ZKEA

Biological Warfare : Biological Terrorism : Emerging Diseases

Archived News
Week ending April 9th, 2006

A new form of tuberculosis that is highly resistant to drugs and nearly impossible to treat has been rapidly emerging world-wide, presenting challenges to public-health officials' efforts to bring the infectious lung disease under control, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The federal public-health agency also said that the number of people in the U.S. infected with another form of TB -- one that is resistant only to the two most commonly used drugs and is known as multidrug-resistant TB, or MDR-TB -- is rising after generally declining for more than a decade, reflecting the growing global epidemic of drug-resistant TB.

In a survey of 25 tuberculosis laboratories on six continents, the Atlanta agency and the World Health Organization found that 2% of patient samples tested between 2000 and 2004 were resistant not only to the two most commonly used TB drugs, but also to most of the medications that are considered the second line of defense against the disease. This new form of the disease, known as extensively drug-resistant TB, or XDR-TB, is of great concern to public-health officials because it is virtually untreatable with available drugs, leaving patients to "preantibiotic" era methods, such as removal of part of the lung, said Kenneth Castro, assistant surgeon general and director of the CDC's division of tuberculosis elimination.

XDR-TB rose from 5% of MDR-TB cases in 2000 to 6.5% of MDR-TB cases in 2004, and was found most commonly in South Korea, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, according to the CDC survey. There also have been cases in the U.S.

The new super-resistant TB is spreading at a time when officials are already struggling to ..

Two groups of researchers, in Japan and in Holland, say they have discovered why the avian flu virus is rarely if ever transmitted from one person to another.

The reason, the researchers propose, is that the cells bearing the type of receptor the avian virus is known to favor are clustered in the deepest branches of the human respiratory tract, keeping it from spreading by coughs and sneezes. Human flu viruses typically infect cells in the upper respiratory tract.

The avian virus would need to accumulate many mutations in its genetic material before it could become a pandemic strain, said Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virologist at the University of Tokyo and the University of Wisconsin.

According to a University of Wisconsin news release approved by Dr. Kawaoka, "The finding suggests that scientists and public health agencies worldwide may have more time to prepare for an eventual pandemic."

Dr. Kawaoka's finding is published in today's issue of Nature, and a similar finding, by Thijs Kuiken and colleagues at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, appears in this week's Science.

Flu experts already knew that people who contract the current avian flu virus, a type known as A(H5N1) or H5 for short, are infected in the lower lung.

Paul A. Offit, a virologist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said the new reports helped explain why the H5 virus, though it can infect people, does not easily spread from one person to another.

Virologists agree that a flu pandemic will happen sooner or later as one of the 16 types of flu virus in the animal world, probably one that infects birds, will manage to switch hosts, and grow and spread in humans. But they differ over whether H5 is the likeliest candidate to make such a switch. Previous pandemics have been caused only by H1- (the 1918 pandemic), H2..

he deadly strain of avian flu has not been found anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, but Mark Holden, a chicken grower for Tyson Foods in Ellijay, Ga., is not taking any chances.

Every seven weeks a group of his chickens is tested before the birds are sent to be slaughtered. All people who enter or leave the chicken houses must walk through disinfecting baths. And visitors and workers must wear plastic booties over their shoes.

"Even though we don't have any outbreak now, we want to take all the precautions we can to protect our product," said Mr. Holden, who has been in the chicken business for 10 years and lives across the street from one of his chicken houses.

Poultry producers and restaurants doubt that their chickens will be infected by avian flu or that people would catch the virus even if there were contamination. But they are concerned that if the virus gets to the United States, people will eat less chicken, simply out of fear. And they are revving up big plans to be prepared.

In Senate testimony earlier this month, Michael Leavitt, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, declared that it was "just a matter of time" before birds infected with the virus found their way to the United States...

An outbreak of deadly bird flu in Israel is God's punishment for calls in election ads to legalize gay marriages, according to Rabbi David Basri, a prominent sage preaching Kabbalah or Jewish mysticism.

"The Bible says that God punishes depravity first through plagues against animals and then in people," Basri said in a religious edict quoted by his son.

Basri said he hoped the deaths of hundreds of thousands of turkeys and chickens would help atone for what he called the sins of left-wing Israeli political parties, the son, Rabbi Yitzhak Basri, told Reuters, a week before a national election.

The bird flu outbreak stemmed from far-left political parties "strengthening and encouraging homosexuality," Rabbi Basri's son quoted him as saying.

One of the parties aired an election commercial depicting two brides kissing. Some campaign advertisements also called for homosexual marriages to be legalized ..

Cabinet secretaries participated in a drill Saturday that simulated a smallpox attack as the government tested plans to counter the potential use of bioweapons by terrorists.

"The purpose of this exercise, which was only a drill, was to address the federal government's response to a potential smallpox attack," said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman. "While there's concern, we do not have any concern that a smallpox attack is imminent."

The World Health Organization reported the disease was eradicated in 1980. Still, there are fears that smallpox could be used by terrorists as a biological weapon.

The United States ended routine childhood vaccination against smallpox in 1971. After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, however, the Bush administration ordered some military personnel vaccinated and recommended shots for front-line health care workers.

The government has stockpiled enough smallpox vaccine for everyone in the U.S., Perino said. The government also has helped develop a new vaccine, which is in clinical trials, that does not appear to have the same potential negative side effects as the earlier one, she said.

In 2004, President Bush signed an order directing government agencies to help protect the country from an attack with biological agents. A revised version had 59 instructions for agencies to improve the nation's defenses, including improving the Biowatch system of sensors that continuously monitor and analyze the air in 31 cities.

Officials from various government agencies, including Centers of Disease Control Director Dr. Julie Gerberding, participated in the four-hour exercise to identify gaps in local and state preparedness plans and fine-tune the federal government's response.

Members of the Cabinet who participated ...

Robert G. Webster is one of the few bird flu experts confident enough to answer the key question: Will the avian flu switch from posing a terrible hazard to birds to becoming a real threat to humans?

There are "about even odds at this time for the virus to learn how to transmit human to human," he told ABC's "World News Tonight." Webster, the Rosemary Thomas Chair at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., is credited as the first scientist to find the link between human flu and bird flu.

Right now, H5N1, a type of avian influenza virus, has confined itself to birds. It can be transmitted from bird to human but only by direct contact with the droppings and excretions of infected birds.

But viruses mutate, and the big fear among the world's scientists is that the bird flu virus will join the human flu virus, change its genetic code and emerge as a new and deadly flu that can spread through the air from human to human.

If the virus does mutate, it does not necessarily mean it will be as deadly to people as it is to birds. But experts such as Webster say they must prepare for the worst.

"I personally believe it will happen and make personal preparations," said Webster, who has stored a three-month supply of food and water at his home in case of an outbreak.

"Society just can't accept the idea that 50 percent of the population could die. And I think we have to face that possibility," Webster said. "I'm sorry if I'm making people a little frightened, but I feel it's my role."

Most scientists won't put it that bluntly, but many acknowledge that Webster could be right about the flu becoming transmissible among humans, even though they believe the 50 percent figure could be too high...