BEIJING, Oct. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- The people who have had close contact with the two patients afflicted with pneumonia in bird flu-hit Hunan Province have developed no abnormal symptoms, said a health official here Friday.
Hunan health authorities have strengthened surveillance of the bird flu, said Chen Xianyi, director of the contingency office of the Ministry of Health (MOH).
Experts from the MOH have arrived in Hunan to guide the prevention and control efforts, Chen said at a press conference.
A 12-year-old girl in a village of Hunan died of severe pneumonia recently. Her younger brother has been hospitalized for pneumonia as well. Investigation shows that both ate chicken which had died of bird flu. Laboratory tests of their blood samples turned out negative for the H5N1 virus.
The boy's body temperature has been normal for eight consecutive days and he is recovering, according to Chen.
"The people who have had close contact with the two, including the villagers, medical staff at various levels have exhibited no abnormal symptoms so far," Chen said, noting that the health authorities are searching for possible infections on a larger scale.
BOGOR, West Java (AP): Indonesia's agriculture minister warned on Friday that the bird flu outbreak in Indonesia could spread quickly since the virus had already infected wild pigeons and other birds in the archipelago.
Indonesian authorities have vowed to step up their battle against the virus that has killed four people and sickened three others in the country this year. The virus has killed at least 60 people across Asia since late 2003.
"The condition (of bird flu) is critical because it has been found to have infected pigeons," Anton Apriyantono, the minister of agriculture, told a national gathering discussing ways to combat bird flu. "We can all imagine how long and how far pigeonscan fly."
The first infected pigeon was detected last week in Bekasi, on Jakarta's eastern outskirts.
Anton said that sparrows are also suspected to have helped the virus to spread. This is what likely caused the deaths of 19 birds in Jakarta's Ragunan Zoo last month. The main zoo in Indonesia's capital shut down for three weeks as a result.
More than 220 veterinarians - including those from some universities - are attending the National Coordination Meeting on Combating Avian Influenza, which is scheduled to run until Saturday in Bogor, a town 60 kilometers (35 miles) south of the capital.
Participants at the conference discussed ways to conduct house-to-house searches to identify and kill backyard chickens infected with bird flu, the best way to train thousands of volunteers taking part in the upcoming campaign, and how to secure the necessary funding for the operation.
The government allotted a total of Rp 12.5 billion (US$1.25 million) for training of about 2,720 volunteers who will next month carry out vaccinations in 22 of the country's 32 province where bird flu virus has been uncovered.
The operation will kick off on the densely populated island of Java, the source of most of Indonesia's human bird flu infections so far, and neighboring Sulawesi and Sumatra islands.
Most of the people infected with the H5N1 strain of bird flu have had contact with sick birds. International health experts fear that if it mutates into a form that is easily transmissible between people, it could spark a pandemic, possibly killingmillions.
BUCHAREST (Reuters) - A heron found dead a week ago in Romania in an uninhabitated area close to the border with Moldova tested positive for the deadly H5N1 virus, the Agriculture Ministry said on Friday.
Earlier this month Romania became the first European mainland country to detect the deadly H5N1 in birds in two villages in the Danube delta, in the south-east of the country.
Last week, a heron was diagnosed with anti-bodies for bird flu in the eastern county of Vaslui, some 100 km (60 miles) north of the Danube delta, in an area which was not in the immediate neighbourhood of a village or town.
"Yesterday, the laboratory in Britain confirmed the presence of the H5N1 virus in the heron found in the Vaslui county, diagnosed with bird flu in October 21," the ministry said in a statement.
Local authorities in the Vaslui county told people to keep chicken indoors to avoid the virus being spread to domestic birds.
The ministry said over 500 tests were done over the past two weeks on birds in the south east of the country and they all turned out negative for bird flu.
The deadly strain was found first in samples taken from two villages in the Danube delta, 40 km (25 miles) away from each other. Over 21,000 domestic birds in the two villages, which were quarantined, were culled.
CHEBOSKARY, October 28 (RIA Novosti)-Russian Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev criticized the Russia media Friday for sensationalizing the bird flu situation in the country.
"This subject will be closed and forgotten in a week or two," he told journalists.
He said he thought that there had been too much unfounded commotion in the press about bird flu and called the media's response to the scare "unprofessional".
MOSCOW, October 26 (RIA Novosti, Alexei Preslyak, Yekaterina Yefimova) - Volunteers for trials of a bird flu vaccine will get about 200 euros each, Director of Russia's Influenza Research Institute Oleg Kiselyov said Wednesday.
"Each volunteer will receive no more than 200 euros for the trials," he told RIA Novosti. "An ideal volunteer for us is a 25-year-old man."
"Twenty volunteers will participate in the trials, which will be conducted in November-December 2005," he said. "If the results are successful, we will be able to start selling the vaccine as early as March 2006."
Speaking about the spread of the bird flu, Kiselyov said even birds that dwell in cities, such as sparrows and ravens, could transmit the virus. The expert said it was necessary "to take every precaution to avoid contact with city birds."
Earlier, Director of the Institute of Virology Dmitry Lvov called on medical institutions to prepare for a possible bird flu pandemic. He said Russia must immediately start developing vaccines against bird flu on the basis of obtained strains of the virus.
NOVOSIBIRSK, October 28 (RIA Novosti, Yana Ryabinskaya) - Siberia may become the site of an avian influenza outbreak next spring, the region's chief epidemiologist said Friday.
"Our forecasts for this autumn have come true - we predicted the outbreak of the virus in European [Russia]. And next year we expect the bird flu virus to become endemic to the Siberian region," Valery Mikheyev told reporters.
He said the H5N1 influenza would spread to Siberia via migratory birds traveling eastward and that the advent of this flue strain was not a question of if, but when.
"How it spreads we know already - birds' migration routes and their nesting sites. And where there is contact between wild fowl and domestic poultry, the situation will be tense," he said.
Epidemiological, veterinary and agricultural agencies should provide constant monitoring to detect the disease in wild fowl coming to the region in the spring, the official said.
The doctor also cautioned against complacency elsewhere in Russia.
"It would be premature in the least to say that bird flu will not affect other regions," he said.
Through hunters' negligence, poultry in several rural areas of Siberia recently contracted bird flu via wild ducks, he said.
TWO of the biggest supermarkets are preparing to stock up on beef and lamb before the crucial Christmas trading period amid fears that avian flu may hit sales of turkey during the festive season.
Tesco and Sainsbury's said they were considering ordering bigger volumes of different meats before Christmas in case consumers decide they do not want to eat poultry and game.
Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Asda said that poultry sales remained stable, but Tesco, which has a 30.3 per cent share of supermarket shopping in the UK, said there had been a "slight dip in sales" following coverage of the issue. Asda said it had not made any decision yet on turkey but was watching sales.
Meanwhile, chicken consumption in Italy fell 40 per cent last month, while poultry sales in France fell 20 per cent last week against last year.
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia updated bird flu warnings for expatriates and travellers in Asian countries on Friday, urging them to have their own supply of antiviral drugs and to prepare an evacuation plan in the event of an outbreak.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Australian travellers and residents overseas needed to take responsibility for their own safety and not rely on Australian embassies to supply medication and help.
"Australian missions and offices overseas will not be in a position to provide influenza antiviral medicines to all Australians in affected areas," the department said in its avian influenza bulletin on its Web site www.smartraveller.gov.au.
More than 60 people have died from bird flu in Asia since the H5N1 strain of the disease re-emerged in 2003.
The H5N1 strain, which surfaced in Hong Kong in 1997, has recently spread to poultry in eastern Europe.
Australia will host a conference of disaster management officials from the 21 members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group in Brisbane next week to discuss regional coordination in the event of a bird flu pandemic.
A foreign affairs spokeswoman said more than 160,000 Australians were visiting or living in Asian nations at any one time. Travel restrictions could make it difficult for people to return home if the H5N1 virus mutates into a form that can be passed from human to human.
"If the virus mutates to a form where efficient human-to-human transmission occurs, it may spread quickly and local authorities could move quickly to impose restrictions on travel," the department said.
"Australians who don't leave affected countries when first advised to do so may be prevented from leaving later. Borders may be closed, commercial air services may be curtailed or halted and quarantine requirements may further restrict options for leaving."
The new travel warnings were for Malaysia, the Philippines, Laos, China, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, East Timor, Japan, Thailand and Brunei. A previous travel warning earlier in the month covered Indonesia.
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong is reconsidering a plan to seal its borders with China if the deadly bird flu virus begins spreading from person to person on the mainland, a local newspaper reported on Friday.
Hong Kong's health minister said last week that the city, one of the world's major trading and financial centers, could shut its borders with mainland China if the deadly H5N1 virus mutated into a form that spread easily from human to human.
But the South China Morning Post said the government was now reviewing the plan because of local and international concern about the social and economic costs of such a move.
Many countries have said they would close their borders if the virus starts spreading among people, but Hong Kong's statement was remarkable given that it is part of China and China is the city's economic lifeline.
Instead of sealing its border completely, Hong Kong's government is now considering various border controls to stop an outbreak from spreading to the territory, the Post reported, citing an unidentified government source.
"We need to tone down this matter a bit. The whole government needs a more thorough discussion on this topic because it is a very complicated issue," the paper quoted the source as saying.
The Hong Kong government had no immediate comment on the report.
Border controls could involve temperature checks of people crossing into the city and blocking traffic from targeted areas, the paper quoted the source as saying.
The government could also advise people not to travel to infected areas and limit visitors from such areas, it said.
Some countries had expressed concern about the plan to seal Hong Kong's borders, fearing it could strand international travelers and paralyze trade, the source said.
The H5N1 strain first surfaced in Hong Kong in 1997, killing six people. Since re-emerging in 2003 in South Korea and later in Southeast Asia, it has killed more than 60 people in Asia and recently spread to poultry in eastern Europe.
China has not reported any deaths from the virus.
Most human deaths have been linked to contact with sick birds, but experts say the virus could mutate at any time into a form that is more easily transmitted from person to person, sparking a pandemic that might take millions of lives and cause hundreds of billions of dollars in economic loss.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Officials from all over the world will meet in Geneva in early November to discuss setting up a global fund to tackle the deadly H5N1 avian flu virus, a senior World Bank official said on Wednesday.
Jim Adams, the World Bank's chief for operations policy and country services, said the meeting -- on November 7 to November 9 -- would try to co-ordinate a global response to the H5N1 strain and identify shortcomings in veterinary and health systems.
"The intention is then to be prepared to go out more aggressively to raise some money to deal with those gaps," Adams told Reuters.
He said the trust fund would require initial donations of between $300 million to $500 million to help countries set up programs to deal with the risk of a pandemic of bird flu, which experts fear could eventually mutate enough to become transmissible among humans.
The H5N1 strain has already infected 121 people in four Asian countries and killed 62 of them, according to the World Health Organisation.
Adams said governments and organisations have become more aware of the threat as the virus has spread to the eastern edge of Europe from Asia.
"What has happened is that everyone has accepted that over time this is going to become a global issue and in that context (efforts have) been ratcheted up a level," Adams said.
"Like every issue, it has been actively discussed at the technical level and the point now is to get everyone in a room together to review what has been done."
WORLD BANK RESPONSE
The World Bank is also preparing its own response to bird flu through a financing mechanism that any country can seek access to, Adams said.
"After the Geneva meeting, we're hoping to be able to go to our board with a proposal and hopefully the first couple of countries that are interested actually participating in that," he said.
He said countries would receive their financial help through grant handouts rather than loans.
"Our honest sense is that in preparing for a potential problem, the challenge is always what can be done before it happens with the real possibility that it may not happen," Adams said.
Mark Wilson, director for rural development and natural resources for East Asia and Pacific region at the World Bank, said financial compensation to poultry farmers and producers for stock losses would be a major part of donor aid to governments.
He said it was important that governments establish in advance a "fair market value" for compensation, which will offer an incentive to farmers to report cases of Avian flu.
Wilson said programs to combat the spread of Avian flu would need to include proper surveillance to spot cases of the virus, strengthening laboratory testing and better co-ordination among ministries of agriculture and health.
"The key is to hit it at its source and hit it hard and if you do so, you can slow it down," Wilson said, noting that in hard-hit Vietnam the government was about to overhaul the poultry industry including removing livestock from urban areas.
Since the outbreak of Avian flu in Vietnam in 2003, the country has culled about 44 million birds or 17 percent of its poultry at a cost of $120 million, or 0.3 percent of gross domestic product.
An internal World Bank document obtained by Reuters says the costs of Avian flu outbreaks in Southeast Asia have not had a major economic impact, but significantly hurt its poultry industry -- running at more than $10 billion since 2003.
The World Bank said the most direct economic impact of an avian flu pandemic would be through a fall in labour productivity. Other long-term affects would play out as the increased costs of preventing and treating disease reduced savings and investments.
SINGAPORE : Schools are checking if students still have the thermometers which were given to them during the SARS outbreak.
This is to ensure they are prepared in case bird flu comes to Singapore.
Daily temperature checks were required when SARS struck in 2003.
The Health Ministry says the current threat of bird flu in Singapore remains low, so daily temperature checks are not required for the moment.
The Education Ministry will help make arrangements for students to buy replacement thermometers where necessary.
Schools are also asking students for their travel plans and are informing them about travel advice issued by the Health Ministry.
The need for good personal hygiene practices is also being emphasised to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. - CNA /ct
WITH a flu pandemic becoming a distinct possibility, some companies are stepping up business continuity plans to ensure that operations can run as smoothly as possible.
One such company is PAE - a facilities management, operations and maintenance services outfit with projects in Europe, an office in Vietnam and an affiliate in Jakarta.
The United States-based company - with 6,000 staff worldwide - started working on its current bird flu contingency plan a month ago.
This involves updating a plan it used during the Sars crisis to fit the changed circumstances. These include keeping abreast of the different phases of the flu pandemic as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO).
"A pandemic would be very disruptive as we are dependent on the movement of personnel," noted PAE's executive vice-president Landis Hicks. Thus, PAE is looking into alternatives such as having staff work from home and "sheltering" personnel for the duration of the pandemic.
Though there will be an increase in business costs and an impact on staff morale, Mr Hicks feels that it is vital to "take certain actions". As a first step, the company is vaccinating all staff against conventional flu and is buying a small supply of Relenza - an antiviral inhalant drug against the H5N1 virus.
It gives the drug to staff travelling to places where there have been known human cases of bird flu and advises them to see a doctor should they develop flu symptoms.
Though companies such as PAE are buying their own antivirals for staff, Dr Jeffrey Staples, a senior medical adviser to International SOS - the world's largest medical and security assistance company - cautioned against being over-reliant on such medicines as there is not enough supply to meet the demand.
"At this point, there is no guarantee that anyone can get Tamiflu or Relenza," he said at a breakfast briefing organised by The American Chamber of Commerce yesterday.
There may also be legal complications as some countries are directing supplies of such drugs to its government instead.
Other issues companies have to think about are quarantine, workforce planning and getting alternative supply and distribution networks.
In March, IT company Hewlett-Packard underwent an emergency planning exercise to look at "extreme risks" such as the avian influenza pandemic, said Mr Paul Chin, environment, health and safety manager, HP Asia Pacific and Japan.
HP's plan is site-specific and the company is monitoring the bird flu situation closely with some staff in direct contact with WHO and the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Applying lessons learnt from its anti-Sars plans, HP's plan may involve isolation and containment of potentially affected employees followed by facility cleaning and decontamination.
Operational measures may involve business continuity impacts, remote and flexible work arrangements and alternatives to face-to-face work options.
"Depending on the specific phase of an outbreak, we would escalate actions to include screening of staff and visitors as they enter our premises, have smaller meetings, go in for aggressive contact tracing and survey our employees travelling overseas," said Mr Chin. While HP is not stocking any antiviral drugs, it is gathering other essentials such as facemasks.
LIPETSK, October 28 (RIA Novosti, Andrei Novikov) - Measures to prevent bird flu have been toughened in the Lipetsk region in Central Russia after the region's governor signed a precautionary resolution following outbreaks of the virus in the neighboring Tula and Tambov regions, the local veterinary department said Friday.
The measures include a ban on poultry imports and on private poultry sales. Poultry farms are not allowed to sell products in their own shops and the veterinary department is set to control poultry sales involving local farms in and outside the Lipetsk region.
The virus is back to the Altai Region, where more than 11,000 chickens and ducks were destroyed in time of the summer outbreak.
Carried by birds of passage, the deadly virus has struck one of the small farms in another region of European Russia - the village of Yuzhny, some 100 km from Tambov. According to the regional veterinary authorities, the farm, where the outbreak was confirmed, has been isolated by police with no access to the settlement.
The poultry plants of the region (eight overall with around 2 million chickens) were warned of the bird flu virus and told to take additional precaution. "The poultry plants were isolated from migratory fowl with the stock of disinfecting agents piled up and anti-plague kits given to personnel," said Alexey Ansimov, deputy head of agricultural department of the regional authorities.
In another round of the bird flue pandemic in Russia, the lethal virus was again reported in the Altai Region Monday, which lost some 11,500 ducks, geese and turkeys from July to August, when the virus struck more than 40 farms and a poultry plant.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Agriculture Ministry said on Friday that new bird flu outbreaks had been registered in three Russian regions already hit by the virus.
A ministry statement said outbreaks had been confirmed in the Tambov region, 400 km (298 miles) southeast of Moscow, in Omsk region in eastern Siberia and Kurgan in southern Urals.
The statement did not identify the strain of the virus, and gave no other details.
Since late 2003, the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus has killed more than 60 people in four Asian countries and spread as far west as European Russia, Turkey, Romania and Croatia, tracking the paths of migratory birds.
Russia has been fighting bird flu since mid-July and has culled more than 600,000 domestic fowl.
Local news agencies quoted Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev as saying on Friday that bird flu would disappear in Russia in a couple of weeks, after most migratory birds leave the country.
Australians living and travelling overseas will be sent urgent alerts by the federal government to return home if a bird flu outbreak threatens to spread among humans.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) will issue the alerts to Australians abroad if an outbreak of the deadly virus looks likely to become contagious in the country they are in.
In its latest travel bulletin, DFAT says Australians will be urged to return home quickly in case borders are closed and they are stranded overseas, although it remained unclear how travellers will be advised.
The government also wants people living or planning to travel overseas to consider stocking up on anti-viral drugs in case of a sudden outbreak of bird flu.
"If the threat of sustained human-to-human transmission appears serious, we will advise Australians in affected countries to consider leaving, and Australians planning travel to affected countries to reconsider their need to travel," DFAT said.
"At the same time, the Australian government would likely direct its staff in those countries who are not providing emergency services, and all dependents of staff, to depart.
t"Australians who don't leave affected countries when first advised to do so may be prevented from leaving later.
"Borders may be closed, commercial air services may be curtailed or halted and quarantine requirements may further restrict options for leaving."
Australian government missions and offices in 16 Asian countries, including Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, have stocked up on face masks and have limited supplies of anti-viral drugs in case of a flu pandemic.
In Australia, the government has come under fire for its plan to provide 90 per cent of its stockpile of anti-viral drugs to emergency workers during an outbreak.
Health Minister Tony Abbott defended the plan, saying Australia's stockpile was bigger than any other country's on a per capita basis.
Any early cases of bird flu would be treated, he said, adding the chances of an outbreak in the next couple of years was not very probable.
Mr Abbott, just back from a major bird flu conference in Canada, also reiterated the government was considering a plan to close Australia's borders amid a global pandemic.
"Certainly the best way of ensuring that you don't get infected with something like this, in the absence of an effective vaccine, would be isolation," he told reporters.
Meanwhile, a check of nomadic waterfowl on the flood plains of Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory has found them to be clear of any signs of bird flu.
Veterinary officer Dr Emma Watkins told ABC radio 58 magpie geese were tested in August, but none was carrying bird flu antibodies or virus.
More than 60 people are known to have died of bird flu, all in Asia, but all of the known victims have been infected through contact with sick birds.
Fear about catching bird flu has sparked a surge in demand for anti-viral drugs in the United States, where the maker of Tamiflu, Roche Holding AG, has suspended deliveries to stop people hoarding the medicine.
The World Health Organisation is also urging poultry workers, cullers and veterinarians to wear special clothing and take anti-viral drugs to protect them from bird flu.
MOSCOW, October 28 (RIA Novosti) - A national watchdog has registered three more Russian villages with bird flu outbreaks, the Agriculture Ministry said Friday.
In the Omsk region, a suspected bird flu outbreak has been confirmed, and a mass culling of birds is being considered, the ministry said.
Villages in the Tambov and Kurgan regions have also been registered with bird flu by the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare.
The ministry said that bird flu outbreaks have been confirmed in 55 villages in eight Russian regions.
BEIJING, Oct. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- Beijing has set forth a four-level emergency scheme for the possible outbreak of influenza in the winter season, an official with Beijing Health Bureau said Wednesday.
The draft scheme, which marks the four levels with the colors of blue, yellow, orange and red, is being examined by the Beijing municipal government, said Zhao Tao in charge of disease prevention and control under the bureau, at a press conference.
If ratified, Beijing will issue the "blue" alarm when necessary, suspending the imports of animals and animal products from the flu-affected countries and impose people vaccination or border-entry restriction.
When the "red" alarm is released, which indicates the outbreak of extremely serious flu, all schools, traffic ports and public entertainment sites must be closed, the official said.
In light of the latest bird flu situation in several areas in China, Beijing has set up 49 monitoring stations across its territory.
A blood serum checkup performed by the bureau on over 2,500 local residents showed that no one has been affected by the bird flu.
If health officials and media prognosticators are accurate, this coming winter may bring with it one of the most sweeping, deadly outbreaks of killer flu that the world has ever seen.
While that prospect would terrify the average person, it also intrigues Jim Higgins, a doctoral candidate at Lehigh University, who has been researching the 1918 flu pandemic that killed an estimated 50 million worldwide.
Higgins, who came to Lehigh after earning his B.A. in history and sociology at St. Vincent's College and his M.A. in history at Duquesne University, has spent the last several years combing through old coroner's reports, newspaper accounts, historical archives, hospital record and military files to piece together an accurate historical portrayal of the outbreak and spread of the 1918 flu. Higgins also cold-called nursing homes in the state to locate individuals with recollections on the 1918 flu outbreak.
What he's found, he says, should concern anyone.
"Most communities were woefully unprepared for the health crisis they faced," said Higgins, who is focusing his research efforts on the ability of Pennsylvania cities to respond. "Those cities that passed muster, relatively speaking, had been building a strong medical infrastructure for decades, and had sound public health policies based more upon science than politics. I'm not sure that's the case today."
Higgins' research has been done under the guidance of three Lehigh history professors: Roger Simon, John Pettegrew and John Smith, as well Dan Wilson, professor of history at Muhlenberg College. In each case, Higgins said, the professors have helped him focus on a component of the flu epidemic to gain a clear perspective on its causes, scope, legacy and lessons.
As a result, Higgins has found himself growing increasingly concerned with what he describes as a "bifurcated health care system where the best, state-of-the-art care is available to some, but not to others at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum."
"What happens," he asks, "when people in South Side Chicago or Compton or the Bronx see people dying of this, while others get the care they need? What happens if the hospitals which traditionally serve the needs of the inner city begin to run out of beds? Do we think that people will sit pat in the projects and poor neighborhoods of our country and watch as their family and friends, their very communities, die? I don't see why there wouldn't be civil unrest."
What is certainly likely to repeat itself is the swiftness with which the flu raced through communities. In many cases, he said, those who are most vulnerable are the very young, the very old, and the immuno-suppressed, such as those fighting cancer, AIDS, or other devastating illnesses, to say nothing of people suffering from drug addictions and malnourishment. All of those high-risk factors are found in combination in the nation's inner cities, he said.
"With the 1918 flu, though, the exact opposite happened," he said. "Those who tended to be very vulnerable were those between the ages of 20 and 40, which really points up the folly of assuming the military might be able to help in such a crisis. What's to say members of the military wouldn't be impacted?"
In reading through coroner's records, Higgins found that account after account repeated the same pattern.
"Someone might have gone to work on Monday, developed a headache Monday night, was in bed Tuesday and Wednesday, and was dead by Thursday," he said. "Some went peacefully, through pneumonia, which they called the 'old man's friend' because it provided an easy passage. Others weren't so lucky." Many others -- ironically, the typically healthy younger patients -- fell victim to acute respiratory distress syndrome, which replicated the sense of a chemical burn searing the lungs.
"It wasn't always that quick, either," Higgins said. "And along the way, you had symptoms like fingers and genitals turning black, and people reporting being able to literally smell the body decaying before the patient died."
At the time, limited scientific and medical knowledge led some -- including prominent governmental health officials -- to identify the cause of the disease to arcane notions such as the wrath of an angry God, swamp gas or electricity in the air.
"This notion of swamp gas, or miasma, is like something out of the Middle Ages," said Higgins. "To have that put out in 1918, by public officials, no less, is really spooky. And remember, prominent, influential members of America's religious community have recently invoked the theory of an angry God to explain both 9-11 and Katrina's assault on a sinful city."
Medical knowledge, research findings and pharmaceutical developments provide some hope that 21st century Americans might not suffer the fate of their forebears, but Higgins said that survival might depend on the simple concept of community planning.
In studying the metropolitan areas around the state of Pennsylvania, Higgins found that the areas that suffered the lowest mortality rates included Bethlehem, which benefited from the resources provided by the then-prosperous Bethlehem Steel.
"At the time, Bethlehem Steel produced more munitions than Great Britain and France combined, and the plant could not afford to shut down for illness," Higgins said. "At the height of the epidemic, the federal, state, and local governments came together with the company to invest in a makeshift emergency hospital right on the premises to care for their workers as well as a strict quarantine. As a result, there were only about 100 deaths from the flu, which struck thousands in Bethlehem."
By contrast, Philadelphia found itself much less prepared for an epidemic, and the strapped with a corrupt head the Board of Health, saw roughly 13,000 residents die as the flu swept through the inner city neighborhoods. It represented, Higgins said, the worst case scenario, with dead bodies piling up outside of police stations and others dumped into trench graves.
"Obviously, not every city had the same experience," Higgins said. "There were really no successes. You could only talk about degrees of failure and success."
This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Lehigh University.
CHANGSHA, Oct. 27 (Xinhuanet) -- The death of a Chinese girl in a village where a bird flu outbreak had been reported was caused by severe pneumonia, local health authority cited initial medical tests as saying Thursday.
The latest tests on the girl's blood sample turned out negative for the avian influenza virus, according to the provincial center for disease prevention and control.
Twelve-year-old He Yin felt sick after eating with her brother smoke-dried chicken that died form bird flu and was sent to the Provincial Children's Hospital on Oct. 16. She died the next day.
The girl was a native of Wantang Village, in Xiangtan County of central China's Hunan Province, where the latest outbreak of avian influenza was reported several days ago.
Doctors with the hospital said He died of pneumonia with acute respiratory distress syndrome and heart failure.
The girl's younger brother also felt sick on Oct. 17 and the hospital diagnosed his illness with symptoms of fever and cough as bronchial pneumonia.
Blood tests on the nine-year-old boy and his mother also were negative for the bird flu virus, the disease prevention and control center said.
The boy's temperature has been normal for seven consecutive days and his physical situation is stable.
Officials with the provincial health department said experts from the Ministry of Health arrived in Hunan Thursday to further diagnose the cases and are expected to offer a final report on Friday.
There has been concern that the girl was killed by the bird flu,which might trigger the spread of the virus in human beings.
The ministry has confirmed that the latest outbreak in Wantang village was identified as the deadly H5N1 avian influenza.
PARIS, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Most European governments plan to compensate farmers for mass poultry culls that may be needed to stamp out bird flu -- and the Asian experience shows that costs can run to hundreds of millions of dollars.
As the H5N1 avian influenza strain, which has killed more than 60 people in Asia and led to the destruction of millions of birds, reaches Europe, the funding question is likely to cause political and economic headaches in the months ahead. In countries already affected by the virus, governments have paid out. Animal health officials argue the money is well spent, saying it is cheaper in the long run and more effective to tackle the disease at source.
Romania has set aside 1.0 million lei ($332,000) for farmers in the Danube delta villages, where 22,000 poultry have been slaughtered. Croatia will pay market prices, at least one million kuna ($162,200) to cover 27,000 birds killed so far.
In Russia, authorities have set compensation at $3.49 for a chicken and more for ducks, geese and turkeys, with money coming from regional budgets for the 600,000 domestic fowl killed.
In Greece, where there have been suspect cases, farmers have been told there will be EU compensation of 50 percent of costs.
Under European Union rules, if a member state is forced to cull to eradicate an animal disease, Brussels will pay up to 50 percent of the costs once it has been wiped out.
In other EU countries like France and Germany, farmers will receive the full market value of any birds destroyed.
Experts believe bird flu, carried by migrating wildfowl, could be heading for Africa, where many economies can ill afford compensation. But in South African, animal producers are compensated for government-enforced culls, officials said.
ASIAN COSTS RISING
Asian countries battling the H5N1 strain have culled tens of millions of birds. The World Bank has estimated the bird flu outbreaks in Southeast Asia to have cost the region's poultry industry more than $10 billion since 2003.
Officials from all over the world will meet in Geneva from Nov. 7-9 to try to build a global fund of up to $500 million to help countries set up programmes to stamp out the virus.
The World Bank is also preparing a fund, including money for farmers to compensate for stock losses.
Many countries like Indonesia say they cannot afford the widespread culling needed. Syamsul Bahri, director of animal health at the Department of Agriculture, said a compensation fund for farmers in 2005 would be released by early November. It is worth 11 billion rupiah ($1.1 million).
"We will really be selective, otherwise the fund wouldn't be enough," he said, adding that farmers would receive 7,500 rupiah ($0.75) per chicken.
In Vietnam, where some 41 people have died, some 44 million birds have been slaughtered at a cost of $120 million.
Japan, on the other hand, is rich enough to provide generous compensation. An official in Ibaraki prefecture, eastern Japan, the area most heavily hit by bird flu this year, said farms could get up to 800 yen ($6.95) for each bird killed.
DUTCH EXPERIENCE
Europe has had major bird flu outbreaks before, albeit in a milder form than the current deadly Asia strain.
In 2003, it struck the Netherlands, a country known for its intensive farming, wiping out 30 million chickens.
The Dutch farm ministry said it would seek to apply a similar compensation scheme as in 2003.
"We covered 100 percent of the farmers' direct costs for culling chickens and destroying eggs," a ministry spokeswoman said, adding the direct costs in 2003 reached 270 million euros.
But in a sign of how wrangling can drag on, some farmers complain of not receiving all their money two years on. The farm ministry put total compensation paid so far at 93 million euros.
British farmers also have painful memories of the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001, which led to the culling of at least six million animals.
The crisis is estimated to have cost around 3 billion pounds ($5.4 billion) and the British government submitted a bill for compensation from Brussels for almost 1 billion pounds.
But four years later, the Commission ruled that the British government had overestimated the market value of the animals and agreed to reimburse just 350 million pounds of the claim.
BRUSSELS, Oct 27 (Reuters) - European influenza experts have developed the first human vaccine for a virulent strain of bird flu that may be able to jump from poultry to humans, the EU's executive Commission said on Thursday.
This virus strain, known as H7N1, is classified as highly pathogenic and caused lethal flu outbreaks among Italian poultry in 1999. But the risk of it emerging as a pandemic strain is lower than H5N1, which has killed more than 60 people in Asia.
A six-partner consortium from Britain, France and Italy -- including academic and scientific institutions as well as the vaccines unit of Franco-German drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis
Clinical trials will begin in spring 2006.
"Research shows that this particular avian flu virus can be transmitted to humans who are in direct contact with the infected animal," Philip Tod, the Commission's spokesman for health and food safety, told a daily news briefing.
"This is part of the broad range of activities that the European Commission is undertaking to prepare ourselves for the eventuality of a human flu pandemic," he said.
Since the H7N1 virus was too dangerous for direct use in standard influenza vaccine production, it was modified to make it safe using a process known as reverse genetics and is the first vaccine not to use eggs in its production.
Experts consider bird flu as the single biggest threat to human health in the world today. The H5N1 virus has killed and forced the destruction of tens of millions of birds and can on occasion be transmitted to people, often killing them.
A vaccine is the best way to stop the virus spreading if it mutates into a form that could pass easily between humans, they say. But production of influenza vaccines is slow, and they do not work perfectly.
INDONESIA is investigating whether bird flu has broken out on Australia's doorstep after dozens of chickens died in Bali.
Anxious officials are awaiting test results that could take days.
More than 25 birds have died in Padang Sambian, a village on the outskirts of Bali's capital Denpasar.
Nyoman Dibya, an official at the Bali livestock agency, said the chickens had the clinical symptoms of the H5N1 strain of the virus.
Bird flu has also jumped to humans, killing four people in Indonesia and affecting three more.
Experts around the world fear the flu strain might mutate to spread easily from human to human and become a pandemic.
"A full laboratory test is needed to accurately determine if the birds had the deadly virus," Mr Dibya said, adding that could take another week.
If the tests are positive, agriculture and health officials will have to take firm action to prevent the disease from spreading, he said.
Bali is struggling to convince foreigners to return to the island following an October 1 terrorist attack that killed 23 people, including four Australians, and twin nightclub bombings in 2002 that killed 202, including 88 Australians.
Meanwhile, three people on the French island of Reunion, off Africa, are being tested in what could be the first suspected human cases of bird flu outside Asia.
French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said three tourists who had visited a bird zoo in Thailand were being tested for bird flu after they flew home to Reunion. Initial test results were positive but the results of fuller tests were yet to be completed.
In China, a girl with flu-like symptoms died in a village where a bird flu outbreak had been reported.
However, Beijing said yesterday it had received no reports of human cases of the virus.
He Yin, 12, and her 10-year-old brother fell ill about a week ago after eating a chicken that had died from an unspecified illness in the mainland Chinese village Wantang.
The H5N1 avian flu strain has killed more than 60 people in four countries in Asia and has been found among birds in Croatia, Romania, Turkey and Russia, but no human cases have been reported in Europe.
China, with its huge numbers of both humans and poultry, often living close together, is seen as a major area of risk.
South Pacific leaders ended a two-day summit in Port Moresby yesterday with a plan to pool resources to combat bird flu.
Australia, the largest member of the 16-nation Pacific Forum, will contribute $8 million to fight an outbreak of the disease in nations like Papua New Guinea, which shares a border with Indonesia.
WASHINGTON, Oct 26 (Reuters) - The calls have been pouring in to Dr. Howard Bennett's pediatrics office in Washington -- parents wanting prescriptions of Tamiflu to protect themselves and their children in case avian flu becomes a human pandemic.
Bennett tries to talk most of them out of the idea but, like many physicians, is torn between the need to protect individual patients and his duty to the community.
"I have fielded 15 or 20 called myself," Bennett said.
The H5N1 avian flu has only infected just over 120 people, but it has killed half of them and the world's top health experts have been increasingly vocal in their warnings that it could become a deadly pandemic.
The virus is spreading among flocks of poultry and every new outbreak makes headlines. It has moved into Europe and politicians have been making loud pronouncements about how poorly the world is prepared to handle it.
Add to that the lesson demonstrated by Hurricane Katrina. When the storm hit the U.S. Gulf states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama at the end of August, residents found they were on their own for days and weeks, with little or no federal help.
So the highly educated and motivated residents of northwest Washington want to take matters into their own hands. They have heard about Tamiflu, a drug used to treat seasonal flu and one that countries are stockpiling to use against H5N1 should it cause a pandemic.
They want some, too.
"You can understand where people are coming from," Bennett said. "We had the same thing after anthrax."
In 2001 someone mailed a series of anthrax laced-letters to addresses in New York, Washington and Florida. Five people died, including two postal workers in Washington, and many people clamored for the antibiotics that could prevent anthrax disease.
TO HOARD OR NOT TO HOARD
The same demand may be developing with Tamiflu, which comes in a pill, and, to a lesser degree, Relenza, a similar drug that is inhaled and so not suitable for use by people with asthma. While pharmacists in Hong Kong report a lively demand, the drugs are unavailable in Indonesia and Cambodia, hard hit by avian influenza, and some other Asian nations because authorities there did not place orders for them.
Roche
"We are not recommending hoarding," Bennett said although he added some colleagues disagree.
"If people are hoarding it, my main concern is that there won't be Tamiflu for the people who need it," Bennett said.
Dr. Anne Moscona, a professor of pediatrics and microbiology at Cornell Weill Medical Center in New York, said she is trying to set an example.
"I am not stockpiling. My infectious disease colleagues are not stockpiling. Premature use, incorrect use and excessive use of these drugs will lead to us losing them when we really need them. We need to encourage our government to make and stockpile enough to treat everybody."
Bennett is more worried about seasonal influenza, and wants his patients most at risk to have treatment available should they become infected. A run on Tamiflu could mean pharmacies will not have stocks when they are most needed at the height of the annual flu season.
"I have written five or six prescriptions and the people I have written them for are patients with chronic diseases, such as patients with asthma," he said. They are directed not to take the drug without calling Bennett first.
Doctors agree it would be unwise for anyone to take Tamiflu unless diagnosed, definitively, with influenza. When used against seasonal flu within the first day or two of infection, it can reduce the severity of the disease.
But some tests suggest higher doses might be needed with H5N1, depending on what kind of mutant strain eventually emerges.
"No one really knows what the dose would be, how long you would have to take it," Bennett said.
"If bird flu comes to the community, it is not going to be gone in a week. If you want Tamiflu in the house, you will need it for every person and you will need 15 or 20 prescriptions."
Dr. D.A. Henderson, a smallpox expert who advises the federal government and who helped set up the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh, agrees.
"I personally would not advise trying to take it as a preventive because if there is an outbreak in your city ... that is going to go on for six to eight weeks," Henderson said.
And eventually, the virus will change and become resistant to the drug. This has already happened with an older flu drug, amantadine, and one Vietnamese girl treated with Tamiflu grew a drug-resistant strain in her body by the time she recovered.
"Tamiflu being what it is and flu virus being what it is, there are going to be be a lot of people out there taking Tamiflu," Henderson said.
"Certainly people are going to be getting resistant strains and they will be passing it along."
If a person happens to be among the first infected and treated, they personally will not be at risk, Henderson said.
"You are going to be getting H5N1 and you going to be developing antibodies to it. You are not going to have a problem because you'll have the antibodies. But if you pass it on to somebody else you'll pass on a resistant strain."
NEW YORK, Oct 27 (Reuters) - U.S. demand for Tamiflu appears to be surging, industry experts said on Thursday, suggesting some people are hoarding the antiviral drug amid fears of a bird flu pandemic.
"The number of Tamiflu prescriptions continues to increase with little or no reports of flu," said Raulo Frear, vice president of clinical evaluation and policy for pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts Inc.
Tamiflu maker Roche Holding AG
More than 67,000 Tamiflu prescriptions were dispensed at U.S. retail pharmacies in the week ending Oct. 21, according to health care information collector Verispan. That is nearly quadruple the demand from the same week last year.
Prescriptions for GlaxoSmithKline Plc's
Walgreen Co.
"It is up significantly," Polzin said, adding that some stocks in their warehouses were beginning to run low.
Roche expressed concern that consumers fearing a pandemic caused by bird flu would try to stockpile the drug, which is needed to treat normal seasonal flu.
Dr. Kathy Neuzil, who heads the pandemic influenza task force for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said the organization advises against personal stockpiles.
"There is no pandemic right now and the use of personal stockpiles would adversely affect the supply of antivirals for seasonal influenza," Neuzil said.
HOARDING FEARED
"In addition to that, we're concerned about the misuse of personal stockpiles," she added.
Neuzil said the U.S. flu season generally starts in January, but the virus is unpredictable and variable. Two years ago, she said, the flu arrived in some places in late October.
The H5N1 avian flu strain has killed 62 people in Asia since 2003 and has recently been found among birds in Europe. While no human cases have been reported in Europe, health experts believe it is only a matter of time before the bird flu mutates into a form that can easily be transmitted among humans and potentially cause widespread deaths.
Frear of Express Scripts said the normal pattern for Tamiflu prescriptions is a spike when people start thinking about influenza in late September or early October. That is typically followed by a leveling off until the flu season hits in earnest in January, he said, with demand dropping back to near zero by the end of March.
"This year, I think it's important to note that the plateau is not there," said Frear, going by anecdotal evidence in the absence of current, hard data.
"That leads us to believe that people are starting to get Tamiflu prescriptions because of fear of avian flu," he added.
Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine, said he had received a "flood" of questions from physicians about patients requesting "personal prescriptions" of Tamiflu.
Schaffner, a liaison member of the Centers for Disease Control advisory committee on immunization practices, warned that such personal prescriptions could not only deplete supplies but that inappropriate use of Tamiflu that could lead to resistance by the virus.
"I can't see any merit at the moment at the thought that every U.S family ought to have their own stash of Tamiflu," Schaffner said.
WASHINGTON - While avian flu hasn't yet mutated to spread from human to human, the United States is not prepared for a possible global outbreak that could hit millions of Americans, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt (search) said Thursday.
"If a pandemic should happen tomorrow, we are inadequately prepared," Leavitt said in a speech to the National Press Club, following a 10-day tour of southeast Asia, where bird flu was first diagnosed. "We must achieve a state of readiness and response," he said.
Without offering a timeline, Leavitt said the Bush administration will soon announce a national plan on all levels of government to prepare for the threat of an outbreak.
In recent months, federal officials and lawmakers frequently have expressed concern that the bird flu virus could come to the United States and cause a pandemic. Currently, the virus has been transferred from bird to bird and bird to human. But it has not yet developed to spread from human to human.
Since late 2003, the virus has killed millions of birds and more than 60 people. Worldwide, 121 people are known to have contracted the virus, Leavitt said.
The most recent case of the H5N1 strain of bird flu was reported in Croatia, European Union health officials announced Wednesday. Authorities also confirmed that a second parrot that died in quarantine in Great Britain was also found to be ill with the virus, although both parrots had been quarantined following import from Suriname, South America and were housed at the same facility as a shipment of birds that came from Taiwan.
While Leavitt's agency works with other government bureaus to develop a national response to a pandemic, the United States is also working to stockpile 5 million doses of bird flu inhibitor, Tamiflu (search). Earlier this week Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham R-S.C., announced that French drugmaker Roche Pharmaceuticals agreed to sub-license its product to four U.S. firms to create the drug, enabling the stockpile target to be met.
Health experts say they hope Tamiflu could be used in the worst-case scenario where a form of bird flu would have mutated and passed from person to person. No vaccine has been made for the human form of the virus, but some say Tamiflu could help prevent the flu from spreading among humans.
Meanwhile, senators on Capitol Hill expressed concern about the lack of a national preparedness plan.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., pushed legislation on the Senate floor Thursday that would offer $8 billion to pay for preparedness for a possible avian flu pandemic.
"Are we prepared? The obvious answer is no," Durbin said. "When it comes to public health challenges, America can do better."
Durbin urged the Bush administration to release a plan to prepare the nation for the threat of an outbreak.
"We look forward to seeing this plan from the administration," Durbin said.
Some health experts compare the possible outbreak to the flu epidemic of 1918 that killed 15 million people.
But Wendy Orent, an anthropologist and author of 'Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World’s Most Dangerous Disease'
"The 1918 flu evolved in the crucible of World War I in the trenches of the western front - in the hospitals, the trucks, the ships, the railroad cars, which transported soldiers immobilized by illness all over the western front," she said, adding that airplane rides are not long enough to allow a microbe to evolve.
Orent also added that it's unlikely the virus will mutate to spread from human to human.
"It hasn’t shown any signs of jumping," she told FOX News. "The only people who have been infected have been a very small number in the two years since the chicken flu or poultry flu began evolving in Asia."
Leavitt toured southeast Asia with a U.S. delegation of health officials to view how nations there are fighting the disease. Leavitt said he visited a family in a Vietnam village that had been infected after processing sick chickens. He said the family's situation is just one of millions that could occur across the country, which has more than 55 million farmers.
Other countries must work to prevent a possible outbreak, stockpile vaccines, create a network of preparedness and educate their residents, Leavitt said.
"No nation on Earth can afford to ignore this threat," he said.
Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Indonesia may ask Hungary for a license to produce a vaccine that's shown promise against the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza.
Rights to Hungary's vaccine are shared by the government and vaccine maker Omninvest Kft, which can produce 500,000 doses a week. Omninvest is majority-owned by Cyprus-based Sumpter Pharmaceuticals Ltd. and operates in Pilisborosjeno, Hungary.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ``asked me to look into the possibility of how we can get access to the vaccine, whether in the form of supply, or even better, if we can get a license so we can produce our own,'' Indonesia's Foreign Affairs Minister Hassan Wirajuda told reporters in Jakarta.
Indonesia, the world's fourth-most populated nation, wants the vaccine on concern the bird flu virus may mutate into a form that can spread among humans. The Southeast Asian nation doesn't have enough people to monitor 30 million villages that have 200 million chickens in their backyard, the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement this month.
Roche Holding AG on Oct. 21 said it will consider licensing its Tamiflu antiviral treatment to generic drugmakers after coming under pressure from politicians, including United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and Taiwanese health ministers, to share its patents on the drug.
``We know that Tamiflu is difficult to get and now Roche has orders for the drug till 2007,'' Wirajuda said.
Hungary's vaccine is effective in humans, according to final results announced by Mihaly Kokeny, the country's health commissioner, on Oct. 21.
A BIRD flu pandemic would have a catastrophic im- pact on Britain and the NHS would struggle to cope, the British Medical Association said yesterday.
Intensive care units and GPs could not cope if the H5N1 virus began to spread easily among people, doctors’ leaders told the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee. Richard Jarvis, a member of the BMA council, said that while the Government’s plans were among the best in the world, they were not sufficient to prevent a public health crisis.
"The effect on society will lie somewhere between major and catastrophic,"he said.
His warning was reinforced by other senior doctors and nurses, who said that the NHS was ill-equipped to handle the volume of patients that would be struck down by a pandemic strain. Professor David Menon, of the Intensive Care Society, said models suggested that more than twice as many as the existing 3,000 intensive care beds would be needed, adding that 7.5 per cent of patients admitted with bird flu would need intensive care.
General practices would also be overrun and family doctors would be unable even to see thousands of patients complaining of flu symptoms, according to the Royal College of General Practitioners. Professor Nigel Mathers, chairman of the college’s research group, said that a typical practice serving 100,000 people would need to handle 5,000 to 10,000 flu consultations a week at the height of a pandemic.
The bleak picture of Britain’s readiness came as the head of the World Health Organisation’s influenza programme said that efforts to contain the flu at its probable source in South-East Asia were almost certain to fail.
Klaus Stohr said that the WHO’s plans to contain early clusters of human cases, by giving antiviral drugs to everybody who might have had contact with infected people, were unlikely to work. "The challenge of quickly treating 80 per cent of people in areas that may be accessible only by four-wheel drive vehicles is huge,"Dr Stohr told the committee.
Professor Mathers said that dealing with flu patients would stop GPs doing much of their other work, and Professor Menon said that the same would apply to hospitals, which would have to postpone non- urgent operations.
While this would free theatre ventilators for use as extra intensive care beds, there may be insufficient staff to use them.
Lynne Young, of the Royal College of Nursing, said that it might be necessary to fill the gap with retired nurses and those who have recently left the profession.
A chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant has removed everything relating to birds from his menu. Alexis Gauthier, 32, of Roussillon, near Sloane Square, Central London, said: "It is a precaution. We have to feel comfortable that everything we put on is free of danger to our customers."
TORONTO (CP) - New polling data suggest Canadians are becoming increasingly anxious about the risk of a flu pandemic, with a quarter of people saying they are paying close attention to the issue.
And unlike some health threats, where gaining more information lessens anxiety, with this issue the more people absorb, the more worried they become, the data suggest.
The polling was done by Decima Research, as part of the firm's weekly omnibus survey. It was provided exclusively to The Canadian Press.
"Definitely we're seeing a growth in attentiveness to the issue and a growth in anxiety about its potential consequences," Bruce Anderson, Decima CEO, said Thursday in an interview.
"And I think the other thing we're seeing is that people who are paying more attention are definitely showing a higher degree of anxiety than those who aren't."
Decima queried 1,016 adults on avian influenza from Oct. 20 to 24, repeating questions the polling firm asked in a survey taken last March. That was well before U.S. President George W. Bush's public musings about the pandemic risk posed by the H5N1 avian flu strain sent coverage of the issue into the stratosphere.
Back then most people reported they'd heard the warnings that an avian influenza might trigger a flu pandemic, but most said they felt the virus posed liBird flu fear grips Bali
By Kim Coghill,
Daily Telegraph, Australia,
October 28, 2005
Dealing with recovery issues, abuse or addiction?
US doctors struggle with demand for bird flu drug
by Maggie Fox,
Health and Science Correspondent,
Reuters,
26 October, 2005.
U.S. antiviral demand spikes amid bird flu fears
By Bill Berkrot and Lewis Krauskopf,
Reuters,
27 October, 2005.
Leavitt: U.S. Unprepared for Bird Flu Outbreak
By Melissa Drosjack,
FOX News,
Thursday, October 27, 2005.
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Indonesia May Seek Hungary's Help to Produce Bird Flu Vaccine
Bloomsberg,
27 October, 2005.
NHS 'can't cope with pandemic'
By Mark Henderson,
Science Correspondent,
The Times, UK,
October 28, 2005.
New polling data suggests Canadians increasingly anxious about pandemic risk
Helen Branswell,
Canadian Press,
Thursday, October 27, 2005