I thought a little Public Health might be in order.

Avian flu (click title to entry - thank you) refers to influenza viruses found in birds. The risk from avian flu is generally low to most people. However, confirmed cases of human infection from an avian influenza virus called H5N1 have been reported since 1997. Scientists are concerned that H5N1 virus may one day be able to infect humans and spread easily from one person to another.


There seems to be a considerable amount of work that has been done in the area of Avian Flu since it became know a few years ago.  It was important to put it here.

Bird flu vaccine trial on babies (click here)

Health reporter Jordanna Schriever

From:  The Advertiser

July 12, 2011 12:00AM

A new vaccine for bird flu will be tested on infants as young as six months old. Source: AdelaideNow

A VACCINE for bird flu will begin trials today in infants as young as six months old.

Avian influenza is tipped to cause the next flu pandemic .

A seven-month-old will be the first baby in SA to be injected with the vaccine, which has already been trialled in older children.

Associate Professor Helen Marshall, the director of the Vaccinology and Immunology Research Trials Unit at the Women's and Children's Hospital, said she expected to gain ground in preventing deaths among children should an outbreak of avian influenza - also known as H5N1 - occur.

"This particular influenza strain tends to be a strain that causes severe disease ... in the cases that have occurred in Asia there was about a 50 per cent fatality rate for those infected," Associate Professor Marshall said....

When a virus becomes resistant it means it is mutating.  A virus replicates very fast and allows generations of mutation to occur quickly.  A resistant Avian Flu is not a good thing.

Bird flu virus (click here for India link) develops resistance to key drug

Sravani Sarkar, Hindustan Times
Bhopal, July 12, 2011

One of the two available medicines for bird flu in the country may soon be redundant. The virus that caused the outbreak in certain pockets of West Bengal last year has been found to be resistant to Amantadine. Amantadine and Tamiflu are the two drugs available in India to treat humans who contract bird flu.

One of the two available medicines for bird flu in the country

If the avian influenza virus, H5N1, grows entirely resistant to Amantadine, another drug will have to be developed soon, which is an expensive and time-consuming proposition.

The detection was made recently at the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory (HSADL) in Bhopal.

Joint director in-charge of HSADL, Dr SC Dubey told HT: “We tested virus samples and found genomic alterations in about ten batches. They show resistance to the drug. This is a first for the country.”

Amantadine resistance has been detected in China, Vietnam and Thailand. The scientists are however, relieved the Amantadine resistant virus batches are still resistant to Tamiflu.