Wednesday, April 25th, 2018 - When
a deadly avian flu outbreak threatened the nation's poultry industry in 2015, Purdue Veterinary Medicine faculty member Pat Wakenell was at the forefront of efforts to contain the spread of the disease.
Not exact matches
The risk to the public from the outbreak of the
deadly H5N1 strain of
avian bird
flu in Suffolk is «negligible», environment secretary David Miliband has insisted.
Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in Minneapolis, points out that the 2004 document was based on input from an international panel of 22 scientists and public - health officials, in response to the threat of the
deadly H5N1
avian flu virus.
Investigators found four other incidents in the past decade when
deadly pathogens were mishandled, including an event in March when a sample of the
avian flu strain H5N1 was contaminated with a more lethal strain and accidentally shipped to a USDA lab without proper protections.
Last week, two more problems came to light: a recent CDC shipment of
flu samples contaminated with the
deadly H5N1
avian influenza and the discovery of smallpox vials from 1954 in a government lab at the National Institutes of Health.
It was sparked by ongoing worries about experiments in which researchers modify H5N1 bird
flu and other
deadly avian strains to learn what mutations might help them to spread among humans.
So far, the killer virus looks like a run - of - the - mill swine
flu, not an
avian virus as some virologists had suspected — leaving scientists to wonder why the strain was so
deadly.
The call for the moratorium and summit follows months of rising tension over two studies that describe how researchers made the
deadly H5N1
avian influenza more transmissible between mammals — possibly providing a blueprint on how to set off a
flu pandemic.
Deadly H5N1
avian flu, long entrenched in Asian poultry, has terrified public health experts ever since it killed a Hong Kong boy in 1997.
The
flu incident occurred in March when a sample of a relatively benign
avian flu was accidentally contaminated with a
deadly influenza strain at a CDC lab before being sent out.
In a recent development, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was forced to admit that a patented liquid silver solution called Axen30TM when used as a surface disinfectant had the ability to kill multiple strains of MRSA plus additional
deadly pathogens such as
Avian Influenza A (Bird
Flu), Human Corona virus (SARS), Feline Calicivirus (Norovirus), Rotavirus, Campylobacter jjejuni and Acinetobacter baumannii.
It's worth pondering this question anew, given the debate that's erupted over efforts to limit publication of details of new research producing a
deadly strain of the H5N1
avian flu virus that's transmissible in ferrets, which are a research stand - in for humans.