UK Bird Flu

Two other tourists returning to Reunion from Taiwan are now testing positive for H5N1.

Batten down the hatches...

A traveler returning to the French island Reunion from Thailand has been diagnosed with H5N1. It's not clear yet how the person caught the virus, nor whether anyone else on the planes he/she had travelled on are showing symptoms.

update: The tourist had been to Thailand on holiday between 12th-19th October and was exposed to the virus, it is assumed, durign a trip to a bird park. If this is a true assessment, then it's quite worrying, as the guy was unlikely to have been closely handling the birds, which is the only way we are being told it is transmissable at the moment.

Bird shows and fairs in the UK are to be stopped, unless a risk assessment indicate sthat it wouldn't be a problem. The move was announced by Patricia Hewitt in a speech to Parliament today. She also said that we shouldn't eat raw eggs, and ensure that chicken is fully cooked.

It has been confirmed that the dead birds found in Croatia recently did die of H5N1. With the news, it seems more and more likely that H5N1 is spreadiung without much hinderance.

One interesting point I read the other day was that all of the known pandemics started and were in full flow before the end of October. That's not to say that a pandemic cannot happen later, but there might be social reasons for this - colder, darker nights, people less liklely to be out and about etc.

The EU has announced that it is goinmg to impose a ban on wild bird imports to the EU. This will not effect chickens and the like, but caged birds such as parrots.

Stop the Mony Python sketch tributes, but the parrot that died in UK quarantine has been confirmed to have died from the H5N1 strain. All other birds in the same section have been destroyed, and staff are being checked for any symptoms of Bird Flu.

As this was in quarantine, the UK authorities are still claiming Bird Flu free status. Hmmm.

A parrot in quarantine in the UK has died of regular avian flu (H5, NOT H5N1). There seems to be a bit of concedn about this, but in reality, although rare in the UK (first case since 1992), it is not the strain that is feared for pandemic, and the bird concerned was in quarantine, so has had limited affect on any other animals or people.

The dead birds found on a Greek island have tested negative for H5N1, despite earlier reports of a positive test. One thing this shows is how jumpy the authorities and media are about the whole situation.

The Governemtn are buying 800,000 doses of Tamiflu every month at the moment. That's a fair bit, but will take until next year to give cover to the UK.

Meanwhile, the government are requesting tenders from drug companies who have the ability to produce a vaccine (once the pandemic strain is known) to protect the population. This should mean that when the pandemic strain arrives, that the work to produce the vaccine should happen fairly quickly.

Early tests are now showing positive for H5N1 near Moscow.

The Government are apparantly pledging to buy enough vaccine to cover the whole population when Bird Flu goes pandemic. Of course these words sound good, but there are a few fundamental issues here:

• No-one can create a vaccine until the human-to-human virus emerges
• It has been said that it will take six months to create a vaccine
• Every country in the world will want the vaccine, so production volumes will become an issue

That said, it's very interesting that although "there is no problem", the Government seems very jumpy about this.

Could it be that it has been detected in places we are not being told about yet...?

Another European country sends poultry for testing. The single chicken has been sent ot the UK from Macedonia with "suspicions" that it is a bird flu casualty.

Could it be that the bird flu is actually spread a lot further than we have been told, but they are only now realising and acting on this...?

Ok, so from Turkey to Greece isn't very far, but it is that little bit closer to the UK...

Well Greek state-run TV is saying that they have a suspected outbreak on the Greek island of Chios . This is on the back of reports of an outbreak in Siberia.

The UK media is beginning to hype up the possible Bird Flu pandemic. There have been lots of references in the press and on TV about people panic buying, although it doesn't appear to be very widespread, if it is happening at all.

More seriously though, the government is beginning to let it be known that people need to be prepared. Theer is news that they may use the Civil Contingencies Bill to stop large public gatherings (footy matches etc.) and close schools down. This will only happen if human-to-human transmissions are common though.

Bigger issues are the fact that Tamiflu may be redundant by the time H5N1 mutates enough to transmit human-to-human. With one case in South East Asia already reported to be immune to Tamiflu, could people sitting on stockpiles of the drug have made an expensive mistake?

In Turkey, where H5N1 has been confirmed, 9 people are currently under observation for bird flu, according to Sky News. If this is confirmed, then it raises the bar somewhat. Of course at this time of the year, plenty of normal bugs are going around, so it may be nothing to do with bird flu...

Veterinary experts from the European Commission will meet today to decide what emergency measures to take to stop the spread of bird flu.

After outbreaks in Romania and Turkey they may order that poultry in risk areas must be kept in doors.
The EU may order poultry to be kept indoors in order to avoid it coming into contact with migratory wild birds.
Results on birds from Romania are due today as scientists wait to see if they were infected with the same H5N1 strain identified in Turkey.

Source: Sky News

Sky News are now reporting that birds in Romania have also tested positive for H5N1, despite news over the past few days saying that it was a lesser variant that wasn't dangerous for us. If that is now correctely identified as H5N1, then the virus may be more widespread than the powers that be were assuming...

No-one is expecting the bird flu to stop society working, except those planning for worst-case-scenarios. But even so, there are some things that you can do now that will help, should the pandemic hit the UK.

1. Food and water.
If people are dropping down with the flu, it makes sense that deliveries will not be made, shelves will not be stacked and panic buyers will innundate the supermarkets. Just buy a few more supplies than is normal. Some people say to keep supplies for 3 months, but that seems a bit excessive unless you really don't want to mix with the population at large. Just buy things that you would eat anyway, and buy supplies that will keep for a while. Look at the fluwiki for detailed lists of the kinds of food to get, but think along the lines of tins, jars, rice and pasta. Keeps for years and can fill you up. For water, make sure you have a supply of bottled water handy. If the public water supply stops due to lack of maintenance staff (because they are ill at home) or any othe reason (we are supplied by a pump system, so if power goes, so does our water...).

2. Medicine and hygene supplies
Make sure you have personal hygene supplies, and lots of soap. If flu hits, you will need to keep your hands clean - like washing them very regularly - so that you don't transfer the flu from hands to eyes/nose/mouth etc. Make sure you have painkillers and cough medicines etc. If the pandemic does materialise, you probably don't want to be hanging around chemists with flu sufferers.

3. Batteries, torches, power
Make sure you have working torches, eiher battery or wind-up. If you have a power generator then make sure it's working and that you have some fuel for it and any leads you might need.

But most importantly DON'T WORRY!! Don't panic buy, and just get things that you will use anyway, but get a bit more than normal, so that you can survice a little while without going to the shops.

The recent cases of suspected bird flu in Turkey, which prompted the EU to ban poultry imports from Turkey, have tested positive for H5N1.

Update: Sky News are reporting that based on this outbreak in Turkey that the EU is recommending that all EU citizens should be vaccinated against H5N1. Of course there is currently no vaccine... So not sure what they expect to happen.

Clarification: They are telling everyone to get the normal flu jab.

Flu pandemics happen on average three times every century, with two of those being fairly minor, but one dwarfing the others. Last century we had the major pandemic of the 1918 Spanish Flu, and the minor pandemics of 1958 Asian Flu and 1968 Hong Kong Flu.

That means that although the current Bird Flu H5N1 may go pandemic, it has a 2 in 3 chance of being of the minor variety. Time will tell.

Of course it's all about the numbers, so a breakdown of those previous pandemics is below:

	1918 Spanish Flu	1958 Asian Flu	1968 Hong Kong Flu
Est. global deaths	50 million	1 million	1 million
Est. UK deaths	250,000	33,000	30,000

(*) Source: Department of health

This time the worry is that the H5N1 strain is much more dangerous. The 1918 pandemic infected 40% to 50% of the world population, with about 12.5% of infected people dying - this is known as the Case Fatality Rate. So far in the outbreaks in Southeast Asia, the Case Fatality Rate for H5N1 is 50%.

Bird flu is a fairly common bug that wild birds and fowl spread between themselves. This is not normally an issue, as it remains a disease that only other birds can catch. However, a particular strain of bird flu - H5N1 - seems to have jumped the bird to human divide, and has infected humans, with pretty bad effect.

All of those who have been affected with this strain have worked in close proximity with infected birds, so there is no immediate worry outside of the affected areas, although there are stories of at least one human to human infection. This is what worries the scientists. Human to human infection means that the disease will become much easier to spread, and potentionally hit the world like the Spanish Flu did in 1918. This outbreak killed more people globally than those who died in the fighting of World War I. Makes you think...

This blog is intended to be a dumping ground for news and comment about bird flu focussed on the UK. Obviously, as this is a global issue we will need to report on other outbreaks, but our primary focus is the UK.

There are many US based sites offering advice of what supplies to get, which medicines are good etc. but not all of these are useful to people in the UK. Hopefully this blog will redress that.

Anyway, as was once said - "Don't panic Mr Manwaring!". It's not a pandemic, and it might not ever be. But it doesn't hurt to be prepared!