Scientists Fight Back Against H5N1 Avian Flu

For several months now, poultry experts have also been using Google Earth, which combines satellite imagery, maps and the company’s search engine to span the globe. It provides added details including the location of buildings, schools and roads in proximity to large chicken and turkey farms and production facilities.

“Twenty years ago, we had to drive around the countryside and find the chicken farm that reported a disease,” Davison says in an interview with Reuters. “Now, we can very quickly, within an hour, know exactly how many farms are in an (affected) area. Then we can know which farms to send teams for extra sampling.”

Other industries are supplying weaponry for the fight as well. At press time, PowerderMed Ltd, an Oxford, U.K. based pharmaceutical firm, announced that it had formulated a safe experimental flu vaccine that blasts tiny particles into the skin instead of using a needle. The company said it would move into bigger tests of its vaccine, which uses DNA from the flu virus to stimulate immunity. In an article penned for the journal, Vaccine, PowderMed scientists said the vaccine stimulated an immune response in all 36 volunteers. Based on these results, PowderMed will start phase II studies using both annual and bird flu strains later this year.

A finished product, however, is still years away.

At the same time, Roy Curtiss, a researcher at Arizona State University (Phoenix), is trying to figure out if he can make a Salmonella-laced cocktail as a vehicle for an AI vaccine. A genetically modified strain of Salmonella, he says, would not cause poisoning. Instead, it would be capable of inducing immunity in the airways and other key parts of the body susceptible to flu viruses.

Federal health officials will have proverbial suits of armor in the AI fight. DuPont (Wilmington, Del.) has been asked to provide USDA with approximately 75,000 DuPont Tychem garments that workers will don before handling infected game and poultry. DuPont Tychem garments are used for protection against a range of chemicals. The garment is worn in a variety of industries — including environmental cleanup operations, hazardous response and waste management.

There is also a combat cache for chicks, too. Log on to VWR International’s Web site to order the Avian Rhinotracheitis (ART) Flockscreen kit ($527.11) and a visitor will find a message with a hint of urgency: “This item is restricted for purchase to customers with an established account and the proper documentation on file.”

The West Chester, Pa.-based supplier also distributes the Microbix Pandemic Response Kit ($55), which features two respirators, a pair of safety glasses, 52 pairs of various nitrile gloves, a bottle of antiseptic hand spray and a user manual. The technology to combat bird flu gets down right space-age, too.

Paris-based AirInSpace says its Plasmer technology makes the virus vanish.

According to the company, an independent review at the Laboratory of Virology and Viral Pathogenesis in Lyon, France, tests showed complete elimination of highly concentrated airborne avian flu virus by the Plasmer reactor, a biological air decontamination technology that is based on non-thermal plasma and amplified electrical fields to destroy airborne pathogens.

The technology was originally used to protect astronauts and equipment in the international space station. It has recently been adapted for use in critical care centers to protect immune-compromised patients suffering from blood disease and cancer and to improve air quality in operating theaters to fight against nosocomial infections.

The defenses may sound desperate, yet such efforts are warranted, said David Nabarro, U.N. System Influenza Coordinator, before attendees and the bird flu conference in Rome.

“H5N1 means the engagement of all the countries of the world through political machinery to deal with avian influenza,” he says. “We’ve got to be prepared for the possibility of re-introduction of H5N1 into poultry populations anywhere in the world at any time, and we’ve got to be prepared for that as long as the virus is circulating somewhere in wild birds or in commercial and domestic poultry.”