis and acute tubular necrosis have been noted in several instances.
Case Detection and Management
The possibility of influenza A (H5N1) should be considered in all patients with severe acute respiratory illness in countries or territories with animal influenza A (H5N1), particularly in patients who have been exposed to poultry (Table 4). However, some outbreaks in poultry were recognized only after sentinel cases occurred in humans. Early recognition of cases is confounded by the nonspecificity of the initial clinical manifestations and high background rates of acute respiratory illnesses from other causes. In addition, the possibility of influenza A (H5N1) warrants consideration in patients presenting with serious unexplained illness (e.g., encephalopathy or diarrhea) in areas with known influenza A (H5N1) activity in humans or animals.
View this table: [in this window] [in a new window] Table 4. Exposures That May Put a Person at Risk for Infection with Influenza A (H5N1).
The diagnostic yield of different types of samples and virologic assays is not well defined. In contrast to infections with human influenza virus, throat samples may have better yields than nasal samples. Rapid antigen assays may help provide support for a diagnosis of influenza A infection, but they have poor negative predictive value and lack specificity for influenza A (H5N1). The detection of viral RNA in respiratory samples appears to offer the greatest sensitivity for early identification, but the sensitivity depends heavily on the primers and assay method used. Laboratory confirmation of influenza A (H5N1) requires one or more of the following: a positive viral culture, a positive PCR assay for influenza A (H5N1) RNA, a positive immunofluorescence test for antigen with the use of monoclonal antibody against H5, and at least a fourfold rise in H5-specific antibody titer in paired serum samples.44
Hospitalization
Whenever feasible while thenumbers of affected persons are small, patients with suspected or proven influenza A (H5N1) should be hospitalized in isolation for clinical monitoring, appropriate diagnostic testing, and antiviral therapy. If patients are discharged early, both the patients and their families require education on personal hygiene and infection-control measures (Table 5). Supportive care with provision of supplemental oxygen and ventilatory support is the foundation of management.1 Nebulizers and highair flow oxygen masks have been implicated in the nosocomial spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and should be used only with strict airborne precautions.
View this table: [in this window] [in a new window] Table 5. Strategies to Prevent Avian Influenza A (H5N1) in Humans in a Nonpandemic Setting.
Antiviral Agents
Patients with suspected influenza A (H5N1) should promptly receive a neuraminidase inhibitor pending the results of diagnostic laboratory testing. The optimal dose and duration of treatment with neuraminidase inhibitors are uncertain, and currently approved regimens likely represent the minimum required. These viruses are susceptible in vitro to oseltamivir and zanamivir.46,47 Oral osel-tamivir46 and topical zanamivir are active in animal models of influenza A (H5N1).48,49 Recent murine studies indicate that as compared with an influenza A (H5N1) strain from 1997, the strain isolated in 2004 requires higher oseltamivir doses and more prolonged administration (eight days) to induce similar antiviral effects and survival rates.50 Inhaled zanamivir has not been studied in cases of influenza A (H5N1) in humans.
Early treatment will provide the greatest clinical benefit,15 although the use of therapy is reasonable when there is a likelihood of ongoing viral replication. Placebo-controlled clinical studies of oral oseltamivir51,52 and inhaled zanamivir53 comparing currently approved doses with doses that are twice as high found that the two doses had similar tolerability but no consistent difference in clinical or antiviral benefits in adults with uncomplicated human influenza. Although approved doses of oseltamivir (75 mg twice daily for five days in adults and weight-adjusted twice-daily doses for five days in children older than one year of age twice-daily doses of 30 mg for those weighing 15 kg or less, 45 mg for those weighing more than 15 to 23 kg, 60 mg for those weighing more than 23 to 40 kg, and 75 mg for those weighing more than 40 kg) are reasonable for treating early, mild cases of influenza A (H5N1), higher doses (150 mg twice daily in adults) and treatment for 7 to 10 days are considerations in treating severe infections, but prospective studies are needed.
High-level antiviral resistance to oseltamivir results from the substitution of a single amino acid in N1 neuraminidase (His274Tyr). Such variants have been detected in up to 16 percent of children with human influenza A (H1N1) who have received oseltamivir.54 Not surprisingly, this resistant variant has been detected recently in several patients with influenza A (H5N1) who were treated with oseltamivir.21 Although less infectious in cell culture and in animals than susceptible parental virus,55 oseltamivir-resistant H1N1 variants are transmissible in ferrets.56 Such variants retain full susceptibility to zanamivir and partial susceptibility to the investigational neuraminidase inhibitor peramivir in vitro.57,58
In contrast to isolates from the 1997 outbreak, recent human influenza A (H5N1) isolates are highly resistant to the M2 inhibitors amantadine and rimantadine, and consequently, these drugs do not have a therapeutic role. Agents of clinical investigational interest for treatment include zanamivir, peramivir, long-acting topical neuraminidase inhibitors, ribavirin,59,60 and possibly, interferon alfa.61
Immunomodulators
Corticosteroids have been used frequently in treating patients with influenza A (H5N1), with uncertain effects. Among five patients given corticosteroids in 1997, two treated later in their course forthe fibroproliferative phase of ARDS survived. In a randomized trial in Vietnam, all four patients given dexamethasone died. Interferon alfa possesses both antiviral and immunomodulatory activities, but appropriately controlled trials of immunomodulatory interventions are needed before routine use is recommended.
Prevention
Immunization
No influenza A (H5) vaccines are currently commercially available for humans. Earlier H5 vaccines were poorly immunogenic and required two doses of high hemagglutinin antigen content62 or the addition of MF59 adjuvant63 to generate neutralizing antibody responses. A third injection of adjuvanted 1997 H5 vaccine variably induced cross-reacting antibodies to human isolates from 2004.64 Reverse genetics has been used forthe rapid generation of nonvirulent vaccine viruses from recent influenza A (H5) isolates,65,66 and several candidate vaccines are under study. One such inactivated vaccine with the use of a human H5N1 isolate from 2004 has been reported to be immunogenic at high hemagglutinin doses.67 Studies with approved adjuvants like alum are urgently needed. Live attenuated, cold-adapted intranasal vaccines are also under development. These are protective against human influenza after a single dose in young children.68
Hospital-Infection Control
Influenza is a well-recognized nosocomial pathogen.4,5 Current recommendations are based on efforts to reduce transmission to health care workers and other patients in a nonpandemic situation and on the interventions used to contain SARS (Table 5).1 The efficiency of surgical masks, even multiple ones,69 is much less than that of N-95 masks, but they could be used if the latter are not available. Chemoprophylaxis with 75 mg of oseltamivir once daily for 7 to 10 days is warranted for persons who have had a possible unprotected exposure.70,71 The use of preexposure prophylaxis warrants consideration if evidence indicates that the influenza A (H5N1) strain is being transmitted from person to person with increased efficiency or if there is a likelihood of a high-risk exposure (e.g., an aerosol-generating procedure).
Household and Close Contacts
Household contacts of persons with confirmed cases of influenza A (H5N1) should receive postexposure prophylaxis as described above. Contacts of a patient with proven or suspected virus should monitor their temperature and symptoms (Table 5). Although the risk of secondary transmission has appeared low to date, self-quarantine for a period of one week after the last exposure to an infected person is appropriate. If evidence indicates that person-to-person transmission may be occurring, quarantine of exposed contacts should be enforced. For others who have had an unprotected exposure to an infected person or to an environmental source (e.g., exposure to poultry) implicated in the transmission of influenza A (H5N1), postexposure chemoprophylaxis as described above may be warranted.
Conclusions
Infected birds have been the primary source of influenza A (H5N1) infections in humans in Asia. Transmission between humans is very limited at present, but continued monitoring is required to identify any increase in viral adaptation to human hosts. Avian influenza A (H5N1) in humans differs in multiple ways from influenza due to human viruses, including the routes of transmission, clinical severity, pathogenesis, and perhaps, response to treatment. Case detection is confounded by the nonspecificity of initial manifestations of illness, so that detailed contact and travel histories and knowledge of viral activity in poultry are essential. Commercial rapid antigen tests are insensitive, and confirmatory diagnosis requires sophisticated laboratory support. Unlike human influenza, avian influenza A (H5N1) may have higher viral titers in the throat than in the nose, and hence, analysis of throat swabs or lower respiratory samples may offer more sensitive means of diagnosis. Recent human isolates are fully resistant to M2 inhibitors, and increased doses of oral oseltamivir may be warranted forthe treatment of severe illness. Despite recent progress, knowledge of the epidemiology, natural history, and management of influenza A (H5N1) disease in humans is incomplete. There is an urgent need for more coordination in clinical and epidemiologic research among institutions in countries with cases of influenza A (H5N1) and internationally.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the WHO or other meeting sponsors.
We are indebted to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Wellcome Trust fortheir collaborative support of the WHO meeting; to Drs. Klaus Stohr and Alice Croisier of the Global Influenza Program at the WHO, Geneva; and to Drs. Peter Horby and Monica Guardo and the staff of the WHO Country Offices, Vietnam, for organizing the WHO consultation and for support in the preparation of the manuscript; and to Diane Ramm for help in the preparation of the manuscript.
Таинственный вирус убил 10 человек в доме престарелых в Канаде
05.10 01:53 | MIGnews.com
Десять человек скончались от неизвестной вирусной инфекции, поразившей практически всех пациентов и персонал частного дома престарелых в Торонто (Канада). 40 заболевших до сих пор находятся в больнице. Сотрудники эпидемических служб ищут людей, как-либо контактировавших с обитателями дома престарелых.
Вспышка неизвестного вируса всколыхнула воспоминания об эпидемии атипичной пневмонии, от которой в Торонто два года назад скончались 44 человека.
Медики утверждают, что положение находится под контролем, хотя и не исключают, что могут быть еще смерти от этой неизвестной болезни. Первый случай заболевания зафиксирован 25 сентября.
Сегодня от неизвестного вируса скончались 4 человека, все умершие в возрасте от 50 до 95 лет.
"Состояние нескольких наших пациентов ухудшилось, и четверо скончались, однако остальные выздоравливают. Мы уверены, что эта вспышка заболевания находится под контролем, сообщил представитель службы здравоохранения Торонто Дэвид МакКеон. Учитывая преклонный возраст заболевших, столь высокая смертность неудивительна".
Результаты проведенных исследований отвергают версии о том, что речь идет об атипичной пневмонии SARS, мутированном птичьем гриппе или мутированном гриппе.
Медики не уверены, что им когда-либо удастся идентифицировать вирус, поразивший 70 пациентов и 12 членов медперсонала дома престарелых, а также двоих посетителей.
Остается еще одна возможная версия развития событий, самая пессимистическая: возможно, мы имеем дело с новой, неизвестной до сих пор болезнью. И после новых случаев заболевания и дополнительных смертей, ей будет присвоено название
По сообщению Reuters
Добавлено в [mergetime]1128468880[/mergetime] Если в США придет птичий грипп за дело возьмется армия
04.10 20:27 | MIGnews.com
Президент США Джордж Буш предложил использовать вооруженные силы в случае пандемии мутированного птичьего гриппа, чтобы изолировать зараженные районы. Он сообщил, что если вирус птичьего гриппа H5N1 мутирует и станет возможным заражение человека человеком, пораженные эпидемией районы будут окружать армия и Национальная гвардия.
"Если где-нибудь в Соединенных Штатах возникнет вспышка болезни, нам что, не изолировать этот район? Как вы предлагаете, если что, обеспечить карантин?" поинтересовался Буш на пресс-конференции.
"Одно дело запретить авиаперелеты. И совсем другое запретить полное передвижение людей, чтобы не позволять распространение болезни. Что даст лучший эффект?"
Предложение задействовать армию в случае пандемии мутированного птичьего гриппа обсудит Конгресс США.
В Киеве начаты мероприятия по профилактике птичьего гриппа
Киевская городская государственная администрация организовала профилактические мероприятия для защиты киевлян от гриппа, птичьего гриппа и острых респираторных заболевания.
Об этом сказано в соответствующем распоряжении Киевской горадминистрации.
Администрация поручила Главному управления охраны здоровья и медицинского обеспечения подготовить больницы и поликлиники к работе в условиях эпидемии гриппа, птичьего гриппа и ОРЗ, создать запас необходимых медикаментов, средств индивидуальной защиты медработников.
При необходимости в больницах будут установлены дополнительные койки, а также увеличено количество кабинетов для прививок.
Главное управления охраны здоровья также организует бесплатные прививки от гриппа контингентам групп риска.
В группу риска, по данным Киевгорадминистрации, попадают 2,7 тыс. пожилых людей, которые живут в домах для пожилых, и персонал, 1,7 тыс. детей и персонала детских домов и приютов, 3,4 тыс. учеников и воспитателей школ-интернатов, 730 сотрудников хозяйства «Птицефабрика «Киевская».
Администрация поручила коммунальному предприятию «Фармация», руководителям аптек всех форм собственности создать запас лекарств и витаминов, а также средств профилактики гриппа и ОРЗ.
Администрация также поручила Главному государственному санитарному врачу Киева обеспечить мониторинг за циркуляцией вирусов и за заболеваемостью в городе гриппом, птичьим гриппом и ОРЗ.
Санитарно-эпидемиологическая служба также усилит санэпидконтроль за «Птицефабрикой «Киевская».
Сама же «Птицефабрика «Киевская» должна провести профилактические прививки против гриппа сотрудникам фабрики, создать запас дезинфицирующих средств и усилить контроль за санитарно-эпидемиологическим режимом.
Администрация рекомендует управлению ветеринарной медицины разработать план ветеринарно-санитарных мер длялокализации и ликвидации птичьего гриппа, провести мониторинг циркуляции вируса гриппа среди диких и домашних птиц, а также обучить сотрудников птицефабрик навыкам защиты от заражения вирусом птичьего гриппа.
Как сообщалось, Министерство здравоохранения прогнозирует эпидемию гриппа средней интенсивности в декабре 2005 года-январе 2006 года.
Минздрав не исключает возможности заболеваний «птичьим гриппом».
- Слышал ранее, но не думал, что дойдет до реала.. Придур иванов. То опознаватель свой-чужой не может попасть в чужие руки потому как всё равно ответить на это нечем, то обозначить мишень для превентивного удара/захвата... Мало того, что при ЕБНе 500тонн оружейного урана продали штатам по цене =0,2% от рыночной, так и остатки выкинуть.. Одно слово - придур.
В четверг, 6 октября, президент США Джордж Буш призвал представителей промышленности помочь в массовом выпуске вакцины против птичьего гриппа, распространяющегося сейчас в Азии. Об этом сообщает Газета.ру, ссылаясь на пресс-службу Белого дома.
Президент и его окружение выражают обеспокоенность по поводу этой болезни. Он и его ближайшие советники встретились в четверг, чтобы обсудить пути борьбы с птичьим гриппом.
Учитывая неблагоприятный прогноз Украинского центра гриппа на предстоящую зиму, столичная госадминистрация издала специальное распоряжение по организации профилактических мер защиты. Напомним, что в декабре ожидается самая массовая за последние двадцать лет эпидемия, особенность которой - неизученная комбинация генотипа человеческого вируса с птичьим.
В этом году в отличие от прошлого штаммов будет три. Более того, если в сентябре специалисты прогнозировали эпидемию средней интенсивности, то нынче уже высокой, передают "Киевские ведомости".
Лечебно-профилактические учреждения должны встретить ее во всеоружии, создав запас лечебных препаратов и дезинфицирующих средств. Прививки контингенту групп риска сделают за счет бюджетных ассигнований на 2005 год и на межотраслевую комплексную программу «Здоровье киевлян» 2003-2011 гг.
В столичных поликлиниках списки групп риска пока не получены. Всем советуют сначала нанести визит к участковому терапевту - он должен порекомендовать подходящую именно вам вакцину.
Interview With Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt; Will Harriet Miers' Faith Change Supreme Court; Mystery Illness In Toronto Nursing Home Kills Several; Scientists Discuss Love At First Sight; Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes Expecting A Child
Aired October 5, 2005 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to a middle of the week here. Tonight, I want to take a very close look at a threat that could be even more devastating than a terrorist attack, because every single town and city could be at risk.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN (voice-over): A disease so deadly that, if you get the virus, there's no cure and there's a 50/50 chance you'll die.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm concerned about what an avian flu outbreak could mean forthe United States and the world.
ZAHN: What's the worst-case scenario and what are we doing to stop it?
Abortion, gay marriage, assisted suicide, and a born-again nominee. Tonight, the controversial question everyone is asking: Will Harriet Miers' faith change the Supreme Court?
And Hollywood's hottest couple is about to become a threesome. Can love at first sight survive the first baby?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The deal is, it's not feeling in love. It's staying in love.
What do whirlwind romances teach all of us about staying in love?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: So, how scary is this? A disease spreads acrossthe globe and kills 100 million people. Well, it happened 87 years ago with a flu outbreak in 1918, 100 million dead.
That's a breathtaking number, but here's one I think is even more frightening. One health official says a global outbreak, a pandemic of avian flu, could kill 150 million people. So far, only about 60 people have died from avian flu, and it hasn't adapted yet to spread from person to person.
Health officials in Asia are trying to keep it that way by killing thousands upon thousands of birds whenever they suspect there's a local outbreak. But, today, a scientist who used to preserve tissue and reverse genetics to recreate the deadly 1980 virus -- 1918 virus -- said there are eerie similarities between that flu strain and avian flu.
And just yesterday, President Bush said the military might have to quarantine whole cities if that flu strikes here. And, last week, the secretary of health said he doesn't sleep at night because of this threat.
Do we have your attention yet?
Well, senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins me now with more information.
Always good to see you, Doctor.
What did we learn from this report?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, as you said, there are some significant similarities between the 1918 flu virus, which killed some say up to 100 million, and the avian flu virus.
What we're talking about here specifically is a virus that's pretty common, but has certain mutations and these changes in the virus. And these changes are important, because one change might make the virus suddenly a significant killer, as has already happened with the avian flu virus, killing, as you say, 50 percent -- more than 50 percent of the people that get infected.
Another mutation, the one that hasn't happened yet, but could happen, is one that makes it more easily transmissible from human to human. You know, Paula, it's so interesting to sort of look at the science of this. A small just tiny, just microscopic change in the coding in one of these viruses could change it to create a worldwide pandemic. That hasn't happened yet, but that's what these scientists have been looking at, Paula.
ZAHN: But you use a very salient word there: could. And I guess we hear these breathtaking numbers and you have got to wonder if someone out there is hyping this or is this something we really need to be concerned about?
GUPTA: Smart people out there are saying that this is being hyped.
And you're going to hear different things from different people, certainly. But keep in mind a couple of things. These pandemics, which is just a worldwide epidemic, tend to come in cycles. There have been pandemics in the past. Everyone, just about everyone agrees with this point, that we are probably overdue for some sort of pandemic, meaning some virus that the world has never seen before that infects an alarmingly largenumber of people who have no immunity against it. So, whether it's this particular virus, the avian flu, or something else later on down the road, who knows, but most people, even the skeptics, agree that it's probably going to happen. It's not a question of if anymore, but more a question of when it might happen.
ZAHN: But the skeptics also have to agree with the fact that there seems to be more of a risk that this flu carries than other kinds of flus.
GUPTA: Yes.
You know, what's so striking about this flu -- and, Paula, everyone's talking aboutthe 1918 flu. That had a 5 percent mortality. That means, out of 100 people, it killed five. This has a 50 percent mortality. That is what has got everyone's attention. That is an extremely, extremely deadly virus. Even by virus standards, this is very, very deadly.
If it kills -- you know, in 1918, that Spanish flu or that particular flu bug, probably everyone in the world breathed that virus in at some point or another. If that happens with avian flu, because it becomes easily transmissible, I mean, it's mind-boggling, really, Paula.
ZAHN: But let's talk about what you would do if it actually comes here. We have a severe shortage of a vaccine that people say wouldn't even be that helpful and then there's this Tamiflu stuff that's pretty widely available right now. Would that make any difference?
GUPTA: Yes, well, you know, the Tamiflu had -- the hard part aboutthese studies in terms of figuring out whether it's effective is, in order to study it, you'd have to knowingly expose people to avian flu. And no one is going to do that as part of the study.
So Tamiflu appears to have some benefit in the laboratory. Would it work if it actually needed to work because there was a lot of cases of it? We don't really know. And, as far as a vaccine goes, Paula, this is -- this is kind of sad. We don't really have an approved vaccine right now. And if this virus were to mutate today, let's say it was mutating right now, we would have to create a vaccine. That would take six months from now to actually develop. So, it's just a very slow and arduous process. Preparation is going to be tough.
People talk about quarantines possibly. That might be part of the at least early answer, Paula.
ZAHN: And, of course, we have heard critics of that possibility say it simply won't work.
GUPTA: Right.
ZAHN: So, we're going to debate all this a little bit later on in tonight's show.
Senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, as always, thanks. So, what exactly happens if bird flu goes global and lands here in the United States? Well, it could mean putting the whole country under quarantine city by city and, as President Bush suggested yesterday, having the military enforce them.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Worst case, a mutant strain of avian flu that can be passed from person to person hits America's biggest city, New York. The president orders active duty and National Guard troops to seal the island of Manhattan, closing the airports, including Newark, JFK and La Guardia, and shutting the city's numerous bridges and tunnels.
It's a scenario not unlike the one depicted in the 1995 movie "Outbreak."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "OUTBREAK")
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your town is being quarantined.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN, ACTOR: We got 19 dead, you got 100 more infected. It's spreading like a brushfire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you talking about?
HOFFMAN: If one of them's got it, then 10 of them have got it now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCINTYRE: But how practical is the idea that any city, much less one with as many ways in and out as New York, can be sealed by military force?
MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: How do you possibly limit the flow of people and goods in and out of a city like this? New York needs to have food brought in, it needs to have other things brought in. You need a certain amount of crossing of the perimeter or the city becomes uninhabitable.
MCINTYRE: The reality is these days a quarantine is more likely to attempt to limit movement of infected people by screening passengers at airports, confining sick people to their homes and banning large gatherings of people where the infection can be spread.
What the military brings is the same things it brought to hurricane relief -- logistics and manpower, especially medical facilities and the ability to move them quickly and operate without support. Where the issues get thorny is the Hollywood scenario -- combat troops strong arming, possibly shooting desperate victims of a natural disaster.
O'HANLON: It would be an ugly thing if we had to use the military. Nobody in the armed forces would relish the thought of imposing some kind of a martial law-like environment on their own fellow citizens, especially on law-abiding citizens who had done nothing criminal.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: One serious challenge for -- that has to be accounted for in the federal government's pandemic response plan is protecting the first-responders.
As you pointed out, Paula, there is no proven vaccine for avian flu. That means they have to come up with other ways to protect the people who would be the first ones on the scene of a disaster.
ZAHN: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thanks so much for that update.
And, by now, you're probably all wondering the same thing I am. Is thegovernment ready for an avian flu pandemic? An especially important question after what we all have seen following Hurricane Katrina.
We asked senior political correspondent Candy Crowley to find out. The answer is, not by a long shot.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The president's secretary of health and human services doesn't sleep that well.
MIKE LEAVITT, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: We're not as well prepared for this as we want to be and need to be and will be. We're moving rapidly, and -- now that we can see that this particular influenza could be a threat.
CROWLEY: The gap between what's needed and what's there is vast. Where to begin? For starters, vaccine production is not that profitable and the liability risk is high, so even when a dangerous virus is identified, theU.S. does not have the ability to produce enough vaccine.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: The imate goal is to build a system so that you can, within a period of time, measured in like six months from the time you get the virus in your hand, make enough vaccine to cover everyone in this country. We are far from there at this point. And it's going to take years to get there.
CROWLEY: Nor is there anywhere near the stockpiles of medicine theU.S. would need for an avian flu pandemic. It is made by a company in Switzerland.
KIM ELLIOTT, TRUST FOR AMERICA'S HEALTH: There's one manufacturer. They're going to fill them on a first-come, first-serve basis, so we're way down the queue. CROWLEY: We are backordered.
ELLIOTT: We are backordered. And we -- we aren't even in line forthe big orders.
CROWLEY: Up to two million people in theU.S. might need to be hospitalized, many more people than beds. And what happens when a work force is depleted by an estimated 25 percent who are sick or caring forthe sick or too scared to go to work? Experts at all levels say there's no reason to be afraid now, but there is every reason to prepare.
LEAVITT: And we will move forward to a state of preparation that I -- will give people comfort, not certainty, but comfort.
CROWLEY (on camera): We don't have enough vaccine?
ELLIOTT: No.
CROWLEY: We don't have medication to treat, enough of it to treat...
(CROSSTALK)
ELLIOTT: Yes.
CROWLEY: Our hospitals don't have enough capacity to treat thenumber of patients that would come.
ELLIOTT: No.
CROWLEY: Businesses aren't prepared.
ELLIOTT: That's right.
CROWLEY: Individual families aren't prepared.
ELLIOTT: That's right.
CROWLEY: Why shouldn't I be afraid?
ELLIOTT: You need to think about being prepared but not panicked.
CROWLEY (voice-over): It may be a while before the secretary of health and human services gets a good night's sleep.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: That was Candy Crowley reporting for us tonight.
Now, tomorrow, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt and health experts from all over the world will begin meeting in Washington to talk aboutthe growing threat from avian flu.
And, just a short while ago, I had the chance to speak with Secretary Leavitt abouttheU.S.government's ability to deal with a potential outbreak.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: We are hearing staggering numbers aboutthepotential of hundreds of millions of people being infected with this virus, a virus that we know kills about half of the people who contract it. You're the man in charge of making sure this country is ready for this prospect. Are we?
LEAVITT: No. No, we're not ready, and nor is any other country on the planet. This is something that requires substantially more attention than it has been given anywhere, and we're now beginning to prepare rapidly.
Now, fortunately, much of the preparation necessary for a pandemic is common to other medical emergencies. And, so, we're not starting from scratch, but we have a long ways to go before we're ready.
ZAHN: If there were to be a suspected case of avian flu, what is the first thing that you would do?
LEAVITT: We would first try to contain it, wherever we found it.
The likelihood is, we would find it in the Far East somewhere. And then the United States and our friends and allies around the world would join together to say to that country, let us help you. And we'd do everything we could to contain it there.
If we were unsuccessful, we'd then begin to protect the borders of the United States in every legitimate, reasonable way to see if we could keep it from coming here. If it then arrived, we would do all we could to contain it in place. And we'd begin other preparations to assure that, if it -- if we weren't successful, that there would be means of being able to limit its damage.
ZAHN: When you talk about containing it, you know that a lot of health officials out there are saying a quarantine isn't the answer. It simply won't work. Your response to that?
LEAVITT: Well, it's one of the basics of public health. And there have been incidences where it has worked. And it's -- if it doesn't work completely, at least it slows it down and allows the rest of our preparation to catch up.
ZAHN: The truth is, you can't really prepare for that eventuality, because you don't know how the virus will present itself. So, is there any way ever to truly get out in front of this and find a vaccine that would simply prevent this?
LEAVITT: Well, actually, once we have identified a victim or some way of being able to get ahold of the virus, our scientists at CDC and at the National Institute of Health are very adept at being able to develop a vaccine that will, in fact, prevent it. That's the case with the avian flu. We have a vaccine. What we lack in this country now is the capacity to manufacture the vaccine in sufficient doses in a short enough time frame to meet the need.
ZAHN: Final tonight, Secretary Leavitt, you have so many health concerns you have to worry about in this country. Where does this avian flu fit in on a scale of one to 10?
LEAVITT: I would have to say that it is our highest public health priority right now, the certainty -- the probability that the H5N1, or avian flu, will be the culprit that brings the next pandemic, it's hard to know.
But the trouble -- the signs are troubling. And so, we're responding to it. We need to begin to think aboutthe unthinkable, because, as we learned in Katrina, sometimes, the unthinkable happens.
ZAHN: Secretary Leavitt, thank you for your candor tonight.
LEAVITT: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And, in just a minute, I want to take you to the remote jungles where bird flu first got started. Who's already dying and what are their countries doing to fight it? And can they keep it from spreading here to theU.S.?
Please stay with us. We have got a whole lot ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As CNN celebrates its 25th anniversary, editors at Fortune magazine compiled to the top trends that are shaping our future. Artificial limbs were once often ill-fitting clumsy and lack aesthetic and functionality. While modern prosthetics are lighter, stronger and more lifelike, breakthroughs in genetic research and medical technology are opening a brave new world for those in need.
DAVID KIRKPATRICK, SR. EDITOR, FORTUNE MAGAZINE: So there will be miple ways to grow new body parts using your own personal chemistry, that can be either surgically attached or perhaps literally grown out of your own body. If they can regrow a limb in a mouse today, it could very be possible even in less than 10 years that we could be regrowingbody parts on our own bodies.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: We're talking a lot tonight aboutthe threat of avian flu. Right now, theU.S. doesn't have enough vaccine, medicine or hospital beds to even deal with a catastrophic outbreak of avian flu, a disease that some people say could kill 150 million people all over the world. So far, however, the disease remains in Asia, and people only seem to be getting it for coming into contact with infected birds.
Senior Asia correspondent Mike Chinoy traveled to one of the many places where avian flu lives and breeds.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE CHINOY, CNN SENIOR ASIA CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's so remote, it doesn't have a name. We had to take a dug-out canoe to reach village number four in Thanh Dong (ph) District of Southern Vietnam's Long An Province.
And it was here we found 39-year-old To Thi Hoang, weeping over the grave of her 10-year-old daughter, Vothi Hoang (ph), one of the latest victims of avian influenza, bird flu.
"She kept telling me she was having breathing problems," says To Thi Hoang. "She was crying and saying, I'm so tired. I feel like I'm going to die." And after eight days at the Ho Chi Minh City Children's Hospital, she died.
This is a family of simple rice farmers raising a few chickens on the side. A few days before Vothi Hoang got sick, the family's chickens died. They didn't know why, but doctors later confirmed it was birdflu, and, somehow, the little girl had been infected.
(on camera): It's in villages like this, where people live in close proximity to pory and other animals, that virtually all the human cases of avian flu in Vietnam have occurred, precisely the setting, experts fear, where the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, with devastating consequences.
(voice-over): Aware of the danger, Vietnam has now banned the raising of all water fowl, like ducks and geese, which can carry the virus without showing symptoms, and ordered the slaughter of all 200,000 ducks in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, despite theeconomic loss to thousands of pory farmers.
But even these harsh steps may not be enough. Thegovernment in Hanoi has appealed for help from foreign scientists and for supplies of medical and lab equipment. Although the outbreak is most severe in Vietnam, cases of bird flu with human fatalities have been reported recently in Thailand and Cambodia. And the disease has appeared previously in China, Hong Kong and other countries in the region.
Dr. Hans Troedsson is the World Health Organization's man in Vietnam. He's well aware of that what means.
HANS TROEDSSON, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: We would see millions of people dying. And we will have a pandemic that would shut down societies and communities. And conservative estimation says -- it's saying maybe five to seven million deaths. That's conservative. We could be up to 50 or 100 million deaths.
CHINOY: It hasn't happened yet, but throughout Southeast Asia, the virus has become endemic among pory, especially in Vietnam. And, even though transmission to humans remains relatively rare so far, the disease has already killed dozens of people.
In the village where 10-year-old Vothi Hoang died, the provincial preventive medicine chief, Ngo Van Hoang, visits the locals. His message, be careful. Eating healthy chickens is OK, but don't cook chickens that have gotten sick and died. And don't throw carcasses into the river.
"There is some advice and education we have to have a community understand," he says. "They shouldn't do these kinds of things.'
It's an uphill struggle with enormous stakes to ensure that what happened to Vothi Hoang remains a tragic, but isolated episode, and not the start of a global public health disaster.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHINOY: Paula, while Vietnam has been ground zero for this outbreak for most of the past year, the disease has now spread to Indonesia, which is more than three times as big, a vast archipelago, thousands of islands, much harder to track. Seven people have died there, one just last week. And public health officials, already anxious, are increasingly worried -- Paula.
ZAHN: So, in the end, Mike, how forthcoming or honest are any of these governments in the region aboutthepotential spread of this flu?
CHINOY: Most governments have been pretty honest. They realize what's at stake. There's a lot of cooperative effort in the region with the World Health Organization. There have been some concerns, though, about China. The Chinese hid the SARS epidemic initially.
And, last summer, there were reports of a mysterious outbreak in northwestern China, where the Chinese basically closed the area down and prevented any information getting out. A researcher here in Hong Kong was able to surreptitiously get samples, which proved that it was avian flu. So, there is some concern that China, with its authoritarian political system, could be a problem if the disease begins to spread among humans there.
ZAHN: Mike Chinoy, thank you so much.
And joining me now, John Barry, author of "The Great Influenza," the flu outbreak in 1918 that killed 100 million people, it's believed, all over the world, and Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University.
Good to have both of you with us tonight.
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: So, John, we just mentioned that staggering number. And it's hard to prove. You see estimates of anywhere from 30 million to 100 million people. That seems unimaginable to grasp. Paint a picture for us of how quickly the flu spread.
JOHN BARRY, AUTHOR, "THE GREAT INFLUENZA": Well, like any influenza, it was explosive.
All influenza viruses are bird viruses. And throughout history, three to four times a century, a new bird virus will jump to people. And whenever that happens, you have a pandemic; 1918 was lethal. But many of your viewers and myself lived through the 1968 pandemic and probably didn't even know there was one, so it's not automatically lethal, but it did spread explosively.
It will -- it will sicken between 15 percent and 40 percent of thepopulation.
ZAHN: So, do those factors exist today that could allow that same kind of thing to happen with avian flu?
BARRY: Oh, certainly, without any doubt. If anything, it moves more quickly because of air travel.
ZAHN: And, Dr. Redlener, the one thing that we just heard Mike Leavitt, the HHS secretary, says, is, we are not prepared for this. Why aren't we?
DR. IRWIN REDLENER, NATIONAL CENTER FOR DISASTER PREPAREDNESS: Well, there's three factors, really that have been determinative here in why we're not prepared.
The first is that it's taken us a long time to develop the technologies that allow for very rapid development of the vaccine once the virus is identified. So, there's a big lag time between the identification of the actual virus and then the -- then when we can get a supply of vaccine that's -- that's reasonable.
The second thing is, we put ourselves in this horrible position where we didn't think about ordering the antiviral medication, what people refer to as Tamiflu, until very, very late, after many other countries had already ordered it. And we had a backlog of a hundred -- I mean, a billion doses already on order at Roche, the only company that makes it. So, we're just in line now. And I doubt that we are going to get even what we wanted.
ZAHN: But not a sure-shot cure, anyway.
REDLENER: Not a sure-shot cure, but...
ZAHN: But they're saying one of two treatment that works.
REDLENER: Right.
And then the third factor, of course, is that the whole health and public health system in the United States is just completely not ready to handle any kind of massive number of victims who get sick and really sick from flu.
ZAHN: John, the secretary also said that, on a scale of one to 10, this is a 10, that it is indeed this country's highest public health concern today. Why now?
BARRY: Why now?
Obviously, because -- well, let's put it this way. Between 1957 and 19 -- excuse me, 1968 and 1997, there were two known occurrences where a bird virus infected a person. Neither of them were fatal. Between 1997 and today, three different viruses have infected roughly 300 people, and two of those viruses have killed people.
So, you know, the odds are -- again, there's a pandemic three, four times a century. We haven't had one in almost 40 years. It's just -- you know, chance suggests that we're due for one.
ZAHN: Sure. You can crunch these statistics and interpret it that way.
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: But you have critics of this administration saying they're much hyping this right now.
Dr. Redlener, what do you think?
REDLENER: Well, the problem is, we just came off a disastrous response to a major natural catastrophe in Katrina and then Rita in the evacuation efforts that we saw.
So, I think there's definitely political issues in terms of how the administration was perceived, how competent we looked at a country. And I'm sure there's a lot of panic within the White House and the administration about not wanting to be caught ill-prepared again. But, unfortunately, there's very little we could do about that at this point.
ZAHN: When could it potentially hit here, any day? Are you talking about six months? What are we talking about?
REDLENER: Well, it's just really hard to say. We just don't know when that virus will mutate, so it's able to be transmitted among people, as opposed to just from, say, pory to a person or a bird to a person.
So, it could happen this year; it could happen two years from now, five years from now. But I think it's pretty inevitable, just because of the frequency of this, as John was saying, that it's going to occur. Just, it's not clear when.
ZAHN: So frightening.
(CROSSTALK)
BARRY: Could I say...
ZAHN: Yes. Please jump in, John.
BARRY: In terms of the administration's actions -- I'm a Democrat, but the fact is, this has been on the administration's agenda since 2001, before September 11. They were paying close attention to it before Katrina and planning initiatives and had vastly expanded it. So, on this one issue, I'm not particularly cynical abouttheir motives.
ZAHN: You don't seem so convinced, Dr. Redlener, that that isn't...
REDLENER: I'm not so convinced.
ZAHN: ... politically motivated.
(CROSSTALK)
REDLENER: There were people in the administration, as John says, that were very interested in this. It didn't reach the White House's level of attention as it is until very, very recently.
ZAHN: Well, we appreciate your both educating us tonight.
Dr. Irwin Redlener and John Barry, thank you, again.
Atlanta, GA, Mar. 24 (UPI) -- TheU.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has begun a series of experiments to see how likely thebird flu virus could result in a human pandemic.
The six-month series of experiments seeks to simulate the mixing and matching of genes from the H5N1 avian flu virus that has plagued Asia and a common human flu virus that public-health experts fear could turn avian flu into a pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
CDC scientists inside an ultra-secure laboratory have started swapping the genes of the H5N1 avian virus with the genes of an H3N2 virus, the strain behind most recent human flu outbreaks.
The goal is to substitute the eight genes of each virus, one by one, with the eight genes from the other virus to see which of more than 250 possible combinations create flu viruses that could spread easily among humans.
The work responds to fears by global public health experts that thebird flu virus could mutate to form one that could spawn a global outbreak of the disease.
5 октября 2005 г., 20:24 Армии США могут разрешить проводить полицейские операции
Джордж Буш попросил Конгресс США обсудить возможность использования военнослужащих в обеспечении карантина в случае возникновения эпидемии птичьего гриппа. По его словам, армии и, возможно, национальным гвардейцам необходимо будет взять на себя эту роль, если вирус H5N1 вызовет эпидемию.
Президент Буш призвал Конгресс пересмотреть принятый еще в 1878 году закон о запрете использования федеральной Армии в полицейских целях на территории Соединенных Штатов - чтобы в случае общенациональной эпидемии "птичьего гриппа" иметь возможность оперативно распространять вакцины, а также приводить в действие приказы медиков о карантине тех или иных населенных пунктов.
В 1878 году в Америке был принят закон Posse Comitatus Act, запрещающий использовать федеральные войска на территории отдельных штатов в полицейских целях - для этого существует полиция и Национальные Гвардии. Закон этот, вне всякого сомнения, стал одним из столпов, на которых держится американская демократия. Но сейчас ему грозят пыльные полки архивов - поскольку соответствующие федеральные агентства показали свою беспомощность во время Катрин, президент Буш намерен использовать армию США в полицейских целях в случае широкомасштабной эпидемии мутировавшего вируса гриппа.
По подсчетам медиков Всемирной Организации Здравоохранения, если поражающей только птиц грипп H5N1 мутирует и станет опасным для человека, глобальная эпидемия может унести жизни 150'000'000 человек.
Многие законодатели, однако, считают, что не нынешней администрации менять основополагающие законы страны, а чтобы предотвратить катастрофу общенационального масштаба, достаточно просто запастись вакцинами от гриппа (Tamiflu и ей подобными), организовать надежную систему оповещения и вакцинации и восстановить разваленную систему здравоохранения.
Ранее сенаторы-демократы выступили с предложением выделить дополнительно 4 млрд долл. на подготовку к противодействию эпидемии "птичьего гриппа" в США. Согласно внесенному на рассмотрение сената проекту, необходимо увеличить запасы антивирусной вакцины, которой в настоящее время едва хватает для 1% населения. На эти цели предлагается потратить большую часть средств - 3,1 млрд долл. Оставшиеся деньги предлагается вложить в отслеживание вируса H5N1 по всему миру и профилактические меры, готовящие администрацию на локальном уровне к возможной вспышке эпидемии.
С 2003г. болезнь унесла в странах Азии жизни 64 человек. Несмотря на то, что большинство скончавшихся перед смертью контактировали с зараженной птицей, врачи не исключают, что в случае мутации вируса станет возможным его передача от человека к человеку.
07.10.2005, 13:52 Кибернетики подсчитали, сколько москвичей могут погибнуть от «птичьего гриппа»
По материалам программы Сегодня В пятницу российские специалисты выступили с прогнозами о мутации вируса «птичьего гриппа».
По мнению сотрудника Российского института эпидемиологии и микробиологии Бориса Боева, новый смертельный вирус наподобие «испанки», унесшей в начале прошлого века в Европе десятки миллионов жизней, может возникнуть в результате соединения человеческого вируса гриппа В-типа с так называемым «птичьим гриппом» той формы, что охватила в этом году российские регионы.
Впрочем, Боев подчеркивает, что это лишь прогнозы, рассчитанные математически, сообщает телекомпания НТВ.
Борис Боев, глава лаборатории эпидемиологической кибернетики Российского института эпидемиологии и микробиологии имени Гамалей: «Когда больной человек обычным гриппом будет заражен возбудителем птичьего гриппа, то в организме больного человека может сформироваться вирус-мутант. Это очень редкое событие, которое может и произойти, и не произойти. В Москве эта эпидемия может достичь очень существенных масштабов. Могут заболеть от трех до четырех миллионов человек, умереть до миллиона 400 тысяч человек. Я сообщил предварительные прогнозные оценки, а как будет в реальности, мы готовы быстро пересчитать, как только эта ситуация случится».
Добавлено в [mergetime]1128744622[/mergetime] В Госдуме озабочены возможностью распространения "птичьего гриппа" на территории России
Москва. 7 октября. ИНТЕРФАКС - Депутаты Госдумы высказали озабоченность в связи с возможностью распространения "птичьего гриппа" на территории России и превращения его в эпидемию.
На заседании в пятницу вопрос поднял Юлий Квицинский (фракция КПРФ), который обратил внимание своих коллег на беспрецедентные меры, принимаемые властями США в целях предотвращения такого рода эпидемии.
Парламентарий отметил, что сенат США провел специальное заседание по этому поводу и принял решение выделить в военном бюджете более $3 млрд. для принятия мер против этой угрозы. Президент США Джордж Буш, как заметил Ю.Квицинский, предусмотрел возможность использования вооруженных сил в случае необходимости организации массового карантина.
На заседании в пятницу вопрос поднял Юлий Квицинский (фракция КПРФ), который обратил внимание своих коллег на беспрецедентные меры, принимаемые властями США в целях предотвращения такого рода эпидемии.
-- А не слишком поздно обратили внимание? Через 2 месяца после прохода первой вспышки по южным региогнам россии?
Times: На пороге пандемии "птичьего гриппа" власти не должны жалеть средств на научные исследования.
РБК. 10.10.2005, Лондон 09:57:03. Сейчас, когда пандемия "птичьего гриппа" кажется все более реальной, не время экономить на научных исследованиях, пишет сегодня британская газета Times. Как можно скорее необходимо завершить работу над вакциной, которая бы стала надежной защитой от опасного заболевания. Однако даже если такая вакцина будет получена, фармацевтические предприятия мира вряд ли смогут произвести ее в необходимых количествах, отмечает издание.
Сейчас лабораторные испытания вакцины от "птичьего гриппа" проводят американские ученые. Она должна защитить человека от штамма H5N1, который за последние несколько лет унес более 60 жизней. Однако результаты исследований показывают, что американская вакцина обеспечивает организму иммунитет, только если применяется в очень высоких дозах. Это значит, что ее должно быть произведено в несколько раз больше, чем вакцины от обычного гриппа.
Таким образом, перед учеными стоит задача уменьшить объем минимально необходимой человеку дозы, чтобы вакцины хватило на всех. Шаг в этом направлении сделали вирусологи из Университета Лестера (Великобритания) и Национального института биологических стандартов и контроля. Ученые готовы провести испытания вспомогательных лекарственных веществ, которые способны усилить ответ организма на вакцину, тем самым повысив ее эффективность. Однако Министерство здравоохранения Великобритании до сих пор не дало ответа на предложения, которые ученые представили еще восемь месяцев назад. Между тем это именно тот случай, когда государственные средства должны стать доступными для исследователей, ведь случись эпидемия, расходы окажутся куда больше, заключает газета.
Experts cite differences between H5N1 and ordinary flu
Oct 11, 2005 (CIDRAP News) A recentand extensive review of research on H5N1 avian influenza in humans shows the illness differs from ordinary flu in several ways, besides the most obvious fact that it is far more deadly.
The report by a World Health Organization (WHO) committee says avian flu may have a longer incubation period and is more likely to cause diarrhea than typical flu viruses are, among other differences.
Published in the Sep 29 New England Journal of Medicine, the review was written by experts from several countries, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and Myanmar. They reviewed 71 published studies and reports, including details on 41 confirmed human cases from Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Hong Kong.
The H5N1 virus first jumped from birds to humans in Hong Kong in 1997, infecting 18 people andcausing 6 deaths. In late 2003 the virus began sweeping through poultry flocks in East Asia, and since then it has struck at least 116 people and killed at least 60, by the WHO's official count.
The new report says the virus may incubate longer than other human flu viruses before causing symptoms. Incubation periods in ordinary flu range from 1 to 4 days, with an average of 2 days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In H5N1 cases, the incubation time has mostly been from 2 to 4 days but has stretched to 8 days, the WHO report says. In household clusters of cases, the time between cases has generally ranged from 2 to 5 days but sometimes has been as long as 17 days.
Initial symptoms are more likely to include diarrhea in avian flu than in ordinary flu,the report says. The problem can appear up to a week before any respiratory symptoms. That feature, combined with the detection of viral RNA in stool samples, suggests that the virus grows in the gastrointestinal tract.
Lower respiratory tract symptoms such as shortness of breath appear early in the course of the illness, whereas upper respiratory symptoms such as runny nose are less common, the article says. Also, unlike in ordinary flu cases, the virus may be found in larger amounts in the throat than in the nose.
Most cases so far have been linked with exposure to poultry. Specific activities that have been implicated include plucking and preparation of diseased birds; handling fighting cocks; playing with poultry, especially asymptomatic infected ducks; and consumption of duck's blood or possibly undercooked poultry, the report says.
Blood tests of people in contact with H5N1 patients in Vietnam and Thailand have shown no evidence of asymptomatic infections. However, surveillance involving polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests has revealed mild cases, more infections in older adults, and an increase in family clusters of cases in northern Vietnam"findings suggesting that the local virus strains may be adapting to humans," the article says. (The WHO first reported these findings in May; see link to more information below.)
But it adds that more work is needed to confirm these findings, and so far the disease has rarely spread to healthcare workers, even when appropriate isolation measures were not used.
The article says the relatively low number of human cases amid widespread infection in birds suggests that the species barrier to human cases of H5N1 is "substantial." The authors add that family clusters of cases may be caused by common exposures rather than by person-to-person transmission.
The report also discusses the "severe" lung injury found in autopsies of H5N1 victims, whose lungs become choked with debris resulting from thebody's intense response to the infection. The authors say thebody's innate immune response to the virus, involving heavy release of proteins that trigger inflammation, may contribute to the severity of the disease.
Most patients hospitalized for H5N1 infection have received antiviral drugs, usually oseltamivir, the report says. This treatment appears to be helpful only when started early in the illness.
Recent experiments on mice suggest that the virus has become less susceptible to oseltamivir since 1997, the article notes. To reap a similar benefit, mice infected with a 2004 strain of the virus needed a higher dosage and longer course of oseltamivir than mice infected with a 1997 strain did. Hence, the report suggests that physicians treating severe infections should consider doubling the approved dose.
Oseltamivir is one of the two neuraminidase inhibitors used for flu. The other one, zanamivir, has not been studied in H5N1 cases, the report says. The two older antivirals used forflu, amantadine and rimantadine, no longer work against H5N1.
Writing committee of the World Health Organization (WHO) Consultation on Human Influenza A/H5. Avian influenza A (H%N1) infection in humans. N Engl J Med 2005 Sep 29;353(13):1374-85 [Abstract]
See also:
May 18, 2005, CIDRAP News story "WHO: Pandemic threat may be growing"
Добавлено в [mergetime]1129101501[/mergetime] Мутировавший птичий грипп храниться в военной биолаборатории в Роквилле?
ЕЩЕ ОДНА ГЛОБАЛЬНАЯ УГРОЗА В США разработан план борьбы с птичьим гриппом Артур Блинов
Министр здравоохранения и социальных служб США Майк Левитт объявил в минувший понедельник в Бангкоке, что американская администрация считает неизбежной пандемию птичьего гриппа, очагом распространения которого являются страны ЮВА. Пандемия это эпидемия, охватывающая большое число стран или даже континенты.
В эти же дни «Нью-Йорк таймс» сообщает о прогнозе, сделанном администрацией: болезнь способна достичь территории США в считаные месяцы, если не недели. В худшем варианте могут попасть в больницы 8,5 млн. американцев, их лечение будет стоить 450 млрд. долл., умереть могут до 1,9 млн. человек.
План администрации по борьбе с эпидемией предусматривает введение ограничений на въезд в страну, обеспечение карантина местности, срочное изготовление противогриппозных вакцин до 600 млн. доз в ближайшие шесть месяцев.
Попутно американцы узнали, зачем президент Джордж Буш взял с собой в отпуск книгу Джона Барри «Великая инфлюенца: история самой смертоносной эпидемии» она дает живое описание пандемии гриппа 19181919 гг., когда погибли 2040 млн. человек.
США уже ряд лет изучают возможные варианты пандемии. Одно из открытий сделано в военной биолаборатории в пригороде Вашингтона Роквилле, известной как Институт патологии вооруженных сил. Оказывается, что к вирусу птичьего гриппа близок вирус инфлюенцы, у нас больше известной как «испанский грипп» или «испанка». Как сообщили научные журналы «Саенс» и «Нэйче», это открытие сделал доктор Джеффри Таубенбергер. В результате десятилетних экспериментов он смог реконструировать вирус «испанки», точнее штамм вируса, близкий к тому, что свирепствовал в 1918 г., и обнаружил его большое сходство с вирусом птичьего гриппа. Между ними всего 25 генетических различий, что может быть сравнительно быстро преодолено в результате естественных мутаций.
Известно, что вирус может мутировать в форму, крайне опасную для людей. Об этом уже предупреждала Всемирная организация здравоохранения (ВОЗ). Птичий грипп, названный так, поскольку он вызывает падеж птицы, в 1997 г. впервые стал причиной заболевания людей. Это произошло в Гонконге. Случаи заболевания людей продолжились, с января 2004 г. выявлены 112 случаев этой болезни у людей в Таиланде, Камбодже и Вьетнаме, при этом примерно половина заболевших скончались. В других странах отмечены случаи распространения менее опасных не передающихся человеку штаммов вирусного гриппа. Это было не только в Азии, но и в Европе и Америке.
Президент США объявил, что готов задействовать части регулярных войск длякарантина местностей, в которых будет обнаружена опасная зараза. Поскольку это не предусмотрено законом попросил Конгресс предоставить соответствующие полномочия. Конгресс уже выделил средства на подготовку на случай эпидемии к бюджету Пентагона добавили 3,9 млрд. долл., в том числе 3 млрд. на создание запасов вакцин и других антивирусных средств, главным образом препарата тамифлю, в наибольшей степени эффективного против гриппа. Буш призвал к международным усилиям в разработке вакцины от птичьего гриппа, а госдепартамент провел встречу представителей примерно четырех десятков стран на эту тему.
Паника? Скорее обостренное чувство опасности, в какой-то степени связанное с тем, что американцы еще не до конца оправились от шока, который вызвали у них события сентября 2001 года. Если накануне сентябрьских терактов, как ныне принято считать, у американцев «не хватило воображения», чтобы представить реальной атаку на небоскребы, то ныне этой проблемы нет.
Вашингтон бьет в колокола, но забывает при этом ответить на некоторые вопросы. Первый из них о том, не грозит ли нам появление современного Франкенштейна. Действительно ли нужно было воссоздавать вирус «испанки», чтобы убедиться в особой опасности птичьего гриппа? Пока неизвестно, когда произойдет роковая мутация птичьего гриппа, а смертельно опасный вирус уже существует он хранится в военной биолаборатории в Роквилле. Теперь особое значение приобретает надежность хранения этих биоматериалов. В итоге экспериментов Таубенбергера США стали монопольным обладателем штамма вируса, способного вызвать мировой мор.
Международные эксперты усмотрели серьезную опасность и в том, что биоинженерная методика Таубенбергера может зажить своей жизнью, тем более что кое-что из нее он предал огласке.
И последнее. США оказались в лидирующем, если не в монопольном положении в том, что касается разработки мер борьбы с угрозой эпидемии. Вопрос в том, насколько американцы, а также другие производители лекарств (например, упомянутого тамифлю, выпускаемого швейцарской фирмой «Ля-Рош») готовы снабдить другие страны патентами на изготовление этих средств. Без этого вновь повторится история с препаратами от Вич-СПИДа, все еще недоступными для больных во многих странах.
The Avian Flu Fright is Politically Timed A Public Health Warning and Political Essay
by Dr. Leonard Horowitz
October 12, 2005 GlobalResearch.ca
Abstract
The Avian Flu Fright: Politically Timed for Global Iatrogenocide
If avian flu becomes more than a threatened pandemic, it will have done so by political andeconomic design. This thesis is supported by current massive media misrepresentations, profiteering on risky and valueless vaccines, gross neglect of data evidencing earlier similar man-made plagues including SARS, West Nile Virus, AIDS and more; continuance of genetic studies breeding more mutant flu viruses likely to outbreak, inside trading scandals involving pandemic savvy White House and drug industry officials, curious immunity of these pharmaceutical entities over the past century to law enforcement and mainstream media scrutiny, and published official depopulation objectives. With the revelations and assertions advanced herein, the public is forewarned against this physician-assisted mass murder best termed iatrogenocide.* This genocidal imposition is expected to serve mainly economic and political depopulation objectives.
Background
In April, 2003, a social experiment called SARS, said to have arrived from Asia, heavily struck Toronto. I was there throughout most of this Asian flu-foreshadowing fright. This bizarre new pneumonia-like illness was named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. It was said to be the latest threat in an ongoing series of attacks on humanity by mysteriously mutating "supergerms."
A careful study of the scientific and medical-sociological correlates and antecedents of this outbreak revealed something amiss far more insidious than SARS. I critically considered Torontos media reaction as any Harvard-trained public health expert in media persuasion behavioral science might. The scourge had all the earmarks of a novel social experiment conducted by white-collar bioterrorist.
It seemed clear to me that this unprecedented population manipulation effectively indoctrinated the mass mind in support of a grossly ineffective, albeit legislated, public health response in advance of the arrival of "the Big One." Throughout the SARS Scam,(1) repeated references were made to biological agents that might facilitate decimation of approximately a third to half of the world's population. Having extensively reviewed political population control literature and contemporary objectives of leading global industrialists, I noted these predictions were in close keeping with current official population reduction objectives.(2)
Canadas response to SARS in 2003 was, forthe first time in history, directed by the United Nations and World Health Organization (WHO). Having reviewed the intimate financial and administrative ties between these organizations, the Rockefeller family, Carnegie Foundation, andthe worlds leading drug makers, the fox, in essence, reigned over Canadas chickens.
The truth about plagues includes the fact that no grand pandemic ever evolved divorced from major socio-political upheaval." SARS advanced a political agenda more than a public health emergency. If public health officials earnestly intended to prevent these new emerging diseases, or successfully treat them at their roots, I repeated, they would study their obvious origins from the merged military-medical-biotechnology arena. A basic course in medical sociology simply justifies this utilitarian counsel.
"Experts" had been predicting the arrival of a super-plague for decades. What was HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS aboutthe mysterious and terrifying arrival of SARS, however, was its timing. It synchronously arrived with the global war on terrorism, andthe Anglo-American war with Iraq. It seemed a convenient distraction from the fact that the earlier Bush administration had shipped Saddam Hussein most of his deadly biological weapons arsenal including anthrax and West Nile Virus. SARS was pathognomonic (i.e., symptomatic and characteristic) of what I had predicted and explained in the book, Death in the Air: Globalism, Terrorism and Toxic Warfare (Tetrahedron Publishing Group, 2001; http://www.healthyworlddistributing.com/), a prophetically-titled text that predated the 9-11 attacks on America by several months, and provided a contextual analysis of certain globalists links to recent outbreaks.
In essence, I provided insight into the broad application of a new form of institutionalized "bioterrorism" consistent with state sponsored biological warfare. Saddam Hussein was said to have exposed populations in his and adjacent lands with biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction. SARS andthe current avian flu fright is sanctioned by military-medical-pharmaceutical-petrochemical industrialists likewise operating above the law in many documented instances. Having testified before theU.S. Congress, I personally experienced how premiere pharmaceutical industrialists direct our political-economic representatives in government. Emerging diseases complement the political "War on Terrorism," and our bioterror-influenced culture. This agenda serves two primary objectives: profitability andpopulation-reduction.
Political Reality Versus Mass-Mediated Myths
The ever increasing madness around us is eerily consistent with globalist think tank recommendations forthe current "conflicts short of war." Beginning in the late 1960s, "economic substitutes for standard militarization" were sought and found by leading global industrialists. New biological threats, the war on terrorism, and increasing numbers of natural disasters including space-based threats and superstorms were considered economically and politically expedient compared with the first and second world wars. These conflicts short of war were decidedly more manageable andeconomically viable. For this reason, especially their profitability, they were leading options among Anglo-American policy makers.
Nelson Rockefellers protégé, Henry Kissinger, for instance, as National Security Advisor (NSA) under Richard Nixon, oversaw foreign policy while considering Third World population reduction "necessities" fortheU.S., Britain, Germany, and other allies. This Bush nominee to direct the 9-11 conspiracy investigation, a reputed war criminal, then selected the option to have the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) develop biological weapons, according to theU.S. Congressional Record of 1975. Among these new man-made biological weapons were germs far deadlier than the avian flu.
For example, by 1968, when Kissinger requested andreceived updated intelligence on useful synthetic biological agents for germ warfare andpopulation control, mutant recombinant flu viruses had just been engineered by Special Virus CancerProgram researchers OConner, Stewart, Kinard, Rauscher and others.(3) During this program, influenza and parainfluenza viruses were recombined with quick acting leukemia viruses (acute lymphocytic leukemia) to deliver weapons that potentially spread cancer, like the flu, by sneezing. These researchers also amassed avian cancer (sarcoma) viruses and inoculated them into humans and monkeys to determine their carcinogenicity. In related efforts, Raucher et al. used radiation to enhance avian viruss cancer-causingpotential. These incredible scientific realities have been officially censored and generally neglected by the medias mainstream.
Similarly, the Institute of Science in Society (IoSS) in London raised the genetic engineering question in the origin of SARS. Could genetic engineering have contributed inadvertently to creating the SARS virus? they asked. This point was not even considered by the expert coronavirologists called in to help handle the crisis, now being feted and woed by pharmaceutical companies eager to develop vaccines. Those living in glass houses should not throw stones. The above emphasis is added to show IoSS they had not even considered intentional SARS deployment in their scientific, allegedly unbiased, purview.(4)
Conflicts short of war, like the "War on AIDS," "War on Drugs," "War on Terrorism," "War on Cancer," and now War on the Avian Flu require sophisticated propaganda programs employing fear campaigns for social acceptance andpopular support of legislated policies. These psychological operations (officially termed PSYOPS) for commandand control warfare (technically called C2W), experts advise, best support the emerging "Revolution in Military Affairs" (RMA). The RMAs capabilities include "a form of human slavery" in which the worlds captive populations would not know they are enslaved.(2)
The RMA undoubtedly incorporates the use of debilitating biologicals and chemical agents most generously on behalf of drug and vaccine makers. A classic example is the toxic carcinogenic organophosphate pesticides deployed against human populations, said to target mosquitoes, in the "War Against the West Nile Virus." Such "non-lethal warfare" agents, as these are militarily termed, are indeed deadly, but mortality results slowly from toxic exposures allowing more profits to be made by allied pharmaceutical and medical industrialists. Victims of the "non-lethal" exposures die slowly from chronic debilitating diseases. Expensive hospitals and long-term care facilities are virtual concentration camps. The ailments generated for iatrogenocide include the plethora of autoimmune diseases and newer cancers virtually non-existent 50 years ago. This fact, alone, strongly suggests a genocidal socio-economic and political agenda.
Avian Flu for Profit
In response to SARS, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, Michael Fumento, published an economic thesis in Toronto related to the one I advance here. The "Super-bug or Super Scare," he wrote was published in Canadas National Post. Canadians were warned to "quarantine themselves," wear masks, and in some cases stay home. The Ontario Health Minister declared a "health emergency," as the media dubbed the "mysterious killer" a "super-pneumonia. Recoiling from the hype, Fumento asked and answered a few real questions . . . How lethal, how transmissible, and how treatable is this strain? The answers, he concluded, leave no grounds for excitement, much less panic. The same may be said for this new curse of avian flu.(1)
Lethal?
At this writing, the avian flu is said to have killed about 65 people in Southeast Asia during the past two years! Little to no data is available on these individuals who most commonly had immune-compromising medical conditions. Further, all deaths were in Asian countries with questionable health services.
Conversely, other forms of flu kill more than 40,000 North Americans annually, generally the immune-compromised elderly.
Transmissibile?
According to USA Today (October 9, 2005), European health officials are working to contain the [avian flu] virus, which so far has not infected anyone in the region. Although, allegedly more than 140 million birds have died or been destroyed, . . . and financial losses to the poultry sector have topped $10 billion. This propaganda actually admits, the current virus, known as H5N1, has not yet mutated to the point at which it can easily spread from person to person. In fact, it is likely to have never spread from person to person other than during laboratory handling!(5)
Treatability?
TheU.S. Senate has already approved a $3.9 billion package to buy vaccines and antiviral medications, andthe Administration is also preparing a request for an additional $6 billion to $10 billion, according to a current BusinessWeek report.( 6)
Beam me up Scottie, there is no intelligent life on this planet. This largely explains why the public puts up with this deadly deception. Even USA Today bemoans, there is no human vaccine yet. So how come theU.S. Senate is rushing to spend all these billions for an avian flu vaccine?
I suppose we should overlook the fact that the current frightening strain of H5N1 avian flu virus has never readily jumped from human to human, and not commonly from birds to humans either. Thus, an effective vaccine can only be prepared by mutating this virus, thus creating what the world fears most. Let me explain. . . .
To make the human vaccine specific forthe H5N1 mutant virus, you must start with the human virus which does not yet exist, except in perhaps military-biomedical-pharmaceutical laboratories. In fact, this is precisely what is being prepared based on news reports. To produce the human pathogen, the avian virus must be cultured for lengthy periods of time in human cell cultures, then injected into monkey andultimately humans to see if these experimental subjects get the same feared flu. Thus, the flu virus the world currently fears most is either: 1) now being prepared in labs paid by industrialists with massive wealth-building incentives to accidentally release the virus; or 2) has already been prepared in such labs to take advantage of this current fright and future sales following the viruss release.
Remember, to be effective against a virus, a vaccine is said to require specificity. If authorities were to now have the main H5N1 avian flu strain feared to spread at some future date theres no assurance by the time they developed the vaccine the strain would remain sufficiently the same forthe vaccine to be effective anyway due to expected viral mutations. Viral mutations over time is a function of the agents newness. New man-made viruses, laboratory creations, like the ones currently being prepared for vaccine trials, are less stable not having evolved over the millennia. Thus, the entire vaccine effort is largely, if not entirely, a sham with ulterior motives.
Remember too, that a vaccines reliability requires years, or at least months, of testing in the targeted population. Vaccine injury data must, or should, be meticulously collected over this period to assure the vaccine is not killing and maiming more persons than it is helping or saving. Can you seriously believe this assurance will be provided by government or pharmaceutical industry officials in this pandemics wake? FEMAs failed Katrina response pails by comparison to this public health liability and vaccine-injury certainty.
I say vaccine-injury certainty because of the extensive list of newly developed vaccinations, highly touted when brought to market, that caused horrific results. This list includes the first swine flu vaccine, polio vaccines, smallpox vaccine, anthrax vaccine, hepatitis B vaccine, and most recently Lyme disease vaccine that crippled approximately 750,000 people within months of its release and prior to its recall by the FDA.
Most people fail to realize all vaccines carry a list of ingredients that typically increase human disease and death (i.e., morbidity and mortality). These include toxic elements and chemicals such as mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde andformalin (used to preserve corpses), MSG, foreign genetic material, and risky proteins from various species of bacteria, viruses, and animals that have been scientifically associated with triggering autoimmune disorders and certain cancers. A growing body of scientific evidence strongly suggests vaccines are largely responsible for increasing cases of autism and other learning disabilities, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, Lupus, MS, ALS, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, hay fever, allergies, chronic draining ear infections, type 1 autoimmune diabetes, and many, many more pandemics. These chronic ailments are said to require long-term medical care forthe patients management causing toxic side effects resulting in Americas leading killer--iatrogenic disease. That is, vaccines and other pharmaceutical industry inventions are literally killing or disabling millions with little effort on the part of government officials andtheir drug industry cohorts to arrest this scourge.
For all we know, governments are ordering an avian flu vaccine that will precisely deliver this pandemic to the world to affect population control. Absurd thesis? Read on.
BusinessWeek expects avian flu vaccine stockpiling by government officials will help the Sanofi-Pasteur company on behalf of Sanofi-Aventis and Chiron. Tamiflu, it reported is an antiviral manufactured by Roche, . . . considered effective against avian flu. . . . TheU.S. owns enough for 4.3 million people, with more on order. BusinessWeek failed to report: 1) Tamiflus safetyand effectiveness has not been determined in people with other chronic medical conditions--a significant percentage of theU.S.population-- and common side effects of this drug include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bronchitis, stomach pain, dizziness, headaches, and much, much more; 2) Roche (Hoffman-LaRoche) was found guilty of price fixing the worlds supply of vitamins in 1999 as part of the global petrochemical/pharmaceutical cartel evolved from Nazi-Germanys I.G. Farben organization;(2)(6) and 3) Sanofi-Aventiss corporate colleagues include Merck, a company that received a lions share of the Nazi war chest at the end of WWII, whose earnings plunged after the withdrawal last year of its deadly Vioxx arthritis drug. According to recent news reports, Merck is partnering with Sanofi-Aventis to produce the worlds first sexually-transmitted-cancer vaccine to be given to prepubescent boys and girls.(7) Merck is infamous for having developed the first hepatitis B vaccines that triggered theinternational AIDS pandemic according to published scientific research and stunning documents reprinted in this authors national bestselling book.(3)(8)
In the weeks and months following the 9-11 attacks on America, I traced the widely publicized anthrax mailings "mystery" to U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) commissioned biological weapons contractors with ties to Britain's MI6, Porton Down, and this same Anglo-American pharmaceutical cartel.(9) The anthrax mailings fanned fears of bioterrorism throughout America andeconomically served primarily vaccine and drug makers with administrative and financial links to these avian flu profiteers.(10)
People willingly relinquish their civil rights and personal freedoms in the wake of such engineered frights. The passage of the infamous "Homeland Security Act" in America, and its counterpart in Canada, are classic examples of this societal direction, forced legislation, and egregious manipulation.
Why Asia?
How convenient that Asia is said to be the origin, as with SARS, of this latest plague when Chinese-Anglo-American relations are strained to say the least.
In the days preceding the emergence of the first SARS cases, America raced to the Pacific Rim to impact escalating aggressions on the Korean peninsula. Communist China--a "most favored" trading partner with America--is politically allied with several American enemies, including those said to possess weapons of mass destruction, including Iraq. Coincidental? Not likely when viewing thelarger political picture involving the Ango-American oligarchy's RMA, its global enterprises, and instigated planet-wide "conflicts short of war."
Consider also the fact the media's mainstream has been heavily influenced, if not entirely controlled, by multi-national corporate sponsors protecting and advancing the interests of a relatively small number of global entities. Also recall that the focus of news providers, on any given day or hour, results from intelligence agency directives, according to reputable authorities including myriad retired news officials and intelligence officers. So ask and answer the following intelligent questions:
* Why have American military officials, beginning with Secretary of Defense William Cohen during the Clinton years, publicized America's greatest vulnerability lies in the realm of biological weapons wielded by terrorists? Is this not a form of treason against the United States to relay such sensitive intelligence to potential enemies through the mainstream press?
* Why does the mainstream media continue to foretell of the expected arrival of the "Big One"-an influenza virus that will produce a super-flu that will kill billions of people, like the "Spanish flu" did between 1918-19, while totally disregarding the individuals, organizations, and laboratories that have labored to produce these weapons of mass destruction? Even the devastating Spanish Flu virus has been, literally, unearthed for further study and, do you suppose, deployment?
* Why was the "Spanish flu" influenza virus called the "Spanish flu" when it originated, by historic accounts, in Tibet in 1917? It is said that Spanish newspapers were the only ones reporting on the great plague due to their neutrality over World War I politics. However, Spain was as dear to America then as Communist China is to the United States today. The "Spanish flu" was named such following two decades of disputes between America and Spain over colonization of the Caribbean Islands, Hawaii andthe Philippines beginning with the Spanish American war that ended in the Philippines in 1902. In fact, the grand Spanish flu began in military camps. Does this history appear to be repeating?
*Doesn't it make sense that America is being manipulated, if not targeted, forthe purpose of advancing globalistic agendas, central among them is population reduction?
The "Big One"
As mentioned above, during the 1960s and early 1970s, military biological weapons contractors with intimate ties to leading drug industrialists prepared mutants of influenza and para-influenza viruses recombined with acute lymphocytic leukemia viruses. In other words, they stockpiled a quick spreading cancer virus which may also be deployed.(3)
Alternatively, many infectious disease experts andgovernment health officials oblivious to this scientific reality say this avian flu might be the 'Big One." Several days ago, the United Nations released a report that stated as many as 150 million people worldwide might die from this avian flu.
Emma Ross of the Associated Press reported on SARS as the World Health Organization (WHO) launched its "crisis plan to attack" the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. WHO, as you may recall, is a U.N. sponsored organization that is rumored to have helped spread AIDS to Africa by way of contaminated hepatitis B and/or polio vaccinations. There is a reasonable amount of evidence to support this contention.(1)
More disconcerting, the U.N. is known to be heavily influenced by Rockefeller family members andtheir petrochemical-pharmaceutical interests. History shows Rockefeller fortunes built the U.N. building in New York City. During WWII, the Rockefeller family andtheir Standard Oil Company supported Hitler more than they did the allies according to court records. One federal judge ruled Rockefeller committed "treason" against the United States. Following WWII, according to attorney John Loftus-an official Nazi war crimes investigator-Nelson Rockefeller persuaded the U.N.'s South American voting block to favor Israel's creation only to assure secrecy regarding his support forthe Nazis. Earlier that century, John D. Rockefeller joined Prescott Bush andthe British Royal Family in sponsoring the eugenics initiatives that gave rise to Hitler's racial hygiene programs. During the same period the Rockefeller family virtually monopolized American medicine, American pharmaceutics, andthecancerand genetics industries.(2, 3)
Today, the Rockefeller family, its foundation, U.N. and WHO remain at theforefront of administering "population programs" designed to reduce world populations to more manageable levels. As per an advertisement in Foreign Affairs--a prestigious political periodical published by the David Rockefeller directed Council on Foreign Relations--theU.S.population is being targeted for a 50% reduction.(2)
"We've never faced anything on this scale with such a global reach, said Dr. David Heymann, of the WHO, not regarding the avian flu, but SARS.
"This is the first time that a global network of [Rockefeller-directed infectious disease surveillance outposts and] laboratories are sharing information, samples, blood, pictures," added Dr. Klaus Stohr, a WHO virologist coordinating labs internationally. "Basically overnight, there are no secrets, there is no jealousy, there is no competition in the face of a global health emergency. This is a phenomenal network.(1)\
* The term iatrogenocide is derived from the combination of words iatrogenesis, meaning physician induced illness, and genocide, defined as the mass killing and/or enslaving of people foreconomics, politics, and/or ideology.
Aboutthe Author Leonard G. Horowitz, D.M.D., M.A., M.P.H., is an internationally known authority in the overlapping fields of public health, behavioral science, emerging diseases, and bioterrorism. Dr. Horowitz is best known for his national bestselling book, Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola - Nature, Accident or Intentional? (Tetrahedron Press, 1998; 1-888-508-4787) which recently resulted in the United States General Accounting Office investigating the man-made origin of AIDS theory. (See: http://www.healingcelebrations.com/gao.htm ) Dr. Horowitz's work in the field of vaccination risk awareness has prompted at least three Third World nations to change their vaccination policies. His stunning testimony before the United States Congress' Government Reform Committee, literally brought the hearing to a halt. (See: healingcelebrations.com) Dr. Horowitz questioned government health officials regarding a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) secreted report showing a definitive link between the mercury ingredient (i.e., Thimerosal), common to most vaccinations, andthe skyrocketing rates of autism and behavioral disorders affecting our children andthe future of our nation.
Dr. Horowitz's most recent book is DNA: "Pirates of the Sacred Spiral", a reference text on the electro-genetics of biology, disease therapy, and human spirituality. This work also details links between the anthrax mailings and human genome project heist, and leading intelligence agency, genetics industry, and pharmaceutical company officials.
For more information about Dr. Horowitzs books, videos, CDs and DVDs link to www.healthyworlddistributing.com andwww.tetrahedron.org, or by calling 1-888-508-4787. His official web is www.drlenhorowitz.com.
This article was provided courtesy of Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz and Tetrahedron Publishing Group. Its copyright is relinquished for widespread distribution.
8) For more scientific background on the link between the hepatitis B vaccine andthe AIDS pandemic link to http://www.originofAIDS.com .
9) Horowitz LG. The CIA's Role in the Anthrax Mailings: Could Our Spies be Agents for Military-Industrial Sabotage, Terrorism, and Even Population Control? A Special Report. Article available at: http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/anthra..._espionage.html
10) Horowitz LG. DNA: Pirates of the Sacred Spiral. Sandpoint, ID: Tetrahedron Publishing Group, 2004.
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