Vaccine Resistant H5N1 Bird Flu Spreads In South East Asia

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=55492

Vaccine Resistant H5N1 Bird Flu Spreads In South East Asia

31 Oct 2006

It emerged in China and is spreading in southeast Asia - a new H5N1 bird flu strain which is highly resistant to current vaccines. The way this virus is evolving means our current measures are probably ineffective, according to Dr. Yi Guan, Director, State Key Laboratory of Emerging Diseases, Hong Kong, in a new report.

You can see the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Guan, and team, say the new strain is gradually becoming the dominant one in south east Asia. They believe the new strain has started a third H5N1 infection wave in southern China, as well as making headway into Hong Kong, Laos, Malaysia, and Thailand. The new strain is taking hold because current vaccines used to protect poultry from H5 infection are much less effective against it.

Several humans have been infected with this new strain, says the report. At the moment it is spreading from rural into urban areas, where efforts to stem its spread will be much more challenging.

...

[Tiggeroshii]

1. October Surprise?

[endarkenment]

2. It struck me as ironic that this virus has evolved.

How do the fundy-dunces explain that anyhow?

[gratuitous]

3. No, no, it's not evolution

Gawd created a whole new virus just to confound those who think they're wise. You know, like the way God created fossilized dinosaur remains with fossilized shit in the lower intestinal tract. God's a bit of a kidder!

I just pray that medical science can develop a new vaccine in time.

[fudge stripe cookays]

9. You know,

I'm beginning to think that a huge plague like this that drastically reduces the human population like the 1918 flu may be the only thing to save our planet from complete destruction.

It would suck to be a victim of it, but it might be for the greater good. Call me a fatalist.

[sam sarrha]

5. yea.. it is gods punishment for gay people having sex.. an wanting to get married

[sam sarrha]

4. check out a bird migration map to see where it goes next,,,

[sarcasmo]

6. TERRA, TERRA, TERRA.

Make sure and VOTE.

[hedgehog]

8. Somehow I doubt Medical News Today is a partisan publication.

Not every thing is tied to the US election!

[hedgehog]

7. I wouldn't call it vaccine-resistant, but I can't come up with a

catchy phrase to indicate that this virus has jumped ahead of us. Each year's mix of flu viruses tend to have some new varieties not included in last year's vaccine so the old vaccine is ineffective against the new virus. It's like trying to use a tetanus vaccine to protect yourself against the measles. There's nothing wrong with the vaccine and the measles virus isn't especially resistant, it's just a mismatch between virus and vaccine.

As for watching bird migrations, I really suspect the problem will be the rapid movement of infected people carrying the virus world wide before they develop symptoms.