# Given the widespread presence of the virus, the Director-General considered that containment of the outbreak is not feasible. The current focus should be on mitigation measures.

# The Director-General recommended not to close borders and not to restrict international travel. It was considered prudent for people who are ill to delay international travel and for people developing symptoms following international travel to seek medical attention.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre…..index.html

Great work, Kirk, thank you so much. I forwarded this a Health reporter I know in the MSM. I hope it gets traction fast.

Recommended.

Thanks, Kirk. This is very interesting information. It looks like most of your links got zapped somehow, so when you get a chance, it would be great to see them, even if it’s just a list in a comment.

Looks like I was able to find the links.

Here is the Tara Smith blog entry that is the bulk of the diary.

Here is the blog entry from Sandy that Tara Smith mentions and links to.

Here is Tara Smith’s 2007 post on the Ohio outbreak.

I have mentioned this information a few times. As recently as at seventhson’s recent diary. I guess nobody reads the link when I give it. For that reason, I will risk the wrath of the mod by posting the entire article. This appeared in Canada, not in the US.
*********************

The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.

And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.

“At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark.

“But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.”

The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.

The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.

Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a “serious error” on Baxter’s part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live. But the company, Baxter International Inc., has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event.

On Friday, the company’s director of global bioscience communications confirmed what scientists have suspected.

“It was live,” Christopher Bona said in an email.

The contaminated product, which Baxter calls “experimental virus material,” was made at the Orth-Donau research facility. Baxter makes its flu vaccine — including a human H5N1 vaccine for which a licence is expected shortly — at a facility in the Czech Republic.

People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.

Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences.

While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.

That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.

There is no suggestion that happened because of this accident, however.

“We have no evidence of any reassortment, that any reassortment may have occurred,” said Andraghetti.

“And we have no evidence of any increased transmissibility of the viruses that were involved in the experiment with the ferrets in the Czech Republic.”

Baxter hasn’t shed much light — at least not publicly — on how the accident happened. Earlier this week Bona called the mistake the result of a combination of “just the process itself, (and) technical and human error in this procedure.”

He said he couldn’t reveal more information because it would give away proprietary information about Baxter’s production process.

Andraghetti said Friday the four investigating governments are co-operating closely with the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Control in Stockholm, Sweden.

“We are in very close contact with Austrian authorities to understand what the circumstances of the incident in their laboratory were,” she said.

“And the reason for us wishing to know what has happened is to prevent similar events in the future and to share lessons that can be learned from this event with others to prevent similar events. … This is very important.”

http://www.edmontonsun.com/New…..61061.html

Thank you very much for those links.

Thanks kirk

so what do we keep hearing about prevention?

Wash hands, avoid large crowds, cover mouth if sneezing, watch out for all of the signs, call your doctor if you have any symptoms?

” The first person to die of swine flu was a 39-year-old tax inspector whose job required her to make door-to-door visits, putting her in contact with at least 300 unsuspecting members of the public when the disease was at its most virulent, Mexican authorities have said.

Maria Adela Gutierrez, a census-taker in the southern tourist city of Oaxaca, was admitted to a local hospital on 8 April and died five days later. She’d been suffering acute respiratory problems, exacerbated by diabetes and severe diarrhoea, and is believed to have infected scores of people. “

http://www.independent.co.uk/l…..75807.html

Great info, kirk. Thanks.

I actually had a discussion with my 13 year old this morning refuting his argument that maybe now illegal immigration will be looked at differently. He based the whole thing on the number of cases of this flu in Texas even though he knows the kids who brought it home are from Queens…Most of the time he has more sense than this.

Shouldn’t this be the ‘Factory Farm Flu’ since the virus is spreading from factory farms?

Effect Measure is a great place to go for news and information on this outbreak — and public healthy stuff in general.

Hey, Kirk!
Thanks for injecting some science into the potential hysteria.
2 typos: first line of editors note, “dose” should be “does”.
and last paragraph:

so many of Lou Dobbs’ followers have been following falling all over themselves

FunnyDiva
pointy-headed editor.

I will panic when I start to see wheelbarrows loaded with dead bodies on them. Until then, I won’t panic. ;-)

Perhaps from a factory farm:

Local reports in La Gloria blamed pig farms in nearby Perote owned by Granjas Carroll, a subsidiary of US hog giant Smithfield Foods. The farms produce nearly a million pigs a year.

Smithfield Foods, in a statement, insists there are “no clinical signs or symptoms” of swine flu in its pigs or workers in Mexico. That is unsurprising, as the company says it “routinely administers influenza virus vaccination to swine herds and conducts monthly tests for the presence of swine influenza.” The company would not tell New Scientist any more about recent tests. USDA researchers say that while vaccination keeps pigs from getting sick, it does not block infection or shedding of the virus. from New Scientist, Swine flu: The predictable pandemic?

I’m with you, darlin’. Or until the numbers start approaching the average annual deaths from the regular flu.

I guess everybody already knows about the recent Baxter debacle…cough…

“People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.

Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences.

While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.

That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.

There is no suggestion that happened because of this accident, however.

“We have no evidence of any reassortment, that any reassortment may have occurred,” said Andraghetti.

“And we have no evidence of any increased transmissibility of the viruses that were involved in the experiment with the ferrets in the Czech Republic.”

Baxter hasn’t shed much light — at least not publicly — on how the accident happened. Earlier this week Bona called the mistake the result of a combination of “just the process itself, (and) technical and human error in this procedure.”

He said he couldn’t reveal more information because it would give away proprietary information about Baxter’s production process.”

http://www.torontosun.com/news…..60781.html

Oh yeah, and they shipped the stuff to their subcontractors…

Oh, but there’s more…They’re gonna save us all…

http://www.businessweek.com/ap…..QDNFG0.htm

Oh yeah, and there’s more:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/…..PO20090428

”ZURICH (Reuters) – A container of flu virus samples packed in dry ice exploded on a Swiss train, injuring one person but posing no other risks to humans, police said on Tuesday.

The box held vials of swine flu virus, although a different strain than the H1N1 variety that has caused about 150 deaths in Mexico and infected people in the United States, Canada, Spain and Britain.

A technician was transporting the container on Monday night to the Swiss national flu centre in Geneva, where scientists are developing a flu test for humans, police said….”

And more…

” Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) — Baxter International Inc. in Austria unintentionally contaminated samples with the bird flu virus that were used in laboratories in three neighboring countries, raising concern about the potential spread of the deadly disease.

The contamination was discovered when ferrets at a laboratory in the Czech Republic died after being inoculated with vaccine made from the samples early this month. The material came from Deerfield, Illinois-based Baxter, which reported the incident to the Austrian Ministry of Health, Sigrid Rosenberger, a ministry spokeswoman, said today in a telephone interview.

“This was infected with a bird flu virus,” Rosenberger said. “There were some people from the company who handled it.”

The material was intended for use in laboratories, and none of the lab workers have fallen ill. The incident is drawing scrutiny over the safety of research using the H5N1 bird flu strain that’s killed more than three-fifths of the people known to have caught the bug worldwide. Some scientists say the 1977 Russian flu, the most recent global outbreak, began when a virus escaped from a laboratory.

The virus material was supposed to contain a seasonal flu virus and was contaminated after “human error,” said Christopher Bona, a spokesman for Baxter, in a telephone interview.

‘Sanitized’

Baxter “moved very quickly to sanitize and protect employees,” Bona said. “Labs have been sanitized, potentially contaminated materials have been destroyed and employees were tested and considered not to be at risk.”

Baxter gained 93 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $58.27 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, and has lost 2.3 percent over the last 12 months.

The Austrian health ministry reported the incident to the European Union and is conducting its own audit, Rosenberger said. In response, Baxter said it has put in place “preventive and corrective” measures that the ministry found satisfactory. The vaccine has been destroyed, according to Rosenberger.

The World Health Organization “is aware of the situation and is consulting with the ministers of health of the countries involved to ensure that all public risks arising from this event have been identified and managed appropriately,” said Gregory Hartl, a spokesman in Geneva. “

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…..o3LbhcA75I

Oh, good forkin’ grief! I’d read about the first one but not the second. What the fork would cause something like that to *explode*? Gives one such faith in the science community…….not.

The whole damn country needs an ExSpecterant.

Hey guys, the VA Gov debate is streaming upstairs, and somebody named, lemme see… Hamsher is on the panel. About to begin.

lol

I figure Specter is positioning himself (Mr. Magic Bullet in the investigation into the JFK assassination)….to be a Dem Committee Chairman (which he alluded to in his statement yesterday)…maybe to protect Bushco from all the torture stuff…who knows…Mr. White Wash…or…maybe he just doesn’t like the Pukes anymore…nah…

Thanks Dr. Kirk

It’s called perspective. This is partially of what I wrote in another thread.

How many people have contracted this new scary-ginormous-steroid-monster-swine flu in the US?

About 50? (now around 80?)

How many in the US have died?

0? (now 1?)

What is the average number people who are hospitalized in the US with seasonal influenza per year?

That would be 200,000

And how many die from seasonal influenza on average per year?

That would be 36,000

This is a minor story blown up by the cable news minutemen types and those in Washington who want to change the news cycle away from the torture memos

Hi
I had this about 5 weeks ago, I live in the Calif. Central Valley. It wasn’t fun but I had something very close to this about 20yrs ago. I’m not around animals or people very often but I did go to an ER were it was standing room only and very few were there to be patched up. I didn’t stand near anyone while I waited and the only thing I touched was the ink pen at the sign in, I had forgotten my own.
jo6pac
Thanks Kirk

Travel restrictions with Mexico are a prudent possible option at this point. Just because the wackos want it shouldn’t take it off the table.

Seeing everything through a political lens distorts the view.

Dr. Kirk,

Thanks for posting this. I went to Aetiology and bookmarked it.

It’s great to have access to this kind of expertise. Always. In the case of public health stuff of this magnitude, it’s especially calming to hear things from people who know the most.

http://www.just-food.com/article.aspx?id=105477 February 2009 – Smithfield announces it is closing 6 plants, including in Ohio …

Any relation between the Ohoi Fair virus and the presence of Smithfield pigs?

STRANGE that in Feb 2009, Smithfiled closes 6 plants – where did the poor breeder sows go??? (I can’t even think about the animal abuse in all this). Were they whisked south of the border?

Here is Smithfields’s PR blurb on its restructuring and shuffling of (some) people. What about the pigs? Where did they go?

http://investors.smithfieldfoo…..eID=365413

Also in the link at my previous comment, they were restructuring at the same time they were making a big profit.

I notice this re-structuring seems to have helped Smithfield shed Union jobs, too.

This website http://www.swine-flu-tracker.com/ shows you in real time how quickly swine flu is spreading.

i will panic when i start to see wheelbarrows loaded with dead bodies on them. until then, i won’t panic. ;-)

then don’t watch monty python and the holy grail!