Bird flu danger looms greater than before next spring

New human infections emerge especially in Indonesia

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Avian influenza or bird flu appears to be more widespread now than it was in the spring. The disease has been diagnosed Egypt and in several other African countries, as well as in Asia and parts of South Russia. There are fears that it could be carried to Finland by migratory birds in the spring.
      To prevent the virus from taking hold in the spring of 2007, the precautions that were implemented earlier this year to prevent its spread are to be repeated in the coming months.
      Bird flu does not spread among humans yet, but the risk that the virus might mutate into a strain that does so remains a big concern. New branches of the H5N1 virus are spreading in Southeast Asia, and Finland might have to change the vaccine that it has ordered.
     
As many as 111 people have caught the H5N1 virus, and 75 have died. A total of 258 human infections and 153 deaths have been recorded since 2003.
      No end is currently in sight for the trend; eleven new cases and 13 deaths were confirmed in Indonesia in four weeks in the autumn, according to the World Health Organisation.
      The New England Journal of Medicine wrote on Thursday that it is likely that the H5N1 virus will again spread this winter, and that human infections will increase.
     
The bird disease seems to be coming closer to Finland. In Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, and Belarus, sick birds have been found since July. The danger that the virus might be brought to Finland by migratory birds is perhaps even greater next spring than previously.
      "The same measures will be in use that we had last spring, because they proved to be effective", says Matti Aho of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Therefore, poultry will be kept indoors during the spring migration, and when they are let out of doors, they are not be allowed to come in contact with wild water fowl.
      The fight against the virus is being made more difficult by the rapid changes in the bird flu virus. A month ago it was reported in the scientific journal Pnas that a branch of H5N1 virus which is immune to the current vaccine is spreading rapidly in China. China has not confirmed the report, but Matti Aho sees no reason to doubt it.
      "We are hectically following events in Southeast Asia", says Reijo Pyhälä, head of the Influenza Laboratory of the National Public Health Institute. "If the branch that is becoming more common in China gets the upper hand, the composition of the model vaccine for humans will have to be changed."
      The World Health Organisation is developing a virus from the new branch which would be appropriate for the production of a human vaccine. Pyhälä feels that it is most likely that a variation that can spread from one person to another, and thus cause a global pandemic, will emerge in Indonesia, where half of the new human infections have been recorded.
     
Finland is continuing to prepare for a pandemic. Such measures are considered necessary even if bird flu does not spread here, notes Merja Saarinen of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.
      A proposal for a national readiness plan is getting its final touches, and municipalities and health care districts are drawing up their own plans.
      "The work will not go to waste, because it will help in coping with other new and sudden diseases", Saarinen points out. One such disease was SARS, from three years back.
      Flu medications, which stay fresh for several years, have been stockpiled for the needs of all Finns. Finland has also ordered a model vaccine which will be ready next year or the year after. Its composition was altered last spring, and it will have to be modified later as well.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Dead birds in Turku archipelago did not fall victim to avian flu (11.5.2006)

Helsingin Sanomat