Tuesday, January 13, 2009

H1N1 near 100% resistant to Tamiflu

Tamiflu being one of the main drug defences against bird flu is being undermined as studies in Japan and Korea show that the H1N1 virus is near 100% resistant to the drug. Should H1N1 and H5N1 exchange genes then this near complete resistance to Tamiflu could be passed on to H5N1.

Egypt suffers a new human H5N1 case

H5N1 appears to be settling into the Middle East with a 21-month-old coming down with the virus in Egypt.

Chinese H5N1 chickens smuggled into Vietnam

Police in Vietnam intercepted H5N1 contaminated chickens being imported illegally into Vietnam. This blog believes that China must do more to curb the spread of H5N1 by dealing with the movement of infected poultry across international borders. Secondly, China should crack down on the use of drugs in animal feed which is assisting in building up H5N1 drug resistance.

Two and a half years and back

It has been two and half years since I last updated this blog and I thought it about time to restart my reports on H5N1. H5N1 is not making big headlines as it once did, people are more concerned with the credit crunch just now. However, H5N1 has not gone away and it lurks in the shadows as threat that could strike anytime. Two and a half years later I am surprised that H5N1 has not become a pandemic yet; but H5N1 still continues to cause problems in Asia and the Middle East, there is no effective drugs and it appears impossible to eliminate. More than ever in a world suffering social and economic hardship from the credit crunch, an H5N1 pandemic could prove to be a nightmare.

H5N1 shows increasing resistance to drugs

A recent study by the University of Colorado, USA as reported by scientistalive.com reports that H5N1 is showing increasing resistance to antiviral drugs known as adamantanes. This resistance was down to Chinese farmers adding the drug to chicken feed.