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Biological Warfare : Biological Terrorism : Emerging Diseases

Archived News
Week ending July 18th, 2005

Monkeypox, a less deadly relative of smallpox, kills up to 10 percent of its victims in Africa. Yet a monkeypox outbreak two years ago in the United States killed no one, and scientists have wondered why.

Now they have a good idea. New research finds that there are two distinct strains of the virus, and that the U.S. outbreak involved the weaker West African one rather than the more deadly Congolese one. The illness was spread by prairie dogs after they were infected by imported African rodents at a pet distribution center.

"If it had come from Congo, we might have had a bigger problem on our hands and very well might have seen patient deaths," said Mark Buller, a St. Louis University virologist who led the federally funded study, published Friday in the journal Virology. Scientists from the U.S. Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and four other universities in the United States and Canada worked on the report. The monkeypox outbreak two summers ago was the first in the Western Hemisphere. An estimated 72 people throughout the Midwest were sickened by the virus, which causes blisters and a rash that resemble smallpox...

The spread of avian flu virus among migrating geese and other birds at a wildlife refuge in China means the birds could carry the devastating virus out of Asia, scientists reported on Wednesday.

This makes avian flu even more of a global threat than it already is, the scientists said in reports published jointly by the journals Science and Nature. Health officials fear avian influenza could cause a pandemic of human disease.

At least 1,000 dead birds have been found at Lake Qinghaihu, a protected nature reserve in western China, according to two separate reports. United Nations scientists said last week the number had topped 5,000.

"The occurrence of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus infection in migrant waterfowl indicates that this virus has the potential to be a global threat," Jinhua Liu of China Agricultural University, George Gao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and colleagues wrote in their report in Science.

"Lake Qinghaihu is a breeding center for migrant birds that congregate from Southeast Asia, Siberia, Australia and New Zealand."

The latest outbreak of the virus that started in 2003 has killed 39 people in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and four in Cambodia. The World Health Organization has said the virus would kill millions of people worldwide if it acquires the ability to pass easily from human to human.

So far it has not, but influenza is extremely mutation-prone.

The virus, which affects ducks with little harm but which kills chickens, had not before ...

Scientists meeting in Malaysia have warned the world has reached a tipping point in the fight against bird flu. They are calling on rich nations to pump resources into countries fighting bird flu or risk a global flu pandemic.

The conference's focus is protecting farm and market workers and preparing medics and vets for an outbreak.

The World Health Organization (WHO) wants a strategy to prevent viruses leaping from animals to humans, and creating a hybrid flu germ. Scientists insist that bird flu can still be prevented from turning into a virus that spreads among people. But press them a little and it is clear that they are desperately worried the battle is being lost.

According to the WHO, East Asian countries are doing their best to contain outbreaks among poultry and wild bird populations. But without funding and resources from the West, it says they have not got a hope...

A team of international experts is in Vietnam studying whether the H5N1 bird flu virus could be evolving into a form that might trigger a human pandemic, the World Health Organization said Friday.

The team of virologists and epidemiologists was looking at "the possibility of more widespread H5N1 human transmission, changes in the H5N1 virus and the likelihood of increased human-to-human transmission," WHO said in a statement. "What has happened in Vietnam may have public health implications for the entire world and will be crucial in preparing for a possible pandemic," Hans Troedsson, WHO representative in Vietnam, was quoted as saying in the statement.

WHO officials in Hanoi were not immediately available for comment about details of the study in a country where the virus has killed 38 people.

Scientists have been tracking the evolution of the H5N1 virus, which is infectious in birds but does not spread easily among humans. Health experts fear the disease could mutate into a form that does spread easily among people, unleashing a pandemic...

Half a million Americans could die and more than 2 million could end up in the hospital with serious complications if an even moderately severe strain of a pandemic flu hits, a report predicted on Friday.

But the United States only has 965,256 staffed hospital beds, said the report from the Trust for America's Health. The non-profit group's state-by-state analysis adds to a growing clamor of voices contending that the United States is not prepared for a large outbreak of disease, whether natural or brought on by war or terrorism.

"This is not a drill. This is not a planning exercise. This is for real," said the Trust's executive director, Shelley Hearne, in a statement.

In an average year, influenza kills an estimated 36,000 Americans and puts 200,000 into the hospital.

A more serious strain strikes every few years and a so-called pandemic strain emerges once every 27 years, on average. The more virulent strains sweep around the world within months.

Pandemics hit in 1918 -- killing up to 40 million people globally -- 1957 and 1968. Health experts all say the world is overdue for another and fear the avian flu in Asia may be it.

The World Health Organization says an H5N1 avian flu pandemic could kill up to 7.4 million people globally, because people lack immunity to it. Avian flu has not yet acquired the ability to pass easily from person to person, but would spread rapidly if it does, experts say...