Crucell Terug naar discussie overzicht

Draadje vogelgriep - Deel 2

1. [verwijderd] 4 december 2006 10:04

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   RTRS-Meer geld nodig voor bestrijding vogelgriep
   DAKAR (ANP) - De internationale gemeenschap moet meer geld
   uittrekken voor de bestrijding van vogelgriep. Volgens de
   Wereldbank is de komende jaren een bedrag van 1,2 tot 1,5
   miljard dollar nodig.
   
   Het bedrag vormt maar een fractie van wat nodig zou zijn bij
   een wereldwijde epidemie (pandemie), die miljoenen mensenlevens
   kan eisen. In dat geval kunnen de kosten oplopen tot 1,5 à 2
   biljoen dollar. De Wereldbank maakte de cijfers maandag bekend
   aan de vooravond van een conferentie over mogelijke gevolgen van
   vogelgriep.
   
   Volgens de bank zijn extra investeringen nodig omdat de
   vogelgriep dit jaar snel om zich heen heeft gegrepen. Er zijn al
   76 mensen overleden aan het zogeheten H5N1-virus. Dat cijfer
   komt overeen met het dodental over de afgelopen drie jaar. In 55
   landen is de vogelgriep inmiddels opgedoken.
   
   Eerder dit jaar beloofde de internationale gemeenschap al
   1,9 miljard dollar uit te trekken voor de bestrijding van de
   ziekte. Volgens de Wereldbank is dat echter onvoldoende. Vooral
   Afrika en het Midden-Oosten, waar de gezondheidszorg vaak
   primitief is, hebben meer geld nodig.
   
   ((ANP Redactie Economie, email economie(at)anp.nl, +31 20
   504 5999))
   
2. [verwijderd] 5 december 2006 18:16

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   December 15, 2006
   Dog dies of avian influenza
   Fatal avian influenza in a dog is the subject of a dispatch from Thailand appearing in the November issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
   In October 2004, the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Kasetsart University received the body of a dog for necropsy. The owner said the dog had eaten duck carcasses from an area with reports of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 infections in ducks. The dog developed high fever, panting, and lethargy about five days after eating the ducks and died the following day.
   Case reports and research have provided evidence that H5N1 avian influenza can cross species barriers to infect cats as well as humans. Domestic cats and tigers have contracted the H5N1 virus after eating poultry harboring HPAI. Earlier this year, Germany reported fatal avian influenza in domestic cats (see JAVMA, April 15, 2006, page 1165). In Asia, large cats in captivity have died of the disease.
   Genetic comparison indicated that the dog isolate of the H5N1 virus was similar to the viruses that researchers recovered from a tiger in Thailand during a mid-2004 outbreak.
   The authors conclude that, like cats, dogs are at risk for H5N1 infection. They add that the possibility of humans acquiring the H5N1 virus from contact with cats or dogs is a cause for concern and highlights the need to monitor domestic animals during future outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza.
   www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/dec06/0612...
3. [verwijderd] 6 december 2006 16:29

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   WHO: binnen jaar vaccin tegen vogelgriep
   Uitgegeven op woensdag 06 december 2006 om 15:06:10
   
   (Novum/AP) - Een veilig en doeltreffend vaccin tegen vogelgriep bij mensen kan binnen een jaar beschikbaar zijn. Dat heeft een medewerker van de Wereldgezondheidsorganisatie (WHO) woensdag gezegd. Als een wereldwijde pandemie dreigt, kan het ontwikkelingsproces zelfs nog worden versneld, zei Marie-Paule Kieny, die aan het hoofd staat van de afdeling voor vaccin-onderzoek van de WHO.
   
   Kieny sprak aan het eind van een vierdaags WHO-congres voor wetenschappers en experts op het gebied van volksgezondheid in Bangkok. De gevreesde vogelgriepvariant H5N1 heeft sinds eind 2003 al zeker 154 mensen het leven gekost. De meeste slachtoffers zijn vooralsnog besmet geraakt door nauw contact met besmette vogels.
   
   
4. [verwijderd] 6 december 2006 16:42

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   Even een vraag ...
   Wat is de toegevoegde waarde van Crucell tegen de vogelgriep?
5. ved 6 december 2006 16:55

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   quote:

   jverm schreef:

   Even een vraag ...
   Wat is de toegevoegde waarde van Crucell tegen de vogelgriep?
   

   zie (o.a.):
   crucell.movenext.nl/R_and_D-Clinical_...
   crucell.movenext.nl/News_-_Virtual_Me...
6. [verwijderd] 6 december 2006 17:02

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   Bedankt, ik liep even achter.
   Wist niet hoe de ontwikkelingen ervoor stonden.
7. danicole 9 december 2006 19:35

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   New Research Predicts US Entry Of H5N1 Avian Influenza
   
   Scientists at the Consortium for Conservation Medicine (CCM), the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo report that H5N1 avian influenza is most likely to be introduced to countries in the Western Hemisphere through infected poultry trade
   
   www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12...
8. [verwijderd] 11 december 2006 21:04

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   Novartis, Sanofi Seek Universal Influenza Vaccine
   
   (Update2)
   By John Lauerman
   Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Novartis AG and Sanofi-Aventis SA are among drugmakers searching for new weapons against influenza viruses that evade protection from existing vaccines.
   Each year, a new strain of the flu virus circles the globe and kills as many as a half million people. As the virus changes annually into forms that can circumvent the human immune system, scientists are seeking the first universal vaccine that will be effective against the mutations.
   To defeat the flu, doctors will need vaccines with unprecedented power, said Albert Osterhaus, the head of virology at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Such a vaccine should be able to protect against many strains at once, including the avian form arising in Asia that threatens to become a pandemic deadly to tens of millions of people.
   ``The real question is whether it's possible to do pre- pandemic vaccination or stockpile vaccine in advance of a pandemic,'' said Osterhaus, who helped organize a conference of flu experts gathering in Singapore this week to spur the quest.
   The most recent flu pandemic, the 1968 Hong Kong flu, killed an estimated 34,000 people in the U.S. and at least a million worldwide. The 1918 Spanish flu, the largest flu wave on record, may have caused 50 million deaths globally. No one knows when the next pandemic will arrive or how devastating it will be.
   The five-day conference, ``Respiratory Viruses of Animals Causing Disease in Humans,'' which runs through Dec. 14, is timely because the H5N1 avian flu has killed 154 people since late 2003, according to the World Health Organization. The virus, contracted mostly from the blood or excrement of infected poultry, threatens to mutate into a version that can spread easily between people. Such a virus would be lethal to many because humans don't have immunity against it.
   Killer Virus
   The H5N1 deaths have occurred in nine countries: Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam. A tenth, Djibouti, has had one confirmed human case, the WHO reports.
   Vaccines are aimed at inducing immunity to disease. Much of the talk at the meeting is about chemicals, known as adjuvants, which boost the strength of existing types of vaccines.
   ``The most important question now is what is going to be the contribution of adjuvants to classical vaccines,'' Osterhaus said.
   Novartis, based in Basel, Switzerland, uses an adjuvant called MF59 to beef up its Fluad vaccine. London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Brussels-based Solvay SA, and Paris-based Sanofi Aventis also are experimenting with adjuvants.
   Share Reaction
   Novartis shares rose 55 centimes, or 0.8 percent, to 69.75 Swiss francs at the close of trading in Zurich. Shares of Glaxo fell 2 pence to 1,338 pence in London. Shares of Sanofi rose 45 cents, or 0.7 percent, to 69 euros in Paris.
   While immune cells and proteins recognize and kill germs such as measles after a single confrontation, protection against the annually mutating flu must be given each year. The annual changes in the chemical structure of virus's eight genes can evade the human immune system's protective powers.
   Almost a year before the U.S. flu season starts, germ trackers from the Geneva-based WHO and other public health groups begin sorting through viruses in Asia to find the three deemed most likely to move eastward and cause the next outbreak.
   Sanofi, Glaxo, and Novartis take those strains, grow them in chickens' eggs, and then kill the virus to extract the proteins that go into vaccine shots.
   Niagara Falls
   ``It's like choosing a boat to cross a continent,'' said Klaus Stoehr, a special adviser to the WHO, in a Dec. 5 interview in Boston. ``You hope one boat can get you across Niagara Falls and all the rivers.''
   It takes at least six months to go from the selection of viruses by WHO laboratories to makers' shipping vaccine. Meanwhile, the viruses that remain spreading may continue to change into forms that can evade the new shots.
   About once every three years, the virus that hits the U.S. mutates enough from the one used to make the vaccine to reduce the effectiveness of the shots, said Stanley Plotkin, an adviser to Sanofi and an organizer of the conference. Once every decade the match between virus and vaccine is enough to drop effectiveness by 70 percent.
   ``We expect fabulous protection from vaccines,'' said William Schaffner, an infectious-disease expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a consultant to the U.S. government. ``Influenza vaccines are not there yet.''
   Stockpiled Vaccines
   The WHO has warned that vaccines stockpiled to fight the next pandemic may not work. If the H5N1 virus does mutate into a form that spreads quickly in people, that version may bear little or no resemblance to the strains spreading today or those used to make vaccines.
   Glaxo is trying to beat flu's elusiveness with adjuvant that has been shown to increase the power of a conventional flu shot, which contains parts of a killed virus, by about four times. Glaxo is developing the vaccine for multiple H5N1 types.
   ``The huge difference is that this is available now,'' said Emmanuel Hanon, head of Glaxo's worldwide flu franchise, in a Dec. 5 telephone interview. ``It will not take years to implement.''
   Novartis, which acquired the MF59 adjuvant last year in its purchase of Chiron Corp., applied last month for a European license to use its H5N1 vaccine before a pandemic.
   MedImmune's technology, which uses live, weakened flu virus, may offer advantages for immunization, WHO's Stoehr said. Whole virus grows quickly and provokes a strong immune response, he said, and the nasal-spray vaccine requires no needles to use.
   Baxter's Work
   Baxter International Inc., based in Deerfield, Illinois, is developing a whole-virus vaccine against a pandemic flu, Stoehr said. Baxter is growing batches of virulent H5N1 virus taken from infected people and animals, the killing the virus and putting it into vaccine. Baxter published research in October showing the vaccine works in low doses, without an adjuvant.
   Sanofi said it will ship 50 million doses of seasonal flu to the U.S., making it the country's largest supplier. Novartis will provide 30 million doses and Glaxo will sell 25 million. Medimmune, which sells a nasal version, said it will ship 3 million doses this year, almost double last year's amount.
   All of the shots need to show that they can safeguard humans if used before a pandemic begins, said Osterhaus, the conference organizer.
   ``We need to know if they indeed fulfill the promise of broader protection against different H5N1 viruses,'' he said. ``We need hard data.''
   www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601...
9. [verwijderd] 11 december 2006 22:03

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   www.newsnow.co.uk/newsfeed/?name=Bird...
10. gogogoo 12 december 2006 22:49

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    Media Note
    Office of the Spokesman
    Washington, DC
    December 11, 2006
    
    U.S. International Avian and Pandemic Influenza Assistance Tops $434 Million
    
    The United States announced today an increase of $100 million in international assistance to address the threat of avian and pandemic influenza since January 2006. The announcement came at an international conference in Bamako co-sponsored by the Government of the Republic of Mali, the European Commission and the African Union.
    
    Special Representative on Avian and Pandemic Influenza John E. Lange announced that the United States is increasing its original pledge of $334 million, which was first announced in Beijing in January and raised to $362 million in June, to a total of $434 million. The increase includes $36 million in assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development and another $36 million from the Department of Health and Human Services. The United States has already entered into binding agreements for $324 million of our pledge with implementing partners in the global fight against the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus.
    
    President Bush continues to make avian and pandemic influenza a priority. Additional funding for international assistance is requested in the Fiscal Year 2007 Budget that is awaiting enactment by Congress.
    
    The United States is working with international partners around the world to strengthen preparedness and communication, increase surveillance and detection of the highly pathogenic virus, and enhance global capacity to respond to and contain the disease.
    
    The U.S. Government is providing assistance to combat avian influenza and prepare for a possible pandemic to more than 70 countries as well as to the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health and regional organizations. Efforts include deploying experts in human and animal health on emergency response teams; training veterinarians, health workers, and laboratory diagnosticians; supporting research; building surveillance networks and laboratory capacity; providing personal protective equipment such as suits, masks and gloves, as well as decontamination supplies and other commodities; developing stockpiles of non-pharmaceutical and pharmaceutical items; providing technical and humanitarian assistance; and conducting communications campaigns and public outreach.
    
    For further information on the U.S. international engagement on avian influenza, see www.state.gov/g/oes/avianflu and www.pandemicflu.gov.
    
    2006/1104
    Released on December 11, 2006
    www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2006/77616.htm
11. [verwijderd] 15 december 2006 12:54

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    European Medicines Agency Press office 7 Westferry Circus, Canary Wharf, London, E14 4HB, UK Tel. (44-20) 74 18 84 00 Fax (44-20) 74 18 84 09 E-mail: mail@emea.europa.eu www.emea.europa.eu London, 15 December 2006
    Doc. Ref. EMEA/502873/2006
    PRESS RELEASE
    European Medicines Agency adopts first positive opinion for mock-up pandemic influenza vaccine
    The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has adopted the first positive opinion recommending the granting of a Community authorisation for a mock-up pandemic influenza vaccine. The objective behind a mock-up vaccine is to have a marketing authorisation in place that can be changed quickly in the event of a pandemic to include the virus strain responsible, once it has been identified.
    The vaccine concerned, Daronrix from GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals S.A., is intended for the prevention of influenza during an officially declared pandemic situation, once the pandemic viral strain has been included. The mock-up pandemic influenza vaccine is not expected to be used or stockpiled in its current form.
    The availability of vaccines in the event of an outbreak of pandemic influenza is essential for protecting the public from the disease. However, it is impossible to prepare an appropriate vaccine in advance of an outbreak, because the strain of the virus responsible for it is unknown until after the outbreak has started. To facilitate the approval of pandemic vaccines, the European Commission and the EMEA developed a novel approach for the European Union that allows the authorisation of a mock-up vaccine in advance of a potential pandemic.
    A mock-up pandemic influenza vaccine is a vaccine that mimics the future pandemic influenza vaccine in terms of its composition and manufacturing method. Instead of the pandemic influenza virus strain, which is as yet unknown, the mock-up contains an influenza virus strain that has been specifically chosen because the population is immunologically naïve to it (i.e. a strain to which the population has never been exposed). In the event of an influenza pandemic, the marketing authorisation holder will submit additional data as a variation to the marketing authorisation to include the actual pandemic virus strain in the vaccine.
    The strain chosen for Daronrix is derived from a strain that has been involved in recent outbreaks of influenza in birds (H5N1). This strain is not circulating in humans.
    The EMEA positive opinion on Daronrix will now be forwarded to the European Commission, which takes the final decision on the granting of a marketing authorisation.
    --ENDS--
    Notes
    1. A question and answer document on mock-up vaccines can be found here.
    2. The summary of opinion for Daronrix with more detailed information on the medicinal product is available here.
    3. The EMEA pandemic influenza crisis management plan can be found here.
    4. Guidelines for the preparation of pandemic influenza vaccines can be found here and here.
    5. A core summary of product characteristics for pandemic influenza vaccines was adopted in 2005 and can be found here.
    6. This press release together with other information about the European Medicines Agency can be found on the EMEA website: www.emea.europa.eu
    
    Media enquiries only to:
    Martin Harvey Allchurch or Monika Benstetter
    Tel. (44-20) 74 18 84 27, E-mail: press@emea.europa.eu
    www.emea.eu.int/pdfs/general/direct/p...
12. [verwijderd] 15 december 2006 13:17

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    DJ EU Drug Watchdog Backs Glaxo Mock-Up Pandemic Flu Vaccine
    
    Edited Press Release
    ZURICH (Dow Jones)--The European Medicines Agency, or EMEA, has adopted the first positive opinion recommending the granting of approval for GlaxoSmithKline Plc's (GSK) mock-up pandemic influenza vaccine Daronix.
    
    The objective behind a mock-up vaccine is to have a marketing authorisation in place that can be changed quickly in the event of a pandemic to include the virus strain responsible, once it has been identified. The vaccine concerned, Daronrix from GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals S.A., is intended for the prevention of influenza during an officially declared pandemic situation, once the pandemic viral strain has been included. The mock-up pandemic influenza vaccine is not expected to be used or stockpiled in its current form. The availability of vaccines in the event of an outbreak of pandemic influenza is essential for protecting the public from the disease.
    
    However, it is impossible to prepare an appropriate vaccine in advance of an outbreak, because the strain of the virus responsible for it is unknown until after the outbreak has started. To facilitate the approval of pandemic vaccines, the European Commission and the EMEA developed a novel approach for the European Union that allows the authorisation of a mock-up vaccine in advance of a potential pandemic.
    
    A mock-up pandemic influenza vaccine is a vaccine that mimics the future pandemic influenza vaccine in terms of its composition and manufacturing method. Instead of the pandemic influenza virus strain, which is as yet unknown, the mock-up contains an influenza virus strain that has been specifically chosen because the population is immunologically naïve to it (i.e. a strain to which the population has never been exposed).
    
    In the event of an influenza pandemic, the marketing authorisation holder will submit additional data as a variation to the marketing authorisation to include the actual pandemic virus strain in the vaccine. The strain chosen for Daronrix is derived from a strain that has been involved in recent outbreaks of influenza in birds, H5N1. This strain is not circulating in humans. The EMEA positive opinion on Daronrix will now be forwarded to the European Commission, which takes the final decision on the granting of a marketing authorisation.
    
    Company Web Site: www.gsk.com
    
    Regulator Web Site: www.emea.europa.eu
    
    
13. [verwijderd] 15 december 2006 13:29

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    oude wijn in nieuwe zakken...glaxo
14. [verwijderd] 22 december 2006 07:16

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    MedImmune Licenses Reverse Genetics Technology to CSL for Use in Influenza Vaccine Production
    
    GAITHERSBURG, Md., Dec 20, 2006 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- MedImmune, Inc. (Nasdaq: MEDI) announced today that it has licensed its proprietary reverse genetics intellectual property to CSL Limited (CSL) of Australia to support the development of new human seasonal and pandemic influenza vaccines. Reverse genetics is a method by which viruses such as influenza can be generated entirely from segments of DNA. MedImmune will receive an upfront payment and has the potential to receive royalties on any vaccine stockpiles or other product sales using the reverse genetics technology.
    "MedImmune is pleased to make this technology available to our vaccine development colleagues at CSL," said Edward T. Mathers, MedImmune's executive vice president, corporate development and venture. "We believe that this technology is an important breakthrough for the manufacturing of all influenza vaccines, because it is more efficient and reliable than current methods used to produce vaccine strains. For pandemic vaccines, reverse genetics can be particularly important and necessary because it does not require vaccine manufacturers to work directly with the infectious pandemic strain, such as H5N1, rather only segments of its genome."
    MedImmune is collaborating with a number of entities to explore vaccine development techniques that could be used in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak. Earlier this year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began enrolling participants in a Phase 1 study of an intranasal H5N1 influenza vaccine candidate based on MedImmune's live, attenuated vaccine technology, using reverse genetics technology. Investigators at MedImmune and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Immunization Research, where the study is being conducted, are hopeful that a live, attenuated intranasal influenza vaccine would be as effective against potential pandemic A strains as it has been shown to be against seasonal matched and mismatched A strains of influenza.
    phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=...
15. [verwijderd] 22 december 2006 08:03

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    December 21, 2006
    
    Warning: A Flu Pandemic Today Could Kill As Many As 80 Million People New tally of deaths from the 1918 flu outbreak shows that developing countries would be hardest hit
    
    If the 1918 flu pandemic broke out today, it would likely kill at least 62 million people, or slightly more than the number that die in a single year from all other causes combined. The estimate stems from a new tally of flu deaths from 1918 to 1920 in different countries, which varied widely. Based on their findings, authors of the study say that 96 percent of the victims of a present-day pandemic would be in the developing world.
    The report comes on the heels of fears that the H5N1 flu virus currently circulating among birds in Southeast Asia and Africa may be the precursor to a deadly global outbreak or pandemic. To gauge the potential threat, researchers reviewed the toll of the most severe previous case, which occurred in 1918 when a flu swept the world, claiming at least 20 million lives. "It's the benchmark against which we worry about future flu pandemics," says population health researcher Christopher Murray of the Harvard Initiative for Global Health.
    
    To determine the number of deaths from the 1918 flu, Murray and his colleagues reviewed the death registries from countries that kept good records between 1915 and 1923. They calculated the number of deaths from the flu in each country by subtracting the average death rate during the pandemic years from those of the years before and after. Most prior estimates relied on less credible figures, including eyewitness accounts, Murray says.
    The number of dead in a modern pandemic could range from 50 million to 80 million, the group reports in a paper published online by The Lancet. To estimate the death toll if a pandemic struck today, they applied each country's 1918 death rate to its 2004 population. Their figure sets a plausible upper limit on deaths from a similar virus, Murray says. Researchers do not know, however, if the virus that causes the next pandemic will be more or less deadly than the one in 1918. As of late November the H5N1 virus had killed 154 people out of 258 confirmed cases, suggesting to researchers that it may be particularly deadly.
    A country's income was the biggest predictor of its death toll, the group found. The fraction of additional deaths per year varied widely between locations, from 0.2 percent in Denmark to 7.8 percent in central India, "That's almost 40-fold variation across countries," Murray says. "A very surprising fraction of the amount of variation in the death rate is explained by one single variable--namely, income per capita."
    Current strategies for pandemic flu preparedness include vaccination, antiviral drugs and antibiotics to treat pneumonia, which can set in after flu. "Most of those things aren't really going to reach the lowest income countries or even the poor in middle income countries," Murray says. Accelerating the introduction of new pneumonia vaccines to the developing world might help, he says. England's Institute of Medicine is studying whether simpler steps such as school closures and travel restrictions might also cut deaths.
    
    Worried? You should be. If anything, the new estimate may be optimistic, writes epidemiologist Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London in an accompanying editorial. High incomes may not protect rich countries as much as Murray's group predicts, he cautions. The researchers estimate that the death rate in wealthier nations such as the U.S. would be three times less than in 1918 (when more than 500,000 died from the flu in the U.S.). And in poor countries, he writes, the prevalence of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria might make them even more susceptible to flu than before.
    www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa00...
    
    Friday December 22 2006
    Listen to The Lancet
    This week's podcast includes an interview with Christopher Murray from Harvard University, one of the authors of the research article estimating 62 million deaths from a future influenza pandemic. 96% of these deaths are likely to occur in developing countries, where limited public-health infrastructure would struggle to cope with the pandemic. >>
    www.thelancet.com/
16. [verwijderd] 22 december 2006 10:13

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    Elk jaar ruim 60 miljoen doden door grieppandemie
    Een wereldwijde grieppandemie zou in een jaar net zoveel slachtoffers kunnen eisen als er in de Tweede Wereldoorlog zijn gevallen.
    
    62 miljoen
    Volgens het onderzoek zouden in een jaar ongeveer 62 miljoen mensen kunnen doodgaan. Bijna alle sterfgevallen (96%) vallen in ontwikkelingslanden.
    
    Spaanse griep
    De onderzoekers keken naar de gegevens rond de griepepidemie tussen 1918 en 1920, de zogenoemde Spaanse griep, in 27 landen. Het ging om onder meer het aantal doden, de verdeling van de sterfgevallen onder de verschillende bevolkingslagen en leeftijden in 27 landen - behalve Europa en de VS ook in India, Argentinië en de Filipijnen.
    
    Toegang
    Deze gegevens projecteerden de onderzoekers naar de wereldbevolking in 2004. Daarbij hielden zij rekening met de gestegen welvaart en de verbeterde toegang tot medische zorg in sommige landen.
    
    Verband
    Volgens de leider van het onderzoek, professor Christopher Murray, was er aan het begin van de 20ste eeuw een duidelijk verband te zien tussen het sterftecijfer en het inkomen van de slachtoffers. Hoe rijker iemand was, hoe kleiner de kans dat hij of zei aan de griep zou overlijden.
    
    Vaccins
    Volgens Murray is er geen reden om aan te nemen dat het in de 21ste eeuw anders zou zijn. De oorzaak ligt in de toegang die mensen hebben tot vaccins en medicijnen.
    
    
17. [verwijderd] 26 december 2006 11:15

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    crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/
18. [verwijderd] 29 december 2006 05:02

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    Bird Flu Cases Decline, Raising New Risk: Complacency (Update1)
    
    By Jason Gale and John Lauerman
    
    Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Bird flu infected fewer humans in the second half of the year, prompting experts to point to a new enemy in the fight against a possible pandemic: complacency.
    
    The lethal H5N1 strain of avian influenza was reported in people every two days in the first half. Since July, the number of cases has slowed to about one a week and scientists say the virus hasn't yet found a way to easily infect humans.
    
    Governments should continue to track and eradicate the disease, even as public perception shifts and a pandemic poses no immediate threat, said David Nabarro, the United Nations coordinator for avian and pandemic influenza. The flu spread in domestic poultry and wild birds across 38 countries in Asia, Africa and Europe since February, offering the virus more chances to mutate into a form dangerous for humans.
    
    ``You don't stop airport security screening because there have been no hijacks for two years,'' Nabarro said in an interview from New York last week. ``The danger of a pandemic is as profound now as it was a few years ago.''
    
    Since January, countries including the U.S. and Japan have pledged about $2.5 billion to fund efforts to monitor, manage and eradicate H5N1 and to prepare for a possible pandemic. Those efforts may have helped, according to Nabarro.
    
    ``It would be nice to think that the enormous amount of work that's been put into this is having an impact,'' he said. ``I think it's a bit early to tell.''
    
    Hiccups Kills More People
    
    The flu pandemic that struck in 1918 would probably kill about 62 million people nowadays, as many as died during World War II, the Lancet medical journal said last week.
    
    The H5N1 bird flu strain has killed 157 people since 2003, according to the World Health Organization. This year, 114 cases, including 79 deaths, were reported, with 88 of the new infections counted between January and June.
    
    While scientists agree on the need to track the virus and prepare for a pandemic, they are divided over whether the H5N1 strain is a likely trigger. Some say governments and doctors should focus on being prepared for any pandemic -- not just a bird flu one -- and work to reduce the impact of seasonal flu, which contributes to the death of as many as 500,000 people each year.
    
    ``One could make the argument more people die of hiccups'' than of avian influenza, says Peter Palese, chair of Mount Sinai School of Medicine's department of microbiology in New York. ``The virus hasn't really gone in a major way into humans. That is a very important fact, which makes it doubtful that H5N1 is really the next pandemic strain.''
    
    Spreading Undetected
    
    It could take millions of years for H5N1 to mutate into a pandemic form, and panic over the virus is being fanned by ``an avian flu bureaucracy'' egging on governments to provide ever more money, U.S. science writer Michael Fumento wrote in an article appearing in the Dec. 25 edition of the Weekly Standard.
    
    Still, concern prompted some consumers to stockpile Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu antiviral drug and spurn chicken and duck meat in the past year. In France, Europe's largest poultry supplier, producers hurt by a slump in demand lost about 40 percent of their income in the first quarter, according to the World Bank.
    
    The reduction in reported infections and a decline in media coverage don't mean the virus is no longer continuing to circulate in many countries, according to virologist Ilaria Capua, whose laboratory in Padova, Italy, handles some of the avian flu screening for the World Organization for Animal Health.
    
    ``At the beginning of the year there was a sort of race to show the world that even Africa had the problem, and African countries were very outspoken,'' Capua said in a telephone interview on Dec. 23. Some outbreaks were mistakenly diagnosed, hurting trade and tourism and making countries more reluctant to acknowledge the disease, she said.
    
    Ups and Downs
    
    In February, Nigeria became the first of eight countries in Africa to report outbreaks in poultry. Last week, the UN reported that H5N1 had been found in 17 of Nigeria's 36 states.
    
    ``I am pretty confident that if it's widespread in some countries like Nigeria, then it is also widespread in other countries,'' Capua said.
    
    More than 700 outbreaks of H5N1 among wild birds and domestic poultry were reported to the World Organization for Animal Health this year.
    
    ``We're in a situation of low incidence, but I'm sure we're going to see some peaks of infection in the future,'' said Peter Roeder, an animal health officer with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, who helped Indonesia set up its bird surveillance. ``How important they will be, how serious they will be it's not possible to say right now.''
    
    New Virus, No Immunity
    
    The lethal strain of H5N1 was traced to a farmed goose in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong in 1996. It was found in South Korea in December 2003, before spreading across eastern Asia the following year and to Eastern Europe in 2005.
    
    ``H5N1 viruses have been around for nearly a decade and it might be tempting to conclude that if they were going to proceed to form or contribute to a pandemic strain, they would have done so by now,'' the influenza team at the European Centre for Disease Surveillance and Control said in a report last week.
    
    Still, the strain that sparked the 1918 pandemic ``had been around for some years before it became part of a virus that could efficiently transmit between humans,'' they said.
    
    A pandemic can start when a novel A-type flu virus, to which almost no one has natural immunity, emerges and begins spreading. H5N1 has put the world closer to another pandemic than at any time since 1968, when the last of the 20th century's three major outbreaks occurred, according to the WHO.
    
    ``Sooner or later there will be a highly lethal form of influenza and who knows when sooner or later is?'' Kenneth Hill, a visiting professor at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in an interview last week. ``I don't think we should be complacent.''
    
    
19. [verwijderd] 30 december 2006 08:54

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    Friday, December 29, 2006
    Molecular Anatomy of Influenza Virus Detailed
    Scientists at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville have succeeded in imaging, in unprecedented detail, the virus that causes influenza.
    A team of researchers led by NIAMS’ Alasdair Steven, Ph.D., working with a version of the seasonal H3N2 strain of influenza A virus, has been able to distinguish five different kinds of influenza virus particles in the same isolate (sample) and map the distribution of molecules in each of them. This breakthrough has the potential to identify particular features of highly virulent strains, and to provide insight into how antibodies inactivate the virus, and how viruses recognize susceptible cells and enter them in the act of infection.
    
    “Being able to visualize influenza virus particles should boost our efforts to prepare for a possible pandemic flu attack,” says NIAMS Director Stephen I. Katz, M.D., Ph.D. “This work will allow us to ‘know our enemy’ much better.”
    One of the difficulties that has hampered structural studies of influenza virus is that no two virus particles are the same. In this fundamental respect, it differs from other viruses; poliovirus, for example, has a coat that is identical in each virus particle, allowing it to be studied by crystallography.
    The research team used electron tomography (ET) to make its discovery. ET is a novel, three-dimensional imaging method based on the same principle as the well-known clinical imaging technique called computerized axial tomography, but it is performed in an electron microscope on a microminiaturized scale.
    The mission of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), a part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Institutes of Health, is to support research into the causes, treatment and prevention of arthritis and musculoskeletal and skin diseases; the training of basic and clinical scientists to carry out this research; and the dissemination of information on research progress in these diseases. For more information about NIAMS, call the information clearinghouse at (301) 495-4484 or (877) 22-NIAMS (free call) or visit the NIAMS Web site at www.niams.nih.gov.
    The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
    
    www.nih.gov/news/pr/dec2006/niams-29.htm

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20. [verwijderd] 3 januari 2007 23:21

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    The candidate vaccine went from the research bench into clinical trials in less than 6 months.
    
    ****************
    Tuesday, January 2, 2007
    
    NIAID DNA Vaccine for H5N1 Avian Influenza Enters Human Trial
    
    The first human trial of a DNA vaccine designed to prevent H5N1 avian influenza infection began on December 21, 2006, when the vaccine was administered to the first volunteer at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD. Scientists from the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the NIH Institutes, designed the vaccine. The vaccine does not contain any infectious material from the influenza virus.
    Unlike conventional flu vaccines, which are developed by growing the influenza virus in hens' eggs and then administered as a weakened or killed form of the virus, DNA-based vaccines contain only portions of the influenza virus' genetic material. Once inside the body, the DNA instructs human cells to make proteins that act as a vaccine against the virus.
    VRC Director Gary Nabel, M.D., Ph.D., together with a team of scientists from the VRC recognized the potential for employing new vaccine technology against influenza, a disease for which effective vaccines have long been made, but for which the reliability of supply and manufacturing capacity has been problematic. Dr. Nabel and his colleagues previously have shown the DNA vaccine approach to be effective against influenza viruses in animal models, including highly pathogenic viruses such as the H5N1 strain and the H1N1 virus that caused the deadly 1918 pandemic. The DNA vaccine used in this study is similar to other investigational vaccines evaluated by the VRC that hold promise for controlling other viruses, such as HIV, Ebola, SARS and West Nile.
    "An effective H5N1 influenza vaccine would provide a potentially life-saving advance against a global health threat," notes NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D."More broadly, development of this DNA vaccine technology has the potential to improve our production capacity for vaccines to prevent seasonal influenza and other diseases."
    "This influenza vaccine trial is further evidence of the ability of the NIAID Vaccine Research Center to rapidly translate basic research into potential products," he adds."Our accelerated effort to understand and find new solutions to pandemic influenza is part of the NIAID commitment to respond to new emerging infectious disease threats and to improve public health preparedness."
    Highly pathogenic avian influenza A viruses, specifically H5N1, have emerged in the past decade, causing widespread sickness and death in domestic and wild bird populations. As of December 27, 2006, 261 laboratory-confirmed human cases of H5N1 had been reported to the World Health Organization, resulting in death of more than half of infected individuals. While human cases remain relatively rare and are largely the result of direct virus transmission from infected birds, a few cases of human-to-human transmission have been reported. The severity of disease and the potential for human-to-human spread has provided a major incentive to accelerate developing a human vaccine for avian influenza.
    With the spread of avian influenza virus, new strains have emerged, including clade II viruses in Indonesia and elsewhere that have drifted genetically from the initial strains detected in Southeast Asia. With this study, the investigators hope to learn whether new technologies, such as DNA vaccines, can provide protection against such viruses.
    "This vaccine is aimed at newer strains of the H5N1 virus that currently pose a threat in Indonesia and represents an example of our ability to respond to shifting viruses with modern technology," says Dr. Nabel.
    The study will enroll 45 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 60. Fifteen will receive placebo injections and 30 will receive three injections of the investigational vaccine over 2 months and will be followed for 1 year. Volunteers will not be exposed to influenza virus.
    The vaccine contains no infectious material, and the virus was not present during any stage of the manufacturing process, notes Julie E. Martin, D.O., principal investigator of the study. "It is impossible for the vaccine to cause infection," she adds, "because it employs new technology known to safely stimulate broad immune responses." NIAID researchers will measure immune responses to the vaccine, assess its safety, and compare its potency to more traditional vaccine approaches.
    Individuals interested in enrolling in the trial may visit www.clinicaltrials.gov or call the VRC toll-free at 1-866-833-LIFE (5433).
    The candidate vaccine, synthesized using a modified version of the hemagglutinin (H) gene from the H5N1 influenza virus, was manufactured at the VRC Vaccine Pilot Plant. This is the first VRC candidate vaccine manufactured at the VRC Vaccine Pilot Plant. The candidate vaccine went from the research bench into clinical trials in less than 6 months.
    For more information on influenza see www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/focuson/flu. Also visit www.PandemicFlu.gov for one-stop access to U.S. Government information on avian and pandemic flu.
    News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID Web site at www.niaid.nih.gov.
    NIAID is a component of the National Institutes of Health. NIAID supports basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose and treat infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria and illness from potential agents of bioterrorism. NIAID also supports research on basic immunology, transplantation and immune-related disorders, including autoimmune diseases, asthma and allergies.
    The National Institutes of Health(NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
    www.nih.gov/news/pr/jan2007/niaid-02.htm