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Results from 34 swine flu victims in New York were released by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in a December 7 bulletin. The swine flu symptoms and effects on the lungs of the victims were similar to the effects of the 1918 Spanish flu, which had an extremely high mortality rate around the world. Other reports of H1N1 infections deep in the lungs have been reported around the world, including Ukraine, China, Brazil, Norway, and the United States, in Iowa and Utah. These infections have been linked to a change in the receptor binding domain of the virus. Swine...

The body of Sir Mark Sykes - who died nearly 90 years ago from Spanish Flu - has been exhumed from his grave in the church of St Mary's, Sledmere, in a bid to help prevent a modern flu pandemic. The exhumation, on the morning of September 8, was carried out by a team led by one of the world's top virologists Prof John Oxford - Professor of Virology at Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry. Prof Oxford previously told the Driffield Times: "If we can get samples, that will be wonderful for my team...

Scientists have resurrected one of the world's great killers in the laboratory, hoping that the genetic secrets within the 1918 influenza virus will help them predict and combat the next major microbial threat to mankind. In a contained laboratory at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, scientists used reverse genetics to re-create the 1918 flu virus that killed 20 million to 50 million people, according to studies released Wednesday. Scientists say that although the 1918 strain probably does not represent a significant human health threat today, it can provide insight into dangerous types of contemporary influenza,...

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...

The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351. Known as "Spanish Flu" or "La Grippe" the influenza of 1918-1919 was a global disaster. In the fall of 1918 the Great War in Europe was winding down and peace was on the...

Some folks suggested that we begin a thread similar to the Marsburg Surveillance Project for monitoring developments regarding Avian Flu.The purpose is to have an extended thread where those interested can post articles and comments as this story unfolds.If we're lucky, the story and this thread will fade away.

<p>WASHINGTON -- While official Washington has been poring over Harriet Miers' long-ago doings on the Dallas City Council and parsing the Byzantine comings and goings of the Fitzgerald grand jury, relatively unnoticed was perhaps the most momentous event of our lifetime -- what is left of it, as I shall explain. It was announced last week that American scientists have just created a living, killing copy of the 1918 ``Spanish'' flu.</p>

<p>While official Washington has been poring over Harriet Miers' long-ago doings on the Dallas City Council and parsing the Byzantine comings and goings of the Fitzgerald grand jury, relatively unnoticed was perhaps the most momentous event of our lifetime - what is left of it, as I shall explain. It was announced last week that American scientists have just created a living, killing copy of the 1918 "Spanish" flu. This is big. Very big.</p>

Scientists identify key factor in switch from birds to humans British scientists have solved a secret of an avian flu virus which killed up to 40 million people worldwide 86 years ago. They now know more about how a disease of birds switched to humans to trigger the most lethal outbreak in history. A team from the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill, north London, used pathological samples taken from victims of the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 to recreate the structure of a haemagglutinin protein vital in the leap between species. "This tells us more about the...

Details of how the Spanish flu virus that killed up to 50 million people in 1918 originated from a bird flu have been revealed by a study of the most destructive outbreak of disease in recorded history. Reassuringly, a reconstruction of parts of the extinct virus, also published in the journal, Science, suggests that the outbreak in Asia does not, at present, pose anything like the same threat. Because the virus kept key characteristics of its avian precursor, it could catch the human immune system off-guard, accounting for its high infectivity and the extraordinary mortality. The new understanding has come...

Bird flu virus claims 13th victim Agencies Tuesday February 3, 2004 A deadly strain of bird flu today took its 13th life when a seven-year-old Thai boy died in Bangkok after having tried to fight off the virus for more than a month. The boy, named by government officials as Virat Phraphong, from the chicken farming province of Suphanburi, had been suffering from pneumonia for a month before being put on a respirator at the Thai capital's children's hospital. Officials said that the dead boy's twin brother, who had briefly been hospitalised with suspected bird flu, had turned out not...

China's secret bird flu 'puts world at risk' By Adam Luck in Hong Kong (Filed: 18/01/2004) China is refusing to disclose the origins of a "bird flu" virus lethal to humans which could make Sars look like "a puff of smoke", say angry scientists and World Health Organisation officials. They fear that the country's notorious Guangdong province, from where the Sars virus began to spread last winter, could be the source of the flu, which has killed at least 13 people, most of them children, in Vietnam, South Korea and Japan in recent weeks. The Chinese authorities deny that the...

New bird flu could be worse than Sars The bird flu ravaging several east Asian countries - and which has been blamed for the deaths of at least three Vietnamese people - could precipitate a more serious global health crisis than Sars if it spreads by human contact, the World Health Organisation warned yesterday. The alarm came as Vietnam reported two more suspected cases and suggested that pigs could be involved in the transmission of the virus from chickens to humans. Millions of chickens and ducks have died or are being killed in Vietnam, Japan and South Korea, in efforts...

Lethal Virus from 1918 Genetically Reconstructed US Army scientists create "Spanish Flu" virus in laboratory - medical benefit questionable (Austin and Hamburg, 9 October 2003) – The 'Spanish Flu' influenza virus that killed 20-40 million people in 1918 is currently under reconstruction. Several genes of the extraordinarily lethal 1918 flu virus have been isolated and introduced into contemporary flu strains. These proved to be lethal for mice, while virus constructs with genes from a current flu virus types had hardly any effect. These experiments may easily be abused for military purposes, but provide little benefit from a medical or public...

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (news - web sites) may renew a warning against travel to Toronto if a feared upsurge in SARS (news - web sites) was confirmed in Canada's largest city and business capital, a WHO spokesman said on Wednesday. But there was "nothing automatic" about issuing a call to avoid unnecessary travel to Toronto, even if the suspected outbreak could push it further above some WHO trigger points for such alerts, spokesman Iain Simpson added. Canadian health officials said on Tuesday they were investigating 12 pneumonia patients at a Toronto clinic who had developed symptoms...

<p>We know what it is it. It is the SARS virus. But, to which virus family it belongs, we don't know yet," he added.</p> <p>Some researchers believe it is a new type of paramyxovirus, but studies from other labs suggest it may belong to another virus family.</p>

Paramyxovirus-like particles identified by electron microscopy Numerous tests have been performed on the 3 patients admitted on Saturday 15 March to the Isolation Unit at Frankfurt am Main with suspected severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Tests from respiratory specimens for influenza A and B virus, respiratory syncytial virus, enteroviruses, _Mycoplasma pneumoniae_ and _Chlamydia_ spp. by antigen enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and/or polymerase chain reaction (PCR) were all negative; antibody tests for dengue, influenza A and B, measles, hantaviruses, _Mycoplasma pneumoniae_ and _Chlamydia_ spp. were likewise negative or unremarkable so far; further test results are pending. Particles morphologically resembling paramyxoviruses...

The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351. Known as "Spanish Flu" or "La Grippe" the influenza of 1918-1919 was a global disaster. In the fall of 1918 the Great War in Europe was winding down and peace was on the horizon. The Americans had joined...

When a relative finally succumbed to cancer a few weeks ago in a Toronto hospital, her parents and children were unable to be with her at the end, because of visitation restrictions enacted in response to SARS. Disarray brought on by the epidemic also caused the staff of another hospital to store a friend's terminally ill and bedridden father in the morgue while he awaited transportation to his home. Similar stories abound of families and patients enduring indignity, separation or heartbreak as hospitals struggled to establish appropriate procedures in the wake of an unforeseen public health emergency. Despite such unfortunate...

Study: SARS Could Have Equalled Influenza of 1918 May. 23, 2003 Without containment, SARS would have infected a majority of the world's population, equalling the deadly influenza pandemic of 1918. That's the finding of a study co-authored by Utah researchers. Ed Yeates reporting SARS infections appear to be dwindling. Singapore has it under control. Hong Kong is getting close; Toronto is there or very close. And so is Hanoi. But the respiratory disease initially was on its way to virtually shutting everything down. MATTHEW SAMORE, M.D., CHIEF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY, U OF U: "IN THE ABSENCE OF CONTROL, THIS VIRUS WOULD...

SARS may have come from space, according to a novel theory aired by a trio of astrobiologists in Britain and India. In a letter that appears in Saturday's issue of the British medical weekly The Lancet, they say the idea for this came from experiments, carried out in January 2001, in which a tethered, sterile balloon collected samples from the stratosphere. "Large quantities of viable micro-organisms" were captured at an altitude of 41,000 metres, they say. Translated for the globe, that means "a tonne of bacterial material falls to Earth from space daily," the trio say. The sheer volume of...

he death rate from SARS may be significantly higher than health officials had thought, up to 55 percent in people 60 and older, and up to 13.2 percent in younger people, the first major epidemiological study of the disease suggests.Mortality rates are bound to change somewhat as an epidemic continues. But unless the numbers fall drastically, SARS would be among infectious diseases with the highest death rates. Until now, fatality rates reported by the World Health Organization had ranged from 2 percent, when the epidemic was first detected in March, to 7.2 percent.The new findings come from a statistical analysis...

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=594&u=/nm/20030425/hl_nm/virologist_sars_dc&printer=1 SARS Virus Will Not Cause Pandemic: Expert By Richard Woodman LONDON (Reuters Health) - A leading British virologist offered reassurance on Friday that the virus was not infectious enough to cause a world pandemic. SARS "This virus is not highly infectious. It is a plodder like mumps, not a greyhound like measles," said John Oxford, professor of virology at Queen Mary School of Medicine in London. With a "greyhound" virus, escaping infection is very difficult. But with plodder viruses, someone could walk 100 times into the same room as an infected person and still not be infected, he added...

<p>The most chilling moment of my medical career occurred in 1985, when I led a program to test incoming U.S. Army recruits for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. At the time, little was known about the emerging HIV virus or AIDS. As I began to analyze blood samples from the first 600,000 recruits, I discovered that HIV had silently infected a large cross section of apparently healthy young adults. At that moment I realized that we were already losing the race to control the virus, and that the human species was destined to be afflicted with HIV as a fact of life -- and death -- for decades to come.</p>

I know that a few reading this title will think to themselves that this is no "drill." But although it is becoming associated with an increasing death toll, it is hardly a biological weapon of choice. Its lethality is relatively small (so far), while its communicability is moderate and all mechanisms of transmission not fully understood. For the purposes of this discussion, we will consider that the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus is a biological weapon, disregarding the possible sources of this freshly mutating, cross-species pathogen. Some may recall that the 1918-1919 pandemic virus that killed tens of millions...

The last three influenza pandemics have all originated in Asia – the 1957 Asian flu, the 1968 Hong Kong flu and now this year's SARS flu, which also has been traced to China's southern Guangdong province, which includes Hong Kong. Why do these virulent new viral strains come out of South China? Some virologists implicate the farming practices common there. In southern provinces of China, farmers raise hens, ducks, pigs and fish in one integrated system. They use the droppings and leftover food from the pigs to feed the fowl. The fowl droppings, in turn, help fertilize the fish ponds....

Not too long ago, the Far Eastern Economic Review made this prediction: The world's next flu pandemic will probably originate in southern China, then transit through Hong Kong and on to the world. How ready are we? It comes from a report, written in the wake of an outbreak of killer avian flu, from our issue of June 7, 2001, which opens: THE FEAR IS THAT when Hong Kong sneezes, the world catches the flu. The world's leading influenza experts are virtually unanimous in their suspicion that Hong Kong will be close to the epicentre of the next pandemic of...

LAST week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that Sars could become a global epidemic if it 'maintains its present pathogenicity and transmissibility'. It hedged that predictions were problematic 'until we understand what is going on in China', but those statements nevertheless sent more jolts of fear into an already nervous world. Pathogenicity, or the power of an organism to produce disease, is thought of as follows: If newly-infected Sars patients infect, on average, fewer than one person each, fewer and fewer people will be infected with each round of infection. If this 'basic reproductive number' is less than one,...

WASHINGTON--Some of the starkest early reports about the deadly SARS pneumonia came not from health authorities, but from Internet discussions in which emergency-room physicians swapped details about the start of the epidemic. An intensive-care specialist at a hospital in Hong Kong, a community virtually shuttered by the virus, riveted his colleagues with dispatches from the SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, front lines. "There are now 145 confirmed cases in the Prince of Wales Hospital," Tom Buckley wrote in an e-mail message last month. "New cases (first contact) tend to bring their families (second contact). Close family contacts seem to...

It's time I went to my favorite shopping district, Manhattan's Chinatown, and picked up some "donta" (Chinese egg custard), fresh seafood, and roast duck for my family. But going there could potentially kill us all. Since I don't live in China, Hanoi, Toronto or Singapore, I may sound paranoid. And yet, I'll take that chance. The majority of Chinatown's inhabitants hail from China's Guangdong Province, which is Ground Zero for "SARS" – Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, often erroneously described as "pneumonia" or "atypical pneumonia." Illegal Chinese immigrants constantly arrive in Chinatown, largely from Guangdong Province. People also constantly travel...

An uncommon coldA mysterious and deadly virus is spreading rapidly across the globe. What caused the outbreak? And are the right steps now being taken to contain it? Jeremy Laurance follows the trail of the disease to a Hong Kong hotel to find out 03 April 2003 There is the faintest whiff of disinfectant from the lift lobby on the ninth floor of the Metropole Hotel in Hong Kong. A lonely jar of artificial flowers stands in front of the mirrored glass and there are two pastel drawings of rural Chinese scenes on the wall. But no itinerant businessmen or...

ATLANTA (AP) -- Long before SARS became a household word and a worldwide worry, the U.S. health system has tackled contagious diseases with success. But if the new respiratory disease gets out of hand, experts say, the nation's resources may be overwhelmed. So far, health officials haven't had to resort to quarantines or other, more creative methods - like during a tuberculosis outbreak last year in southwest Oklahoma, when state health officials nailed a sign on a woman's house warning visitors not to enter. In another case, officials had to take a TB patient to court to ensure that medicines...

What is SARS? SARS stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. The organism concerned primarily attacks the lungs. Victims develop a high fever, headache and dry cough followed by shortness of breath. Approximately 20-25 per cent of patients go on to develop pneumonia and some of those die. You are much more likely to die if you have another medical condition or are over the age of 40. Remarkable progress has being made in the last few weeks by research laboratories worldwide. How can scientists have made so much progress so quickly? Very recent advances in genetics have made it possible...

Ring around the rosy. Bubonic plague creates reddish welts on the neck. Pocket full of posies. Medieval people thought putting flowers in their clothes staved off death. Ashes, ashes. Houses of the dead sometimes were torched. We all fall down. Entire families perished. Some historians believe the common children's rhyme may have been an attempt by children to cope with the long-ago horrors that swept Europe from about 1300 to about 1600. In the first five years that the plague ravaged Europe, it killed at least 25 million people. Millions more succumbed in the pandemic's later waves - dwarfing today's...

<p>Since SARS was first reported, the World Health Organization has freely issued travel advisory warnings, and the press has had a field day covering every incremental detail of the unfolding epidemic. At last there's been a backlash to all the hysteria: In today's Los Angeles Times, the distinguished virologist David Baltimore, president of Caltech, spoke out against a media-driven epidemic of fear that, among other things, has emptied Chinatowns all over North America. And today's New York Times Op-Art piece made the point that compared with many other infectious diseases SARS really isn't a player—especially not in the United States.</p>

Although SARS does not appear to be as contagious as the 1918 Spanish flu, its mortality rate is higher. The current pandemic shows that in the future, new infectious diseases will increasingly be a global problem. Modern air transportation can spread a disease all over the world within a very brief period of time. In other words, as was the case with food-borne epidemics, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, insect-borne diseases such as the West Nile virus and AIDS, an outbreak anywhere in the world is soon a threat everywhere. As we experienced with the Hong Kong bird flu in 1997, when more...

The Truth About SARS It's deadly, infectious and not going away. What we've learned about the virus and how scared we should be By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK AND ALICE PARK So far, the U.S. has been lucky. It has been nearly six months since the SARS outbreak emerged and more than six weeks since the illness spread from its birthplace in southern China to put the world on alert. Yet with more than 4,800 cases in at least 26 countries to date, a disease that has rocked Asian markets, ruined the tourist trade of an entire region, nearly bankrupted airlines...

The Sars outbreak The day the world caught a cold It began in a province of China, spread through Hong Kong to reach three continents and now threatens to plunge the world economy into freefall Gaby Hinsliff and Mark Townsend in London, Ed Helmore in Toronto and John Aglionby in Jakarta Sunday April 27, 2003 The Observer Nursing his pint of Guinness in a bar in downtown Toronto, Mike Smith was sanguine yesterday about his chances of surviving the deadly illness sweeping his native city. 'People have over-reacted,' scoffed the media analyst. 'You have a better chance of being hit...

'They tell us to practise sensible hygiene, but hygiene and children just don't mix'Worry about Sars makes this a difficult time to be a neurotic mother in Canada's largest city By Karen Zagor 27 April 2003 When I dropped my three-year-old off at nursery school on Friday morning, one of the other little darlings in the group was coughing. "Sars," I thought. "Get that kid out of here." What I really wanted to do was to grab my child, throw her in the back of the car and drive to my in-laws' cottage on a remote, northern lake. But life...

April 26, 2003 Doctors say this isn't the big one -- at least not yet By Anthony Brown LIKE earthquakewatchers in California, doctors around the world have been waiting for the 'big one'. Diseases come and diseases go, but it is thought inevitable that one of them at one time will be so quick to spread, incurable and so lethal that even the full force of modern science could not stop millions of deaths. The bubonic plague killed 25 million people in Europe in the 14th century, the Spanish flu in 1918 killed 70 million. Aids has killed 12 million...

Anatomy of the deadly China syndrome Virus Sars is first of many epidemics to come Ian Sample, science correspondent Friday April 25, 2003 The Guardian We're unsure where it came from, have no treatment for it and no idea when or where it will spread next. The virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome is shrouded in unknowns. But two things are agreed upon: it's lethal, and it's not going to go away. What's more, we can look forward to far more new and extremely dangerous viruses in the next few years. In mid-February, a retired Chinese doctor, Liu Jianlun,...

<p>The virus that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was identified on April 15 in a 10-country collaboration between 13 laboratories as a corona virus related to those that cause the common cold.</p> <p>"Now we can move away from methods like isolation and quarantine and move aggressively toward modern intervention strategies including specific treatments and eventually vaccination," said David Heymann, executive director of the World Health Organization's communicable diseases programs.</p>

TORONTO - With five young children now suspected of suffering from a virulent new respiratory disease, the Ontario government slapped strict restrictions Monday on every hospital in the province to try to slow the relentless spread of the illness. At least three of the children believed to have the potentially deadly ailment are younger than two, provincial authorities say. Ontario reported 30 more cases of SARS or severe acute respiratory syndrome Monday, bringing the total in Canada to 129. British Columbia, Alberta and New Brunswick are also reporting probable or suspected cases. The new developments came as University of Ottawa...

Donald Henderson knows history, and he is worried. The doctor who led the international effort to eradicate smallpox said he's worried about history repeating itself, only on a much deadlier scale this time around. In 1918, for reasons still unclear today, a new strain of flu - sometimes referred to as the Spanish flu - swept across the world, killing 20 million people. Eighty-five years later, another virus is on the attack. SARS - severe acute respiratory syndrome - surfaced last fall in China, and so far has infected more than 7,800 people worldwide and killed more than 600. That's...

By LUKE SHOCKMAN Toledo Blade May 21, 2003 - Donald Henderson knows history, and he is worried. The doctor who led the international effort to eradicate smallpox said he's worried about history repeating itself, only on a much deadlier scale this time around. In 1918, for reasons still unclear today, a new strain of flu - sometimes referred to as the Spanish flu - swept across the world, killing 20 million people. Eighty-five years later, another virus is on the attack. SARS - severe acute respiratory syndrome - surfaced last fall in China, and so far has infected more than...

It happened three times in the last century -- and nearly happened again in 1997. Now experts say that another killer flu epidemic is brewing. Will it emerge to kill millions -- as did the 1918 Spanish flu? Or will it be nipped in the bud, as in the 1997 emergence of chicken flu in humans? There are no easy answers. But now the same experts who led the successful effort to stop the 1997 virus in Hong Kong raise troubling new questions. Those questions come from a report in the June 25 issue of the prestigious Proceedings of the...