. . . Is our President payin’ attention or is he too occupied with his handicap?

JANET: EVENTS DO NOT WARRANT TESTING OF PLANE PASSENGERS FROM MEXICO…
‘NO EVIDENCE’ OF BIO-TERROR…
CALDERON TELLS MEXICANS TO STAY CALM, COOPERATE WITH AUTHORITIES…
CDC RECOMMENDS PLANNING FOR SCHOOL CLOSURES…
Positive: NYC students…
WHO: Swine flu could mutate to ‘more dangerous’ strain…
Flu fears prompt quarantine plans…

Mexico flu scare empties streets, churches, bars…
CLOSE TO 1,400 SUSPECTED CASES…
Russia Suspends Imports of Meat From Mexico, Some U.S. States…
New swine flu likely widespread…
Asia on alert…
10 New Zealand students in scare…
Mideast First: Israeli man hospitalized on suspicions…
6 CASES CONFIRMED IN CANADA…
Spain announces 3 suspected cases…

Check those out — it’s about a quarter after 5pm, PST, and those are the top highlights on Drudge at the moment. Anyone who has read Stephen King’s The Stand can’t help but have a little bit o’ hair standing up at the nape of their necks. Still, before everyone goes apeshit paranoid one could worse than read Okie Gabriel Malor’s guide to infectious preparedness over at Ace.

Allahpundit at Hot Air sees terrible potential, at least in less developed parts of the world:

If it’s susceptible to OTC drugs, presumably we’re okay; developing countries, not so much. {…} All we need now is for the virus to migrate to Pakistan, where the country’s already teetering, and we’ll have a true apocalyptic clusterfark to end all clusterfarks.

{…}
How’s it spreading to so many far-flung places? There should be a chain of infection via visitors to or from Mexico, no?

Michelle Malkin wonders if this will finally get someone to pay attention to our border security.

So Okie, what’s up with the pic? Well, earlier today the White House said that the President was going to play golf, but he’d stay in touch with the Swine flue developments. Via his new Super Blackberry no doubt.

Still, at least they aren’t completely out of touch.

The U.S. declared a public health emergency Sunday to deal with the emerging new swine flu, much like the government does to prepare for approaching hurricanes.

Officials reported 20 U.S. cases of swine flu in five states so far, with the latest in Ohio and New York. Unlike in Mexico where the same strain appears to be killing dozens of people, cases in the United State have been mild — and U.S. health authorities can’t yet explain why.

“As we continue to look for cases, we are going to see a broader spectrum of disease,” predicted Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We’re going to see more severe disease in this country.”

At a White House news conference, Besser and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano sought to assure Americans that health officials are taking all appropriate steps to minimize the impact of the outbreak.

Damn good thing. As Hugh Hewitt comments:

Thousands of students travel to Mexico on spring break, either to party or to do service projects, so the flu’s rapid criss-crossing of the U.S. is almost guaranteed. Time to open the Tamiflu stcokpile.

Oh, ya betcha!

Even as we all become mired in discussions of the Middle East conflict, hope someone over here is paying attention to this. From Reuters:

Multiple mutations in Indonesian bird flu strain

Multiple mutations have been found in the H5N1 bird flu virus that killed seven family members in Indonesia although scientists are unsure of their significance, a leading science journal said on Thursday.

But researchers believe the findings reinforce the need for bird flu data to be more widely available to improve understanding of the deadly virus.

“The functional significance of the mutations isn’t clear — most of them seem unimportant,” the journal Nature said in a report in the latest issue on Thursday.

An analysis of virus samples from six of the eight members of the family showed 32 mutations accumulated as it spread, according to the confidential research obtained by Nature.
(…)
“One of the mutations confers resistance to the antiviral drug amantadine, a fact not mentioned in the WHO statement,” the journal said.
(…)
The mutations found in the virus from the Indonesian cluster were not significant enough for the virus to spread beyond the family.

Virologists contacted by Nature said part of the reason the significance of the mutations is unclear is because withholding the information has hampered the study of the virus.

Nasty little things, viruses. For one as lethal as H5N1 to mutate and become resistant to a major anti-viral drug is more than worrisome, but perhaps this is why that is so:

Recently, amantadine is reported to have been used in China poultry farming in an effort to protect the birds against avian flu. In western countries and according to international livestock regulations, amantadine is approved only for use in humans. Chickens in China have received an estimated 2.6 billion doses of amantadine.

The report goes on to say that in the 2005/2006 flu season, the CDC released a report that Amantadine resistance to the most prevalent human flus at the time was at 92%. Guess we can scratch one anti-viral!

Still, the Indonesian experience “reinforce[s] the need for bird flu data to be more widely available to improve understanding of the deadly virus”, that’s a fact. China is one of the big blockers of avian flu samples and data. That needs to end, soon . . . (db)

Technorati Tags: H5N1, Avian Flu, Avian Flu Virus Mutation, Indonesia, China

Doesn’t sound good! From Bloomberg Asia:

Seven Indonesian Bird Flu Cases Linked to Patients (Update1)

May 23 (Bloomberg) — All seven people infected with bird flu in a cluster of Indonesian cases can be linked to other patients, according to disease trackers investigating possible human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus.

A team of international experts has been unable to find animals that might have infected the people, the World Health Organization said in a statement today. In one case, a 10-year- old boy who caught the virus from his aunt may have passed it to his father, the first time officials have seen evidence of a three-person chain of infection, an agency spokeswoman said. Six of the seven people have died.

Almost all of the 218 cases of H5N1 infections confirmed by the WHO since late 2003 can be traced to direct contact with sick or dead birds. Strong evidence of human-to-human transmission may prompt the global health agency to convene a panel of experts and consider raising the pandemic alert level, said Maria Cheng, an agency spokeswoman.

“Considering the evidence and the size of the cluster, it’s a possibility,” Cheng said in a telephone interview. “It depends on what we’re dealing with in Indonesia. It’s an evolving situation.”

The caveat is that they haven’t identified a mutation of the virus that would show it had gained any DNA from pigs, which could make it more easily transmissible to people, and person-to-person. Direct, long-period contact with the victims seems to be the factor in these cases. Constant vigilance is the watchword . . . (db)

Technorati Tags: H5N1, Avian Flu, Indonesia, Human to Human Transmission, WHO

Part One — From the Mirror UK:

A WOMAN who arrived in London on a flight from Africa yesterday is reported to have died from the deadly and contagious ebola virus.

Panic has spread among cabin crew and hospital staff after the death of the 38-year-old Briton.

The unnamed woman is understood to work at an embassy in the African kingdom of Lesotho.

Before boarding a Virgin Atlantic flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow she visited a doctor complaining of flu-like symptoms.

She was allowed to fly, but during Flight VS602 to the UK she suffered a violent fit which left her unconscious.

Cabin crew and passengers rushed to her aid but towards the end of the flight she began to vomiting.

When the Airbus A340-600, carrying 267 passengers and crew, touchdown at Heathrow she was rushed to nearby Hillingdon Hospital, West London.

Her symptoms matched those of the viral haemorraghing fever, ebola. The results of a post mortem are awaited.

Virgin Atlantic cabin crew who came into contact with the woman have been told to monitor their health. One said: “We are now terrified what we may have caught.”

Deadly ebola is often characterised by the sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat.

Part Two — from Reuters: Indonesia says no bird flu cover-up, Egyptian dies

Indonesia pledged on Thursday there would be no cover-up if human-to-human transmission of bird flu does occur, after five members of a family were confirmed to have died from the H5N1 avian flu virus.

The case has baffled experts because the source of the virus has not been confirmed and human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out.

But, offering a possible answer, Indonesia’s agriculture minister said pigs had tested positive for bird flu in the same village in North Sumatra.

The family slaughtered animals for a barbecue feast in late April before the outbreak in Kubu Simbelang village where pigs and chickens live near homes and cats and dogs roam freely.

Six of the family have died and one has survived. The sixth family member was buried before tests could be carried out.

“This is the largest cluster of cases, closely related in time and place, reported to date in any country …,” the World Health Organisation said in a statement.

The U.N. agency said exposure to infected poultry or an environment contaminated by their feces was the most plausible source.

“The possibility of limited human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out at present,” the WHO said, but added: “If human-to-human transmission has occurred, it has not been either efficient or sustained.”

Of the two, the first may be a tragedy for many that were aboard that aircraft, and their immediate families. Ebola is almost 100% fatal for the 1st generation of exposure, then gets progressively less lethal for each next-gen of transmission. Little comfort to those of the 2nd & 3rd levels, still in the 70%-90% range. Hopefully not many came in contact with fluids from the doomed victim. This will also cause airlines to think seriously about letting folks that appear ill to fly on their aircraft, especially from certain countries in Africa.

The second looks really bad to me. If the virus is now infecting pigs, it likely won’t be long before a mutated form develops to easily infect humans. We can only hope that is will become much less lethal as it does so — only time will tell.

Better make sure that your community is stocking up on Tamiflu — not a chance in hell that our federal government will be able to manage an avian flu pandemic if one occurs, without a tremendous amount of support from local and state governments. The clock is ticking . . . (db)

[Ebola, Virgin Atlantic, Avian Flu, Indonesia, H5N1, Hillingdon Hospital[/tags]

From China View:

KATHMANDU, March 5 (Xinhuanet) — Over 2,000 pigs have died of an unidentified disease in some villages of Morang district in eastern Nepal in the past two months, an official said Sunday.

The disease, first seen in Dangihat and Karanari village of Morang district, some 300 km east of Kathmandu, claimed the lives of over 1,000 pigs in Letang village alone, Shambhu Yadav, an official of the District Livestock Services Office (DLSO), said, adding that eight boars and four buffaloes also died of the disease.

“The disease is believed to be air borne but we have not launched any investigation into it,” Yadav noted.

Earlier, it was suspected that swine fever was the cause of the deaths but outbreak of avian flu in India has terrified the farmers of Morang district located close to India.

Farmers have been disposing the carcass of diseased animals in the nearby forest and the environment has been polluted there, according to Yadav.

Fever, dysentery, yawning and lack of appetite are the symptoms of the disease, Yadav added.

At least the 300 dead ducks in Guangzhou were due to infections by Infective Serositis and not the H5N1 virus, however it is reported that a 32 year-old local resident died from H5N1.

It’s the 2,000 pig deaths, and the speculation that this infection is airborne that raises all the red flags! Add in China’s secrecy and this looks dicey!

But, we’re ready for the pandemic, right? Federal, State and Local agencies have our back? Not according to Michael Brown, former head of FEMA and current Hurricane Katrina scapegoat for the Bush administration in an interview with Chris Wallace this AM on FoxNews Sunday. Hey GW, I love ya man, but to me, Fran Townsend’s coming off as an attack poodle for Chertoff and Homeland Security and Brownie’s making a lot of sense.

Chris, I think we’re worse off. If you look at what’s happening in FEMA, they still have — Chief Paulison is now talking about the hundreds of vacancies they can’t fill. There’s still this confusion about what FEMA is supposed to do and not do.

The partnerships between FEMA and state and local governments have been broken and will continue to be broken by the path that the secretary is headed down. So I think we’re worse off today than we were even before Katrina.
(…)
Not yet. And I think what they need to do is recognize that FEMA — despite the politics of it, FEMA needs to be pulled out of the Department of Homeland Security because it has a different mission, it has a different culture, and until it’s independent, with its own budget and its own relationships with state and local government, it will continue to falter.
(…)
I’m telling you that they ought to demand right now that FEMA be pulled out. These people on the Hill ought to pull FEMA out right now, make it independent, and cut out the baloney.

Hurricane Katrina was a disaster of Biblical proportions. An H5N1 pandemic would make that two for two. If we haven’t figured out and fixed what went wrong with our response system for something that involved a handful of our Gulf states, how can we possibly manage something that will be killing tens of thousands — all over the entire country?

The most frightening reality of all is that the Federal Government has proved that it can’t react timely on events of the scope of Katrina, or of an H5N1 pandemic. In fairness, it probably never will have that ability. But for the good of us all, it must pro act, especially in insisting on state and local agencies to plan for what they will be called on to do. An avian flu pandemic will be in the hands of the first responders: paramedics, doctors, nurses, police, local health agencies . . . their efforts will determine if the death toll will be in the thousands, or hundred-thousands — or worse.

Let’s hope that they are as brave as those gallant police and firefighters that raced up the towers on 9/11! (db)

Technorati Tags: Avian Flu, H5N1, Nepal, KATHMANDU, Morang district, pig deaths, FEMA, Michael Brown, FoxNews

More Avian Flu news that is less than good:

Avian flu – the deadly H5N1 version that has killed 88 people out of a total of 165 confirmed human cases since 2003 — has finally reached Africa, the world’s poorest continent.

In the worst possible case scenario the H5N1 virus was detected this month in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and one of its poorest.

If there was a country least equipped to deal with avian flu, Nigeria is at the top of the World Health Organization list. It has weak veterinary and public health infrastructures and a very large and poor population that depends on poultry for food.

Unfortunately, there will be more later . . . (db)

Technorati Tags: Avian Flu, Nigeria, Africa

. . . A glimmer of hope? From today’s LA Times:

Pennsylvania researchers have produced a bird flu vaccine made from a genetically engineered human cold virus and shown that it protected 100% of vaccinated mice and chickens.

Production of a conventional flu vaccine requires months of work and large numbers of fertilized chicken eggs, but the researchers reported Thursday that they prepared their vaccine in 36 days, growing it in a laboratory dish.

The ability to produce a new vaccine so quickly could give public health officials a powerful tool to combat the H5N1 bird flu virus if it should mutate and begin infecting humans widely.

Only 36 days to a 100% effective vaccine — Amazing! We can only hope that this is not a hoax, and that human trials go well.

At least there’s a glimmer . . . (db)

All over the world scientists are studying the H5N1 avian flu virus, trying to figure out if this is the one that will put the planet’s human population in dire peril. CBC News has this report today.

The H5N1 strain of avian flu may be so deadly to bird cells because of a protein it produces, a genetic study suggests.

Researchers in the U.S. performed the first major genetic analysis of more than 300 flu viruses that have infected people, birds and pigs on four continents.
(…)
The H5N1 bird flu virus and the virus that killed millions of people in the 1918 pandemic both carried the protein, the team found.

But viruses that normally circulate every flu season do not carry the avian protein, and neither did the viruses that caused less deadly pandemics in 1957 and 1968.

Just another piece of this deadly puzzle . . . (db)

[Update]

One of my Oklahoma readers left this in the comments, but it deserves to be in the post:

Scary stuff, to be sure. I fear this flu and I fear Mad Cow disease, or more correctly it’s human counterpart, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. (CJD) Humans get C.J.D. from eating beef infected with Mad Cow. Like the bird flu, It supposedly has a specific deadly prion associated with it also. CJD has an unknown incubation period, so it’s impossible to tell where and when one came into contact with it. Like Mad Cow, it is a spongiform encephalopathic disease, meaning it literally eats holes in the brain. So far rare and sporadic in nature for reasons unknown, It is 100% fatal within 12 months.

Two months ago, my neighbor Bill was as healthy as could be. Tonight he is in a nursing home, not knowing who he or anyone else is. Bill has C.J.D. Pray for him please.

That we will do, Glenn . . . (db)

Technorati Tags: avian flu, H5N1, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, CJD

We like to think that we live in the modern, advance world, where our current state of medicines will protect or cure us from almost anything. We actually live like we believe that even though for decades we have been reading and hearing about HIV, Hepatitis C and others, that the drug industry just doesn’t have cures for. And then there is the common flu, not the super-scary H5N1 avian flu that has the whole world on edge, just those whose combinations that we get vaccinations for every year. The CDC recently made an announcement that brings to mind the phrase, something wicked this way comes.

The government, for the first time, is urging doctors not to prescribe two antiviral drugs commonly used to fight influenza after discovering that the predominant strain of the virus has built up high levels of resistance to them at alarming speed.

A whopping 91 percent of virus samples tested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this flu season proved resistant to rimantadine and amantadine, a huge increase since last year, when only 11 percent were.

The discovery adds to worries about how to fight bird flu should it start spreading among people. Health officials had hoped to conserve use of two newer antiviral drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, because they show activity against bird flu, unlike the older drugs.
(…)
CDC officials took the unusual step of calling a Saturday news conference to announce that the predominant strain this season – the type A H3N2 influenza strain – was resistant to the older drugs.

“Clinicians should not use rimantadine and amantadine … because the drugs will not be effective,” said CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding.

She said the lab tests, which CDC scientists had been analyzing since Friday, surprised health officials and the health agency rushed to get the word out.

“I don’t think we were expecting it to be so dramatic so quickly this year,” Gerberding said. “We just didn’t feel it was responsible to wait three more days during a holiday weekend to let clinicians know.”

The CDC tested 120 influenza A virus samples from the H3N2 strain and found that 109 were resistant to the two drugs. Two years ago, less than 2 percent of the samples were resistant. Last year, 11 percent were.

Gerberding said the agency didn’t know how the resistance occurred, saying it may have been the result of a mutation in the virus or overuse of the drugs abroad, such as in countries that permit the drugs to be purchased without a prescription.

One flu expert, Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University, said the development was “disconcerting” as flu now has joined the ranks of other diseases, such as tuberculosis and HIV, that recently have acquired the ability to resist front-line medications.

Yeah, I think that may be it — something wicked . . . (db)

Writing has been light for a few days, as I have been hammered with duties, helping the Good Wife in her office, going to the LA Car Show with my clients (we’re in the auto aftermarket business), and doing client work, that sort of stuff, which has left only a little time to read the blogs and watch a bit of the Alito hearings.

Of which, during lunch yesterday I watched the entirety of Russ Feingold’s questioning. I lost count of how many times he said something on the order of, “I know that you won’t be able to answer this question, but . . .”, but it was a lot! And, he just kept on asking, and Alito just kept on side-stepping, ’cause he couldn’t answer. Feingold was trying to pin Alito down on whether he thought that the NSA’s monitoring of communications into the U.S. was legal, or permissible under law, although he certainly didn’t word it that way, more something like, “Bush’s illegal wiretapping of U.S. citizens . . .”. Obviously this will be litigated up to the Supreme Court, and Justice Alito when confirmed will have to hear this one, so he can’t provide a preliminary analysis or answer. Just more Democratic Senatorial Blowhard syndrome.

Not that it is a purely Democratic problem. I had to get back to work, so I turned on my least favorite Commi radio station out here in the last of the lost, KPFK, because they were broadcasting the hearing live and uninterrupted. Without the visual distraction of the TV image, you certainly are struck by how pompous and looooong the Senator’s questions are — and that goes for almost all of the Senators on both sides of the isle. Ankle Biting Pundits has this breakdown of yesterday’s questioning and it’s a real eye-opener.

Democrats

“Rosary Joe” Biden 78-22% (DE) (3,673 – 1,013) (a 1,879 word, and 13 minute opening “question”)

Chuck Schumer (NY) 75-25% (3,555-1,165)

Ted Kennedy (MA) 69-31% (3,439-1,539)

Pat Leahy (VT) 60-40% (2,714-1,874)

Russ Feingold (WI) 56-44% (2,976-2,364)

Diane Feinstein (CA) 42-58% (1,912-2,593)

Herb Kohl (WI) 37-63% (1,835-3,094)

Republicans

Mike DeWine (OH) 72-28% (3,398-1,323) (Corrected from 82%-18%)

Lindsey Graham (SC) 65-35% (3,032-1,643)

Jeff Sessions (AL) 61-39% (2,827-1,773)

John Cornyn (TX) 56-44% (3,407-1,900)

Jon Kyl (AZ) 53-47% (2,594-2,255)

Orrin Hatch (UT) 54-46% (2,686-2,242)

Chuck Grassley (IA) 51-49% (2,305-2,183)

Arlen Specter (PA) 50-50% (2,232-2,194)

One would have thought that these guys should have learned during the John Rober’s hearings that if you take up all of your allotted time with you doing all the talking, the nominee doesn’t have to say much, which is very good indeed for the nominee. Alito is answering a lot more questions than Roberts did, but the Senators are so in love with the sound of their own voices, they just can’t resist bloviating away their minutes. Hugh Hewitt says this on his blog about yesterday’s sessions.

After watching some late night “highlights” of the Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats’ collective meltdown yesterday –thank you again, Joe Biden–
I was reminded of those massive pile-ups on California’s I-5 or the 99 when the fog descends but the drivers insist on plowing ahead into the murk.

Beginning with Pat Leahy and continuing all day and into the evening, Democrat after Democrat drove at high speed into a brilliant jurist with 15 years of appellate court experience backed up by prosecutorial chops.

Like they were ever going to lay a glove on him.

What a bunch of windbags! Gotta tune in today some, this is just too much fun!

Couple more items that you should persue. The Avian Flu is causing a great deal of concern in Turkey. Hugh warns our local governments here in the U.S. that there will be hell to pay if they don’t prepare for an outbreak over here.

Iran has broken the IAEA’s seals at a nuclear enrichment facility and will soon be resuming it’s research. Tony Blair says that the West will sanction Iran for this new hostile action.

And, Hell froze over yesterday — podcast was at eleven . . . (db)