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SUNDAY, Aug. 17 (HealthDay News) -- People who lived through the 1918 flu pandemic that killed 50 million worldwide are still producing antibodies to the virus 90 years later, researchers report. "Most people have a notion that elderly people have very weak immunity or they have lost immunity," said lead researcher Dr. James E. Crowe Jr., a professor of pediatrics, microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt University. "This study shows that extremely elderly people have retained memory of being infected with the 1918 flu, even 90 years later," Crowe said. This is the first evidence that shows that people developed significant...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Antibodies from survivors of the 1918 flu pandemic, the worst in human memory, still protect against the highly deadly virus, researchers reported on Sunday. The findings by a team of influenza and immune system experts suggest new and better ways to fight viruses -- especially new pandemic strains that emerge and spread before a vaccine can be formulated. These survivors, now aged 91 to 101, all lived through the pandemic as children. Their immune systems still carry a memory of that virus and can produce proteins called antibodies that kill the 1918 flu strain with surprising efficiency,...

Scientists have detected for the first time in Nigeria a new strain of the virus that causes avian influenza -- also known as bird flu -- a United Nations agency announced on Tuesday. The find comes in the wake of Nigeria recently reporting two new highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks in the states of Katsina and Kano, the Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said. "The detection of a new avian influenza virus strain in Africa raises serious concerns as it remains unknown how this strain has been introduced to the continent," said Scott Newsman, an international wildlife coordinator...

Canine Influenza Was Around Earlier Than Once ThoughtThe canine influenza virus, first identified in 2004, had been circulating in the greyhound population for at least five years prior to its discovery and may have been responsible for numerous outbreaks of respiratory disease among dogs at racing tracks during that period. (Credit: iStockphoto/Nico Smit) ScienceDaily (Mar. 20, 2008) — The canine influenza virus, first identified in 2004, had been circulating in the greyhound population for at least five years prior to its discovery and may have been responsible for numerous outbreaks of respiratory disease among dogs at racing tracks during that...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Influenza viruses coat themselves in fatty material that hardens and protects them in colder temperatures -- a finding that could explain why winter is the flu season, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday. This butter-like coating melts in the respiratory tract, allowing the virus to infect cells, the team at the National Institutes of Health found. "Like an M&M in your mouth, the protective covering melts when it enters the respiratory tract," said Joshua Zimmerberg of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), who led the study. The NICHD is one of the National

Spread Of 1918 Flu Pandemic ExplainedThis transmission electron micrograph of an ultra-thin specimen revealed some of the ultra-structural morphologic features seen in 1918 influenza virus virions. The prominent surface projections on the virions are composed of either the hemagglutinin, or neuraminidase type of glycoproteins. (Credit: Cynthia Goldsmith) ScienceDaily (Feb. 19, 2008) — MIT researchers have explained why two mutations in the H1N1 avian flu virus were critical for viral transmission in humans during the 1918 pandemic outbreak that killed at least 50 million people. The team showed that the 1918 influenza strain developed two mutations in a surface molecule called...

Flu deaths run in the family 08 January 2008 NewScientist.com news service Everyone gets the flu - but it seems some people are more likely to die from it than others. Lisa Albright and colleagues at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City looked at death certificates and family records going back 100 years. Nearly 5000 people were said to have died of flu, 2000 of them in the 1918 pandemic. Albright's team found that blood relatives of flu victims were more likely to die than non-relatives - even during different flu outbreaks - and the risk was greater...

Researchers in New York believe they have solved one of the great mysteries of the flu: Why does the infection spread primarily in the winter months? The answer, they say, has to do with the virus itself. It is more stable and stays in the air longer when air is cold and dry, the exact conditions for much of the flu season. “Influenza virus is more likely to be transmitted during winter on the way to the subway than in a warm room,” said Peter Palese, a flu researcher who is professor and chairman of the microbiology department at Mount...

In early April of 2005, after a particularly rainy spring, an influenza epidemic (epi: upon, demic: people) exploded through the maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane where I have worked for the last ten years. It was not the pandemic (pan: all, demic: people) we all fear, just an epidemic. The world is waiting and governments are preparing for the next pandemic. A severe influenza pandemic will kill many more Americans than died in the World Trade Centers, the Iraq war, the Vietnam War, and Hurricane Katrina combined, perhaps a million people in the USA alone. Such a disaster would...

Peanut butter-colored liquid percolates in a glass apparatus at one end of a high-ceilinged room ample enough to house a decent basketball court. Virologist Alan Shaw, a lanky Texan with a Viking beard, shoots a look at the fermenter, a soup of bacteria genetically engineered to contain flu-fighting particles. "Should bird flu ever strike," Shaw says, pointing to the bub bling glop, "this could provide enough vaccine to protect the entire state of New Jersey. We could have it ready in four to six weeks." Shaw, 56, a former Merck & Co. executive who in his long, successful career has...

With flu season almost upon us, it's a good time to ponder why influenza strikes us hardest in the winter months. A new study chalks it up to the fact that the virus appears to be more infectious at colder temperatures and lower humidity. The findings could lead to strategies that help curtail transmission of the disease. Several explanations have been put forth to explain the seasonal rise in flu cases. Some infectious-disease specialists have blamed the rise on the fact that people tend to have more contact during the colder months because they spend more time indoors. Others speculate...

It's now leaking out that there was more going on than met the eye at the Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit in Montebello, Canada, in August. The three amigos - President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon - finalized and released the "North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza." The "Plan" - that's what they call it, with a capital P - is to use the excuse of a major flu epidemic to shift powers from U.S. legislatures to unelected, unaccountable "North American" bureaucrats. This idea was launched on Sept. 14, 2005,...

SICK Queenslanders are being urged to stay home and consider wearing face masks against this year's strain of virulent flu. A five-year-old who died yesterday in Victoria was believed to be the sixth child killed by the virus in the past two weeks. In Queensland, there have been 1400 confirmed flu cases, three times as many as normal for this time of year. With the Ekka due to open in Brisbane tomorrow – a gathering of 500,000 people over 10 days – Queensland's Chief Health Officer, Jeanette Young, has urged those not vaccinated to consider staying away. People with chronic...

While more than 3,200 Americans have died in Iraq since the United States invaded that nation in March 2003, about 120,000 Americans have died in their own country during the same period after losing battles to a microscopic enemy -- the influenza virus. More than 90 percent of Americans who die from the flu are 65 and older, and many of them live in nursing homes, where flu outbreaks are common. In fact, one study found that nursing home residents 65 and older are three times more likely to be hospitalized for influenza than people of similar ages who do...

AP MEDICAL WRITERS Millions of doses of flu vaccine will expire at midnight June 30, unsold during this year's mild flu season and written off as trash. Still perfectly good, and possibly useful for a few more years, the vaccine will wind up being destroyed. This annual ritual is supposed to ensure that Americans get the most up-to-date vaccine, but the leftovers - more than 10 million of a record 110 million doses produced - will be destroyed before a new supply is guaranteed. An Associated Press examination of this long-standing practice raises questions about its consequences. For years, policymakers...

(CP) - Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has shown its H5N1 vaccine may protect against genetically different versions of the avian flu strain, offering hope that stockpiled vaccine might be useful against a mutated H5N1 virus, should the strain go on to trigger a pandemic. While the results presented Monday were preliminary, the GSK data are the first made public that boast both a low-dose regime and cross-protection against a distant cousin of the virus contained in the vaccine. A vaccine that could protect against varied strains of the virus in low doses would be a significant coup for the company and...

LONDON (Feb. 28) - Scientists want to exhume the body of a British diplomat who died of "Spanish flu" during a pandemic in 1919 in hopes of discovering clues to fight a possible future global outbreak sparked by H5N1 bird flu . Sir Mark Sykes, best known for his work dismantling the Ottoman Empire, is believed to be buried in a lead-lined coffin, something which may have preserved enough human tissue to yield useful information on how he died, and the nature of the avian flu that killed him. "We're after an intact body," said John Oxford, a professor of...

EU to assemble bird flu, animal disease "swat" team 27 Feb 2007 16:42:49 GMT More BRUSSELS, Feb 27 (Reuters) - A "swat" team of experts to tackle bird flu and other animal diseases is being assembled to fight outbreaks within the European Union and other countries. "When there is a serious animal disease outbreak ... very quick reaction is essential and efficient expert support can be crucial in bringing the situation under control," the European Commission said in a statement on Tuesday. While the EU has often dispatched teams of veterinary experts to help deal with disease crises -- to...

Bird flu farm 'imported turkey from Hungary' By Charles Clover, Environment Editor Last Updated: 8:32pm GMT 08/02/2007 Weekly deliveries of turkey meat from Hungary have been made by lorry to a processing plant close to the Bernard Matthews sheds in Suffolk where an outbreak of the most dangerous form of bird flu was found last week, the Government said this evening. The discovery that the company has been importing 38 tons of partly processed turkeys a week from Hungary, where there was an outbreak of the H5N1 virus last month, runs contrary to the impression the company has sought to...

The bird flu winners and losers Ian Lyall, Daily Mail 6 February 2007 At an estimated cost of £45bn, we could be facing devastation on a massive scale. Thousands dead, millions more sick. Businesses on their knees and commerce in crisis - that is, if Britain succumbs to pandemic flu. TINY VIRUS, HUGE COST: The H5N1 bug, magnified 100,000 times, could cause worldwide devastation Not that you would ever know this reading the Financial Services Authority's latest risk report. Blink and you might miss the short section devoted to such a worrying threat. But make no mistake, as thousands of...

Bird flu: it's here to stay By Charles Clover, Environment Editor Last Updated: 1:43am GMT 05/02/2007Page 1 of 3 The deadliest strain of bird flu is believed to be present in the wild bird population and is the likeliest cause of Britain's biggest outbreak, scientists said yesterday. Defra has established a protection zone around the affected farm H5N1 has been widely thought to have infected birds in mainland Europe but its emergence in Suffolk at the weekend has forced experts to admit that it may have crossed the North Sea. If so, scientists say the country is likely to have...

Fury at Defra delays on farm hit by bird flu By David Harrison, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:35am GMT 04/02/2007 More than 2,600 turkeys have died, all from the same shed. All 160,000 on the farm will be slaughtered There was mounting anger over the official response to the outbreak of bird flu at a poultry farm last night after it was confirmed that the strain of disease is the deadly H5N1 virus. As scientists verified that the virus at the Bernard Matthews farm was the deadliest strain, it emerged that the first 71 birds died last Tuesday. But the...

In daylong drill, U.S. agency prepares for avian flu By Donald G. Mcneil Jr. Published: February 1, 2007Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, director of the disease centers in Atlanta. (Erik S. Lesser for The New York Times) ATLANTA: This is not a real article. This is an exercise. Patient Zero in the 2007 avian flu pandemic died at 9:25 this morning. It caused little fuss in the war room of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when it was announced. In part, the death was expected — there had been hints of what was coming in this first avian flu...

Jakarta bird ban ends 'way of life' By Lucy Williamson BBC News, Jakarta Jakarta's streets have been cleared of birds Jakarta's first poultry patrol was anything but a surprise to the residents of Kemayoran district. The red and white banner strung across the narrow street read "You are entering a chicken-free zone". Under it, sheltering from the rain in coffee shops and doorways, dozens of police and officials waited for the governor's arrival. "He'll go down that road", one shop owner said, "and he'll be stopping off at the house to your right." The city's Governor Sutiyoso came to stamp...

Indonesia to declare bird flu a national disaster 31 Jan 2007 10:27:59 GMT Source: Reuters More JAKARTA, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Indonesia will declare bird flu a national disaster following a fresh flare-up in the country, which has the world's highest human death toll from the virus, the planning minister said on Wednesday. The move will guarantee financial support from a special budget fund for efforts to tackle the disease. Six Indonesians have died of bird flu this year, taking the country's death toll to 63, and several suspected cases have been admitted to hospital since the start of the...

Indonesia asks troops to fight bird flu January 27, 2007 - 6:49AM Indonesia has called on the military to help fight bird flu, a day after a young girl became the country's sixth victim this month. In Azerbaijan, officials feared a return of the H5N1 bird flu virus after a 14-year-old boy was sent to hospital as a suspected case. Adding to global worries, Japanese officials were awaiting test results to confirm if the virus had killed poultry at a farm in the south, while Vietnam is trying to control the disease spreading among birds in the Mekong Delta. Indonesian...

January 25, 2007 U.S. not scared enough of bird flu, Senate told Chickens are seen at a farm in Baokang county of Xiangfan, in central China's Hubei province, October 31, 2006. Bird flu poses as big a threat to the world as ever, and people need to worry about it more, U.S. senators and health leaders agreed on Wednesday. REUTERS/Stringer Shanghai By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bird flu poses as big a threat to the world as ever, and people need to worry about it more, U.S. senators and health leaders agreed on Wednesday. The...

'Cat owners at risk of bird flu' 25.01.07 Could cats spread bird flu to humans? Cat owners are at a greater risk of catching bird flu as the deadly virus is most likely to mutate in felines, experts say. A study on cats in areas where outbreaks have occurred found that the virus is changing in felines more quickly than thought. It raises the chilling prospect that the disease could soon easily be spread from cats to people, leading to a human pandemic. And it shows that should bird flu ever break out in Britain, cat owners should be particularly...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Infants and toddlers given two doses of the influenza vaccine are less likely to contract flu, pneumonia and influenza-like illnesses, but one dose does not appear to have any effect, according to findings published in the Journal of Pediatrics. Dr. Mandy A. Allison, of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and colleagues examined the effectiveness of the currently recommended two-dose influenza vaccine for young children, as well as the effect of one dose of the vaccine, in preventing visits to the doctor for influenza-like illness. They analyzed data for 5193 healthy children between the...

Military ‘concerned’ by bird flu cases By Vince Little, Stars and Stripes Pacific edition, Tuesday, January 23, 2007 The U.S. military medical community is “quite concerned” about Japan’s latest case of bird flu, Col. Mark Presson said Friday. Last week, a disease-control team incinerated about 12,000 chickens that died of avian influenza or were culled at a farm in Miyazaki prefecture, according to The Associated Press. Inspections were conducted at about a dozen nearby farms, and authorities banned the shipment of eggs and chickens from those farms. “This always causes some concern but Japan has taken a very aggressive approach,”...

Questions raised over safety of revived microbe.Kerri Smith   Natural Museum of Health and Medicine The 1918 influenza virus, which killed some 50 million people worldwide, has proved fatal to macaques infected in a laboratory. The study follows Nature's controversial publication1 of the virus's sequence in 2005, alongside a paper in Science that described the recreation of the virus from a corpse and its potency in mice2. Some scientists question the wisdom of reconstructing such a deadly virus. Do the benefits outweigh the risks? Those who carried out the macaque study say yes, as a better understanding of how it...

Bird Flu Takes Flight Thursday, Jan. 18, 2007 By TIM KINDSETH Winter in the Northern Hemisphere means one chilling prospect for global health officials: it's bird-flu season. Nine countries have announced outbreaks in recent weeks, and a replay of 2006--when H5N1 killed 80 people and spread to the Middle East and Africa--could well be on the way. In an effort to stay ahead of the virus, the Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday said it is giving $132.5 million to makers of bird-flu vaccines that rely on immune-system boosters called adjuvants. "In the event of an influenza pandemic,"...

MADISON -- In a study of non-human primates infected with the influenza virus that killed 50 million people in 1918, an international team of scientists has found a critical clue to how the virus killed so quickly and efficiently. Writing this week (Jan. 18, 2007) in the journal Nature, a team led by University of Wisconsin-Madison virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka reveals how the 1918 virus - modern history's most savage influenza strain - unleashes an immune response that destroys the lungs in a matter of days, leading to death. The finding is important because it provides insight into how the virus...

HONG KONG -- Although fears of an avian-flu pandemic among humans have subsided, experts warn that the risk hasn't vanished. Less than a year ago, flocks of poultry, swans and wild birds were contracting the disease in Europe and Africa. The spread into the U.S. bird population seemed just a matter of time, and some people rushed to stockpile antiviral drugs. It has been relatively quiet since then, and some of the fears now seem overblown. Still, evidence continues to trickle in that the virus hasn't gone away. Birds continue to die from the disease in countries such as Vietnam...

Indonesia reels from two new bird flu deaths, outbreak feared JAKARTA 14-Jan-07 TWO Indonesian women have died of bird flu, a health ministry official said yesterday, taking the overall human death toll from the disease in the country to 61 amid a spike of new cases. A 27-year-old woman from south Jakarta died after entering Persahabatan Hospital in the capital last Thursday for treatment, Muhammad Nadirin of the health ministry's bird flu information centre said. She died last Friday evening. Asked whether the woman had been in contact with sick fowl, he said: "A week before she got sick, there...

Bird flu epidemic rumbles on around the world 12:31 11 January 2007 NewScientist.com news service Debora MacKenzie The H5N1 bird flu virus shows no signs of going away in 2007, with outbreaks in poultry and people flaring up across its heartland in east Asia and, most worryingly, in Africa. Other countries the virus reached in winter 2006, including Europe, are watching nervously for its return. And hitherto unaffected areas are anxiously testing mysterious bird deaths to see if they will be next. The biggest flare-up so far has been in Vietnam, where an outbreak in poultry that started in early...

(CP) - The new head of the World Health Organization took office Thursday, urging the world to remain vigilant against the threat of H5N1 avian influenza and warning that complacency endangers efforts to prepare for the next influenza pandemic. Dr. Margaret Chan also said WHO will review its polio eradication strategy with scientists, financial donors and affected countries in coming months to try to determine how to finally complete the 18-year-old campaign to drive the polio virus out of humankind worldwide. "We need to have a balanced view," Chan said of the threat that H5N1 might trigger a flu pandemic....

Source: Cornell University Date: January 4, 2007 Avian Flu Virus Unlikely To Spread Through Water Systems Science Daily — A close relative of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (H5N1) can be eliminated by waste and drinking water treatments, including chlorination, ultraviolet (UV) radiation and bacterial digesters. The virus is harmless to humans but provides a study case of the pathways by which the influenza could spread to human populations. To test whether the H5N2 virus could survive water treatments, such as chlorine, UV light and bacterial digesters, chicken embryos were inoculated with the treated virus. Days later researchers removed...

Churches May be Forced to Close if Bird Flu Strikes HEMET, CA (ANS) — There are plenty of threats facing people in this world today, from high cholesterol to global terrorism. But one of the most dire threats is getting the cold shoulder from the Christian community. That threat is an avian flu pandemic. The avian flu, commonly known as the Bird Flu, is brewing in the bodies of millions of birds around the world right now, and breaking through biological barriers to kill people in places like Vietnam, Indonesia and Egypt. DVD helps Christian families, churches prepare for Bird...

6 area children with flu on life supportNumber, severity of early cases alarm officials Friday, December 22, 2006 LISA OSBURN News staff writer Six children are on life support at Children's Hospital fighting severe cases of influenza, hospital officials said. The severity of the cases, many developing in the past two weeks, has raised concerns in Birmingham's pediatric medical community, said Dr. David Kimberlin, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at UAB. "It is not the volume and not even the time of year that is jumping out at us," he said. "It is more that, for a number of...

Week of Dec. 16, 2006; Vol. 170, No. 25 , p. 390 Catching Flu's Drift: Vaccines fight unexpected influenza Ben Harder Vaccination can prevent three of every four flu infections, even when the vaccines are imperfectly tailored to block the common wintertime pathogens, a new study shows. That finding is reassuring, researchers say, because it's difficult to anticipate how the flu virus will evolve each year during the time from the start of vaccine manufacture to deployment. The flu reinvents itself from year to year through a process in which previously rare variants of the virus supplant once-dominant ones. Since...

With a fast-striking and deadly reach that spanned the globe, the worst influenza outbreak of the 20th century is more than a sepia-toned and horrific sidebar of history. It is also a harbinger for a future influenza disaster that medical researchers say is inevitable and long overdue, a grisly example of the worst nature has to offer... Mabel Allen Boyd was one of at least 13,703 North Carolinians killed by this hyper-lethal flu virus, a mutation that still baffles modern-day scientists. Eighty-eight years after her death, she is still the face of the Spanish flu pandemic for Leon Spencer, 101,...

Mother Nature may prove to be the most cunning bioterrorist of all ! Scientists have discovered evidence Influenza virus are "warehoused" in lake ice; then released during spring thaws to infect other creatures-including humans.

The So-Called "Bird Flu": Why is Concern So High?November 13, 2006 Seasonal (annual) flu is the flu that comes every year starting in the late fall and ending in the spring. There are a number of subtypes of this influenza virus circulating around the world, which is why the flu vaccines are a bit different each year. Most people have built up some immunity from exposure over the years. Although the seasonal flu is not usually a threat to healthy adults, it still kills some 36,000 Americans every year. Pandemic flu is a global disease outbreak. An influenza pandemic occurs...

Op-Ed Contributor Stanford, Calif. DESPITE all the attention given to anthrax and smallpox and potential weapons of mass destruction, pandemic influenza is probably the world’s most serious near-term public health threat. If a strain similar in effect to the 1918 Spanish flu (which killed tens of millions of people worldwide) emerges in the next several years, it is highly likely that an effective vaccine will not be available during the pandemic’s first wave, that we won’t have enough antiviral drugs for large-scale prophylactic use, and that hospitals will be too overwhelmed to treat most cases. Consequently, as in 1918, we...

Bird flu take an increasing toll but the world escaped an immediate influenza pandemic, U.N. bird flu chief says The Associated Press Published: October 23, 2006 UNITED NATIONS More than 30 countries reported outbreaks of bird flu this year and the number of people dying every month is increasing, but the world escaped an immediate influenza pandemic possibly because of the energetic global response to warnings a year ago, the U.N. bird flu chief said Monday. Dr. David Nabarro said his warning last year that a mutation of the virulent H5N1 virus which has ravaged poultry stocks since late 2003...

An experiment to reconstruct the deadly 1918 flu virus has given a new insight into how the infection took hold. Scientists discovered a severe immune system reaction was triggered when mice were infected with the recreated virus. The US team believe the extreme immune response could have provoked the body to begin killing its own cells, making the flu even deadlier. The study, published in Nature, may aid the hunt for new treatments. The 1918 pandemic took about 50 million lives. The devastating infection, which is thought to have originated in birds, left young adults worst hit. Scientists in the...

In an advance that speeds up diagnosis of the most dangerous avian flu, scientists have developed a detailed influenza test that takes less than 12 hours, federal health officials said yesterday. The new technology, a microchip covered with bits of genetic material from many different flu strains, cuts the typical time needed for diagnosis of the A(H5N1) flu to less than a day from a week or more. In addition, rather than giving just a yes-or-no result, it usually reveals which flu a human or an animal has. That means that public health officials investigating, for example, a flu outbreak...

AP MEDICAL WRITER ATLANTA -- U.S. health officials have placed the genetic blueprints of more than 650 flu viruses into a public database, in an attempt to increase flu research and set an example for other nations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deposited the information last week, CDC officials said Tuesday. The genetic information is only for naturally circulating viruses isolated in the United States. It includes data from the annual U.S. flu season, animal flu viruses that infect humans, and new strains that may emerge in this country, such as the H5N1 bird flu. The data were...

Science moves in mysterious ways, and sometimes what seems like the end of the story is really just the beginning. Or, at least, that is what some researchers are thinking as they scratch their heads over the weird genetic sequence of the 1918 flu virus. Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, a molecular pathologist at the Armed Forces Institute of Technology who led the research team that reconstructed the long-extinct virus, said that a few things seemed clear. The 1918 virus appears to be a bird-flu virus. But if it is from a bird, it is not a bird anyone has studied before....