Jul 22, 2010
Asian nations call for pandemic phase change
Health ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) today during a retreat in Singapore called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to review its current pandemic alert level, Xinhua, China's state news agency, reported. They said flu activity has reached the post-pandemic phase and that future assessments should account for severity or virulence. The request comes a day after the WHO announced it was waiting on clearer signals from the Southern Hemisphere and other areas.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/health/2010-07/22/c_13410556.htm
Jul 22 Xinhua story
Google tool tracked well with European flu surveillance
Google Flu Trend (GFT) monitoring during the H1N1 pandemic in Europe correlated well with peaks in sentinel physician network surveillance in several countries, according to a report today. The authors suggested that GFT could be a useful adjunct to other systems because it provides a more rapid estimate that is most relevant in countries with large numbers of Internet users that perform regular Web searches. An earlier comparison of GFT and US flu data showed similar results.
http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=19621
Jul 22 Eurosurveillance report
Swine, avian N1 strains found sensitive to Tamiflu
Researchers studying influenza viruses of the N1 neuraminidase subtype (eg, H1N1, H5N1) in birds and pigs found resistance to the common antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu) to be low. For example, of 91 isolates collected from ducks, shorebirds, and gulls, 7 (7.7%) had reduced susceptibility to the drug but were susceptible to related antivirals zanamivir (Relenza) and peramivir. N1 strains from swine, birds, and humans formed the novel H1N1 flu that caused the current pandemic.
http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/short/JVI.00296-10v1?rss
Jul 21 J Virol abstract
