Category Archives: pandemic

Bird flu: chickens are coming home to roost – DutchNews.nl

Bird flu: chickens are coming home to roost – DutchNews.nl.

Almost every farmer or farmers’ representative is singing from the same hymn sheet these days: it’s those dangerous migrating birds that are visiting the disease on a helpless industry. Chickens shouldn’t roam free, they say, although outbreaks occurred at six chicken farms in north west Europe where the animals were kept indoors. Scientists from the Royal Dutch Academy of Science (KNAW) are exasperated at the industry’s making scapegoats of migrating birds as there is no evidence whatsoever to support their claim. Time bomb And even if the evidence were there it would not exonerate the industry. Contamination and culls are a choice, not an inevitability. The sector and the government are consistently going for the wrong option. The sector is sitting on a time bomb. There are some hundred million chickens in the Netherlands. No other country has so many chickens caged up on such a small surface. They are also concentrated in two neighbouring regions: the Peel and the Gelderse Vallei. In the words of an epidemiologist from Wageningen university: ‘The proximity between the farms and the number of chickens means an outbreak in one single farm would be the end of the whole valley. That is the problem.’ What we should do then is scale down the livestock industry.

Read more at DutchNews.nl: Bird flu: chickens are coming home to roost http://www.dutchnews.nl/features/2014/12/bird-flu-chickens-are-coming-home-to-roost.php/

Three Egyptian women die of bird flu | Business Standard News

Three Egyptian women have died of the H5N1 bird flu after coming into contact with infected birds, the country’s health ministry said Monday.

A 29-year-old woman from Minya province, south of Cairo, died Monday after having breathing difficulties and pneumonia, Xinhua reported citing a ministry statement.

Two other women, aged 25 and 40, died in the Upper Egyptian province of Assiut. One of them worked in a bird farm.

The health ministry has confirmed a total of 11 cases this year, including six deaths.

via Three Egyptian women die of bird flu | Business Standard News.

Bird flu in Kerala is of H5N1 strain

Thiruvananthapuram: The strain of avian influenza that caused deaths of thousands of duck in the three districts of Kerala has been identified as H5N1, which could also spread to human beings though the infection caused by it can be cured, officials said on Thursday.

The state government stepped up precautionary and containment measures in the affected areas to check the spread of the virus.

via Bird flu in Kerala is of H5N1 strain.

Avian flu: urgent request for scientific advice – EIN News

SOSO – Same Old-Same-Old – want to blame wild birds for spread of avian influenza and not increased industrialized global poultry industry getting billions of birds ready for holiday markets in Europe and then in Jan/Feb for Chinese New year and Tet celebrations. When billions of birds are brought together, nature senses over populations and birds are stressed due to overcrowding thus viruses are re-created to balance the system and billions of birds are more vulnerable to disease. This has always been the way influenza strikes first birds, then pigs, horses and humans. But with a globalized industrial market, the disease factory is now in process year round and the chase for more profits increases chances of more deadly viruses. Duh? Wild birds do catch the influenza from produced birds which are housed in the open or from their waste that is used as fertilizer or added to fish farms to aid growing of fish food. Someday, maybe before we are all dead from a flu we cannot respond to quickly enough, some greedy poultry farmer will suggest killing all wild birds – which will do nothing but advance our own demise.

 

EFSA is assessing the current situation on the H5N8 avian influenza A virus in Europe and the world, following an urgent request from the European Commission. Experts are focussing on the possible entry routes of the virus into Europe- in particular on the role of wild birds.

The highly contagious avian influenza virus has recently been detected in three European countries: in a turkey holding in Germany; three chicken holdings in the Netherlands and in a duck breeding holding in the United Kingdom.

The flu viruses found in the EU are similar to one that affected poultry flocks in South Korea earlier this year. To date, there are no recorded cases of humans contracting the H5N8 virus.

EFSA’s role is to provide EU risk managers with independent scientific advice and assistance on animal health and welfare related to avian influenza and any possible food safety issues.

In previous risk assessments EFSA provided information on the risks of influenza viruses entering and spreading amongst poultry in Europe and made recommendations to prevent existing risks. EFSA experts also concluded that there is no scientific evidence that avian influenza can be transmitted to humans through consumption of food.

The scientific report will be delivered in early December 2014.

via Avian flu: urgent request for scientific advice – EIN News.

All about money, careers, and publicity! ‘Homeopathy CAN cure Ebola but WHO officials are stopping us’ | Daily Mail Online

“As the momentum for homeopaths to do something built up I got the opportunity and took it,’ she said. ‘We treated all types of cases in the hospital with homeopathic medicines. The response was good to the extent that we have a request from them to promote and teach homeopathy there.’

She said it was unfair to suggest that they were exploiting victims – as some commentators have done – for their own ends.

‘None of the people thought that in Liberia. We helped, they accepted. These critics are armchair intellectuals.’

Her colleague Dr Ortrud Lindemann, who runs a clinic in Barcelona, insisted that homeopathy could prove useful in fighting the Ebola virus.

‘As doctors we have the duty to do everything we can to alleviate the suffering of those poor people stricken with Ebola and we hoped that homeopathic remedies might be able to help in that,’ she told MailOnline.

via ‘Homeopathy CAN cure Ebola but WHO officials are stopping us’ | Daily Mail Online.

Avian influenza at UK same strain as in Germany and Netherlands | Infectious Diseases 2014 | Infectious diseases | Poultrymed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

{Have to wonder if they are using the same hatchery suppliers or transporters}

The strain of avian influenza  found on a duck-breeding farm in the UK is the same as the one recently identified in the Netherlands and Germany. The H5N8 strain can potentially affect humans.

Sweden meanwhile ordered farmers to keep hens and other poultry indoors “as a precaution”, amid concerns that the highly infectious H5N8 strain is being spread by wild birds.

via Avian influenza at UK same strain as in Germany and Netherlands | Infectious Diseases 2014 | Infectious diseases | Poultrymed.

Organic-Vaccines seeks {more investors and publicity} “compassionate use” of its MERS-CoV vaccine | Vaccine News Daily

Organic-Vaccines, a company specializing in using biotechnology to utilize a patient’s own cells for treatments, recently applied to the World Health Organization (WHO) for compassionate use of the company’s MERS-CoV (Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus) vaccine.

The first confirmed cases of MERS-CoV occurred in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Since then, 804 cases have been reported in the country with 43 percent of patients dying as of Thursday. Worldwide, WHO has reported 887 cases of MERS-CoV as of Oct. 16.

Organic-Vaccines is preparing its vaccine in order to respond rapidly to future MERS-CoV cases. Early preparation is key to protecting health professionals, first responders and citizens, as well as preventing worldwide pandemics.

via Organic-Vaccines seeks “compassionate use” of its MERS-CoV vaccine | Vaccine News Daily.