The Bird Flu outbreak has taken a turn

Implications of bird flu vaccines and genetics for infectious disease management and public health policies – a research study by Schaffner

Some countries, including China, vaccinate poultry to limit the spread and severity of bird flu, and other governments around the world are now implementing vaccination policies or contemplating doing so. Farmers are unable to assure that their birds are free of the H5N1 virus because existing vaccines cause birds to test positive for it. This has a huge international trade and export implications according to the director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.

Puryear thinks that the new variant is probably from gull flu, and that some of the changes in the genetics of the animals came from the farm. That means that the strain is still circulating around the bird population. The outlook for humans is still positive, if the new strain starts to cause illness, health authorities can probably make a vaccine quickly, and the antiviral drug oseltamivir can help decrease severity of the disease.

The measures taken to keep the new strain from entering the environment seem to be successful, says infectious-disease specialist William Schaffner.

In the last 23 years, influenza has caused more infections than any other infectious disease, followed by Middle East Respiratory syndrome (MERS) and the West Nile virus. The study also reveals the subjective way in which disease outbreaks are often reported, suggesting that this can affect how resources are allocated.

China reported the most infectious diseases in terms of total number, followed by Saudi Arabia with 179 documented cases of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo with 105 cases of the deadly disease. There were few reports with regards to countries in Eastern Europe.

Identifying the causes of bird flu using a genome-sequence analysis: A Cambodian virologist’s first discovery of H5N1 in a girl

The database will allow researchers to look at the factors that determine the amount of money spent to suppress a specific outbreak or whether conflicts or weather events affect them. The study says that the reports don’t mention all of the known outbreaks.

Katz says the WHO could improve the DON reports by increasing transparency around how it prioritizes the thousands of notifications it receives, creating more-specific criteria for an outbreak’s inclusion, and adding information about contextual factors such as climate hazards or outbreaks in animal populations.

The poultry industry is enormous. Just the US portion comprises more than 9 billion meat chickens and 216 million turkeys grown each year, plus 325 million laying hens; chicken is the most-consumed meat worldwide. It’s hard to put the losses from bird flu into context. But the ongoing epidemic has become the worst animal-disease outbreak in US history, as well as the largest poultry outbreak ever recorded in the UK, Europe, and Japan. And though surveillance is difficult, wildlife biologists say the damage to wild birds has been disastrous.

If bird flu does trigger a human pandemic, there are a number of tools for combating the disease. Approved human vaccines against avian flu exist, and the World Health Organization monitors the evolution of H5N1 so that these vaccines can be updated appropriately. In the United States, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority has a stockpile of vaccines, although the supply is too low to be used to vaccinate the world. Animal studies and observational data in humans suggest the antiviral drug Tamiflu is effective against H5N1 in people1, although there have been reports of resistant strains2. Non-pharmaceutical tools such as face masks can stop the spread of disease.

Erik Karlsson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, spoke to Nature about how he and his colleagues sequenced the full genome of the virus sample from the young girl in less than a day before sharing the data on the public repository GISAID. He says the sequenced virus belongs to a group that has been found in chickens and ducks in the region for at least a decade, although the girl is the first person to be detected with H5N1 in the country in nine years.

The sample was first tested at the National Institute of Public Health in Phnom Penh, and then transferred to us. We received the sample around 5 pm on Febuary 22, and it was done in 24 hours. The capacity to sequence and share data has increased very quickly as a result of COVID-19.

The viral load in the sample was high enough that we could amplify the whole influenza genome in one go. We would have had to wait for three days in order to grow enough virus to sequence in cells or eggs, if the viral load had been low. Our focus has been to get the virus sequenced and into the public domain as fast as possible.

Researchers have been monitoring 2.3.2.1c for quite some time, and have information on it to make reasonable judgments about its transmissibility and pathogenicity. But anytime there is a zoonotic spillover, we must treat it with the utmost importance.

Viruses are promiscuous and will quickly adapt to a new host. We’ve seen this with the virus that causes COVID-19. A spillover indicates that the virus now has a chance to adapt to a new host. That is concerning because that adaptation could result in a virus that could potentially transmit between people. Ensuring that the potential for transmission is blocked and knowing what the virus does in its new host are both important to inform the outbreak response.

It is a little harder to get a sequence from the father because he seems to have had a lower viral load. We’ll try some more targeted approaches as well as isolating the virus. There isn’t often enough load to get more than a partial sequence.

An infectious disease epidemic model for a girl killed by avian influenza: lessons for lions and farmers in Kampala, South Africa

We know that, in Cambodia, the pandemic increased the amount of backyard poultry farming. Many people, for example tour guides, couldn’t work and had to supplement their incomes and sources of food for their families. All over the world, people are still struggling, which has resulted in changes in agricultural practices that can increase spillover risk. It is possible that changes in people’s health, for example being overweight or starving, can cause them to be more susceptible to STDs.

This case will be isolated in our biosafety-level 3 facility, which will allow us to learn a lot about the epidemiology of this case and the virus in the region. For example, we could develop blood tests for the presence of antibodies — a marker of past infection — in samples collected from the father, other people living in the girl’s home and the broader community. The virus’s transmissibility can be studied in laboratory models, such as ferrets.

There are six ways to write better emails, the future of cargo ships and a child who died of avian influenza this month has a different variant than mass deaths in birds globally.

lions are returning to the country’s beaches after being gone for almost four decades. In the 1980s, Namibia’s lions stopped hunting on the beaches after their population was almost wiped out. They didn’t come back after their numbers recovered and they had lost the knowledge of hunting seals and Flamingos. When a drought in 2015 wiped out zebras and other desert prey, three young lionesses led a coastal hunting revival along a 40-kilometre stretch of beach that is also a popular fishing and camping spot. A virtual fence is set up to alert people when lions approach the area.

The COVID-19 Case: Implications and Prospects of Self-Driving Vehicular Transport for Safety, Energy and Environmental Protection

The Wall Street Journal reported a classified document from the US Department of Energy that said COVID-19 probably emerged from a laboratory leak. The assessment of the DoE is said to be of low confidence, which means that the analysis is based on little or questionable information. Some scientists, as well as the World Health Organization, say that the ‘lab leak’ hypothesis is still on the table. Science and security researcher Filippa Lentzos says there’s no hard evidence either way. Others, like virologist Angela Rasmussen, say “it is incorrect to frame this issue as scientifically undecided”, citing multiple lines of evidence and studies that indicate the pandemic emerged from animals associated with the live animal trade.

Self-driving ships could be just as big as those that carry most global trade, according to pilot projects. Making large vessels more autonomous should improve safety, increase efficiency and — along with cleaner fuels and engines — reduce environmental impacts. It could also reduce the risk to seafarers, who are in short supply. The legal implications that must be resolved to harness the benefits of vessels are highlighted by seven researchers.

I only have to send one great e-mail a day, but most people aren’t so lucky. Benjamin Tsang wants you to take notice of the e-mails that he writes. Keep messages concise, include actionable words and clear deadlines, and say when you’ll be back in touch, he suggests. And take advantage of features offered by some systems, such as a ten-second delay after pressing the send button that lets you act on sender’s remorse.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00607-y

Space Exploration in the 21st Century: From Baghdad to the United Arab Emirate to the War for Persecuting Bald Eagles

The Arab region’s moves into space exploration are building on centuries-old discoveries of the Islamic Golden Age. From House of Wisdom in Baghdad to today’s efforts by the United Arab Emirate to become a leader in space exploration lies a sweeping history.

Vaccines could help to protect certain species, Stallknecht says. Bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), for example, can be severely affected by the virus, and some scientists are worried about the long-term impact of bird flu on the population. He says that the strategy could only be used for species under grave threat when everything is done to keep them alive.

Farmers could use that knowledge to find ways to protect poultry such as washing boots before entering farms and cleaning up grain that could attract wild birds. It is very difficult to do that in a single year. Shorter time frames are more feasible.

Hill agrees that there are ways to keep the virus in check. “The question is control at this point, and preventing a human pandemic,” she says. I think both of those are doable.