»bird flu«

Sir David King, the British chief science adviser to the government, passed to Mark Henderson of the Times, London, (3.3.2006) a back-of-the-envelope calculation for the risk to get infected with bird flu. It's 1:100.000.000, hence very unlikely. Also Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London, a leading influenza epidemiologist assists: "Whether it is 1 in 100 million or 1 in 10 million, it is a very small risk. I really don’t think H5N1 in Britain poses any public health risk."

Iain Hollingshead compare in the Guardian (25.2.2006) the hysteria with bird flu with the recent SARS outbreak (for your relief: SARS has been contained by 2003). Medically, Sars is now "one of the best studied of any emerging infective disease", according to Kathryn Holmes of Colorado University, writes Hollingshead. "While it would now take an unfortunate accident or a fresh mutation for the Sars virus to re-emerge, scientists would be well prepared to contain it if it did."

Researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey attached 10 radio transmitters to whooper swans in Mongolia to track their flight patterns. Still, it isn't ruled out the the migratory birds bring avian influenza to Europe. At http://www.werc.usgs.gov/sattrack/ you may follow their path.

Joachim Müller-Jung reports in FAZ online (20.10.2006) from the International Conference on Influenza Vaccines for the World in Vienna where researchers of the company Novartis Behring presented promising results from a new production method for influenza vaccines. The researchers cultivated the virus in special tissue of a dog, so called MDCK-cells (short for Madin-Darby Canine Kidney Cells). The method allows production times cut by a third or half when compared with traditional cultivation in hen's eggs. A clinical trial (phase 3, with 7000 doses) now shows promising results and approval is under way at the European drug authority EMEA in London.

The NY Times brings (27.3.2006) an article collection on bird flu, a FAQ on the risk for a pandemic, a whole bunch of wonderful information graphics, about the classic dilemma whether and when to inform the public in case of an outbreak, the chicken's perspective, and more.

That's a nice picture and quote: In his comment on the hysteria of the German public on first cases of bird flu in dead migrating birds on Insel Rügen, Ludwig Greven quotes in FTD (20.2.2006) the head of the German Friedrich Loeffler Institute (which is in charge to study virus-related diseases in animals) saying, "we evaluate the risks by migrating birds from Africa to Europa. At present, most danger comes from journalists."
http://www.ftd.de/me/cm/49517.html

According to Deutschlandfunk radio (15.3.2006) the World Health Organisation WHO welcomes the advanced research of Hungarian company Omninvest into a potential vaccine against the bird flu virus H5N1. Results of first trials were convincing, says Klaus Stöhr, the head of the WHO's influenza task force.
(>> more background)