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Blobrana


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U.S. officials declared a public health emergency today over swine flu, now that 20 cases of the illness have been confirmed in the country, with 80 dead and 1,300 infected in Mexico.
Twenty cases -- in California, Kansas, New York, and Texas, none of them fatal -- may not sound like a lot, but Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acting director Richard Besser told reporters in Washington, DC, that is probably just the beginning.

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Blobrana


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A deadly strain of flu that combines elements of swine, avian and human viruses appears to have begun to spread around the world after emerging simultaneously in Mexico and the United States.

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Blobrana


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RE: Influenza
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A new flu virus suspected of killing at least 60 people in Mexico has the potential to become a pandemic, the World Health Organisation's chief says.
Margaret Chan said the outbreak was a "health emergency of international concern" and must be closely monitored.

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Blobrana


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Strep infections and not the flu virus itself may have killed most people during the 1918 influenza pandemic, which suggests some of the most dire predictions about a new pandemic may be exaggerated, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
The findings suggest that amassing antibiotics to fight bacterial infections may be at least as important as stockpiling antiviral drugs to battle flu, they said.

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Blobrana


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Scientists isolate genes that made 1918 flu lethal
By mixing and matching a contemporary flu virus with the "Spanish flu" - a virus that killed between 20 and 50 million people 90 years ago in history's most devastating outbreak of infectious disease - researchers have identified a set of three genes that helped underpin the extraordinary virulence of the 1918 virus.

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Blobrana


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Scientists say they have identified a key reason why bird flu has so far not posed a widespread menace to humans.
So far, the H5N1 strain has mainly infected birds and poultry workers, but experts fear the virus could mutate to pass easily from human to human.
However, Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that to enter human respiratory cells the virus must first pick a very specific type of lock.
The study appears in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

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Blobrana


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A further 68,000 birds are being slaughtered on a sixth poultry farm in Suffolk in a bid to control the outbreak of bird flu in the region.
Defra officials say the latest cull - more than double the other five combined - is precautionary and falls within the existing surveillance zone.
The move comes amid fears that workers at the farm have travelled to other farms that are deemed a flu risk.

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Blobrana


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UK bird flu is H5N1 strain
UK government vets confirm the bird flu virus found at a turkey farm in Suffolk is the deadly H5N1 strain.

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Blobrana


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About 5,000 birds are being slaughtered after avian flu was confirmed in turkeys on a Suffolk farm, government officials have announced.
The H5 strain was found in turkeys at Redgrave Park Farm near Diss, England. All birds on the farm, which include ducks and geese, are to be slaughtered.
A 3km protection zone and a 10km surveillance zone have been set up.
The government could not yet confirm if the birds had the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain

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Blobrana


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It sounds like a campy ‘50s horror movie (“It Came from the Ice!”), but a Bowling Green State University biologist believes it's a very real possibility. Dr. Scott Rogers is talking about the potential for long-dormant strains of influenza, packed in ice in remote global outposts, to be unleashed by melting and migratory birds.

"We've found viral RNA in the ice in Siberia, and it's along the major flight paths of migrating waterfowl," whose pathways take them to North America, Asia and Australia, and interconnect with other migratory paths to Europe and Africa, explains Rogers.

Viruses, he says, can be preserved in ice over long periods of time, then released decades later when humans may no longer be immune to them. For instance, survivors of the worldwide flu pandemic of 1918 had immunity to the responsible strain—called H1N1—but that immunity has died with them, meaning a recurrence "could take hold as an epidemic."

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