Flu
Korea culls 3 million birds as flu spreads fast
South Korea said on Thursday it had culled 3 million farmed birds and confirmed three more outbreaks of bird flu, as the country grapples with its worst avian influenza outbreak in four years.
In just two weeks South Korea has confirmed 15 cases of the deadly H5N1 strain, raising alarm as the highly virulent virus is spreading at its fastest rate since the country reported its first case in 2003.
The farm ministry said on Thursday it had seven new reports of suspected bird flu outbreaks at poultry farms in North and South Jeolla provinces, some 320 km (200 miles) south of Seoul, where the first bird flu recurrence for a year was reported earlier this month.
Flu shots leave heart failure patients at risk
Patients with heart failure are especially vulnerable to influenza and most doctors recommend they get flu shots, but a study suggests these annual jabs may not offer them full protection, U.S. researchers said on Saturday.
They found heart failure patients in a study had lower immune responses to the vaccine compared with healthy people of similar ages, leaving them more vulnerable to infection.
“What we theorize is that heart failure as a condition leads to impaired immune function, which renders these patients less able to respond to the vaccine,” said Orly Vardeny of the University of Wisconsin, who presented the study at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Chicago.
Two Indonesian youths die of bird flu
Two Indonesian youths have died from bird flu, a health ministry official said on Monday, taking the confirmed death toll in the country worst affected by the virus to 107.
A 15-year-old boy from Subang, in West Java, died on Wednesday in an area where chickens had died, said Nyoman Kandun, director general of communicable disease control at the ministry.
An 11-year-old girl from Bekasi, east of Jakarta, who died on Friday also tested positive for the virus, the official said.
Angina more common in women than men
Although men have higher rates of fatal heart attacks than women, women are about 20 percent more likely than men to suffer from chronic heart-related chest pain—angina—a new analysis shows.
“The female excess is remarkably consistent across countries with widely differing (heart attack) mortality rates, spanning four decades of study period and four decades of participant age,” investigators report in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.
Dr. Harry Hemingway, at University College London Medical School, and his associates conducted a systematic review of population studies that reported the prevalence of angina diagnosed using a standardized questionnaire.
When AVIAN INFLUENZA Fills the ED, WILL THE STAFF SHOW UP?
When AVIAN INFLUENZA (or SARS or Bioterrorism) Fills the ED, WILL THE STAFF SHOW UP?
When the American Academy of Pediatrics, along with the group Trust for America’s Health, issued a report in late October citing serious gaps in preparedness for an avian flu epidemic, at least one medical group had already beaten them to the punch, if unofficially.
Nearly a week earlier, at the Scientific Assembly of the American College of Emergency Physicians, the results of an ACEP poll showed a majority of those surveyed believe their own emergency departments are unlikely to fully meet the demand of a such an outbreak. In interviews, several of them speculated on the reasons why, ranging from a suspected dearth of specialty support to a paucity of essential equipment.
Cold and flu more serious in diabetics
Flu season is unpleasant for everyone, but if you have diabetes it can be even worse. If diabetics fail to manage their disease while sick, the complications can be serious, the American Diabetes Association warned in a statement this week.
“Your average person (with the flu) will spend three or four days at home but they’ll do okay,” said Dr. John Buse, president of medicine and science at the ADA. “In patients with diabetes, occasionally they even have to be hospitalized.”
Genetic differences influence aging rates in the wild
Long-lived, wild animals harbor genetic differences that influence how quickly they begin to show their age, according to the results of a long-term study reported online on December 13th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. Evidence for the existence of such genetic variation for aging rates—a central tenet in the evolutionary theory that explains why animals would show physiological declines as they grow older—had largely been lacking in natural populations until now, the researchers said.
“We’ve found that individuals differ in their rates of aging, or senescence, and that these differences are (at least in part) caused by genetic effects so they will be inherited,” said Alastair Wilson of the University of Edinburgh. “While the genetic effects we found are completely consistent with existing theory, scientists hadn’t previously managed to test this theory properly except in controlled laboratory experiments.
Early Tamiflu treatment helps kids with influenza
Expeditious treatment with the anti-viral drug Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, can markedly reduce the duration of illness, symptom severity, and complications in children with influenza, according to study findings presented earlier this month at the World Society for Pediatric Infectious Disease meeting in Bangkok.
This is “the first time that a dramatic reduction in influenza severity duration, complications and antibiotic use” has been shown when Tamiflu was started within 24 hours of illness onset, study researcher Dr. Keith Reisinger, from Primary Physicians Research in Pittsburgh, told Reuters Health.
Switzerland increases checks for bird flu
Switzerland is increasing its checks for bird flu around Lake Geneva, Lake Neuchatel and other waterways during the northern hemisphere winter, when the virus generally spreads fastest.
The canton of Vaud, in the French-speaking part of the small Alpine country, issued a statement saying it would boost its surveillance for the virus among wild birds in a one-km perimeter around its major lakes from next week.
Indonesia confirms 2nd bird flu death on Bali
An Indonesian woman from the popular tourist resort of Bali has died of bird flu, a health ministry official said on Wednesday, the second confirmed death from the H5N1 virus on the island.
Joko Suyono of the ministry’s bird flu centre in Jakarta said the woman, who died on Tuesday in a hospital in Bali’s capital Denpasar, tested positive for H5N1 after a second test.
Traditional Chinese exercises may increase efficacy of flu vaccine
Move on mosquitoes. Step aside sweat bees. Before long, another unwelcome, but predictable, pest will return: the dreaded, oft-spotted flu bug.
But as this year’s sniffling-sneezing season approaches, there’s also a hint of hope present in the pre-germ-season air. In a study scheduled for publication in the August issue of the American Journal of Chinese Medicine, a team of kinesiologists at the University of Illinois suggest that older adults who adopt an exercise regimen combining Taiji and Qigong may get an extra boost from their annual flu shot.
Flu killed 68 children this season: CDC
Influenza killed at least 68 children in America during the latest flu season and a third of them had a worrying new complication, U.S. health officials said on Thursday.
The 2006-2007 annual flu season never reached epidemic stage, but doctors should keep a lookout for such dangerous cases in children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Veterinarians At Increased Risk Of Avian Influenza Virus Infection
Veterinarians who work with birds are at increased risk for infection with avian influenza virus and should be among those with priority access to pandemic influenza vaccines and antivirals, according to a study conducted by researchers in the University of Iowa College of Public Health.
The investigators, led by Kendall Myers, a doctoral student in occupational and environmental health, and Gregory Gray, M.D., UI professor of epidemiology, examined blood samples from a group of U.S. veterinarians for evidence of previous avian influenza virus infection. The veterinarians all had occupational exposure to live chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese or quail.
Pregnant Indonesian woman dies of bird flu
A pregnant Indonesian woman from Sumatra Island has died of bird flu, increasing the country’s human death toll from the disease to 76, health officials said.
Two tests had confirmed the 26-year-old woman, who died on Saturday evening in Medan, had the H5N1 bird flu virus, Runizar Ruesin, head of the health ministry’s bird flu centre, said by telephone on Monday.
Tamiflu data show very low resistance: Roche
Swiss pharmaceutical group Roche Holding AG said on Wednesday new data showed patients using its anti-flu drug Tamiflu rarely developed resistance to it.
The data, published by the United Nations’ World Health Organisation, showed resistance of around 0.3 percent to Tamiflu, also called oseltamivir, during the influenza seasons in which there had been substantial Tamiflu use in Japan.
