Word: h5n1
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...responsibility of declaring when a new flu pandemic is underway, and to simplify the process, the U.N. body has established six pandemic phases. Thanks to H5N1 avian flu, which has killed 257 people since 2003 but doesn't spread very well from one human to another, we're currently at phase 3. If the WHO upgraded that status to phase 4, which is marked by a new virus that begins to pass easily enough from person to person that we can detect community-sized outbreaks, such a move would effectively mean that we've got a pandemic on our hands...
...some ways, the world is better prepared for a flu pandemic today than it has ever been. Thanks to concerns over H5N1 avian flu, the WHO, the U.S. and countries around the world have stockpiled millions of doses of antivirals that can help fight swine flu as well as other strains of influenza. The U.S. has a detailed pandemic preparation plan that was drafted under former President George W. Bush. Many other countries have similar plans. SARS and bird flu have given international health officials useful practice runs for dealing with a real pandemic. We can identify new viruses faster...
...Boston A New Way to Fight the Flu Researchers have developed an antibody-based therapy for the flu virus that may help combat seasonal illnesses as well as more dangerous strains like the infamous H5N1 bird flu. The antibodies attach to a part of the virus that is less mutation-prone than the section targeted by current vaccines (which must be redeveloped every year to counter the virus' changes). Tests on mice produced promising results, although clinical trials with humans won't occur for a few years...
...also position themselves in the binding site of the cells themselves, blocking the virus at the receiving end too. One more advantage of this viral weak spot: it's the same on the vast majority of influenza strains circulating each year, including the ones responsible for the bird flu, H5N1. That makes this antibody approach potentially useful not only against seasonal flu but against pandemic strains as well. (See pictures of the bird...
...China had reported no widespread outbreaks of the virus among bird populations, prompting concerns among some public-health experts that mainland health and veterinary authorities could be missing - or even concealing - the spread of the disease through poultry and wild birds. Hong Kong, where the first human cases of H5N1 infection were found in 1997, reported finding a dozen birds with the deadly strain of the virus earlier this year - a strong indication that the virus is very likely present in adjacent Guangdong province. But so far, Guangdong has reported no bird cases. Equally unusual is that after such...