Breakthroughs In Bird Flu Vaccine

Researchers in Japan said yesterday they had developed a flu vaccine that works against multiple viruses and could prevent a deadly pandemic of bird flu mutations. Image Credit: Hokkaido University, Saitama Medical University, and NOF Corp.

Breakthroughs In Bird Flu Vaccine

The process of producing a vaccine to counter the spread of influenza is a tricky business.

Global trends must be analyzed, three separate strains of the current, most prolific flu virus must be chosen, and enough vaccine prepared months in advance of that year’s flu season in order to have ample supplies in stock to be distributed nationwide.

Once this effort has been put forth, there are no guarantees that the strains used to produce the vaccine will be the actual strains that spread illness during any given year.

Basically, this process has been a crap shoot … until now. A group of researchers in Japan has figured out a way to come up with a vaccine that will address all strains of influenza virus regardless of which one becomes the actual virus for that year.

A universal vaccine will guard against an Oblate Spheroid (world) wide pandemic.

About 250 people have died of avian flu since 2003. While only a small number of those cases were traced to human-to-human transmission, public health officials fear it's only a matter of time before the virus mutates into a more easily transmitted form and sparks a global outbreak. Image Credit: xenoMED

This excerpted and edited from medHeadlines -

Universal Flu Vaccine Breakthrough
medHeadlines, February 6, 2009

Researchers in Japan have announced a breakthrough that may put them one step closer to developing a universal flu vaccine.

Today’s flu vaccines target proteins on the outer surface of the virus, where mutations in the protein’s shape occur often and quickly. These mutations are one reason the vaccine and the virus actually wreaking havoc are not always a match.

The Japanese researchers looked inside the virus instead of outside it to find proteins that aren’t likely to mutate the way those on the outside do. The research team targeted three strains of the influenza virus for their study - the H5N1 bird flu, Hong Kong A, and Soviet A strains.

A commercially available universal flu vaccine is still years away as the research continues.
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Thus far, the universal vaccine has been tested on animals only.
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The Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry directed the research on the universal flu vaccine, with teams from its National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Hokkaido University, Saitama Medical University, and the chemical company, NOF Corporation, participating.
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A veterinarian vaccinates a duckling in Shangsi county of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, February. 4th. Central and local authorities have stepped up preventive measures against a bird flu outbreak. Image Credit: China Daily

About 250 people have died of avian flu since 2003, WHO figures showed.

Indonesia is the country worst-hit by avian influenza, with 115 deaths officially recorded since 2003. Five people have fallen victim in China this year.

Human victims consist mostly of people in close contact with sick birds.

There is no evidence so far that the deadly strain of bird flu has mutated into a form that could set off a pandemic.

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Gaps In Saturn’s Rings Formed By Flying Saucer Moons

The moon Pan lies in a gap in Saturn's A ring and Atlas lies just outside the A ring Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Colorado

Gaps In Saturn’s Rings Formed By Flying Saucer Moons

When one looks at Saturn, one is struck at how incredibly different it is to our Oblate Spheroid. It is truly spherical and it has a plate of material circling around it at it's equator. The plate, called rings, contains two very unique moons that are shaped like flying saucers.

The exploring satellite, Cassini, recently has given us clues as to how these moons were formed through its cameras.

The fact that the moons, Pan and Atlas are found in the gaps of the rings may give a clue to their unusual “flying saucer” shape.

This excerpted from the New Scientist -

Saturn's 'flying saucer' moons built of ring material
19:00 06 December 2007 - NewScientist.com news service, Maggie McKee

Saturn's moons Pan and Atlas may have formed in two stages - their cores may be remnants of the breakup of a large icy body early in the solar system's history and their ridges may have formed later, as the cores swept up material from Saturn's rings. The scenario might explain why the ridges appear smooth and the polar regions rough.

Two of Saturn's small moons look eerily like flying saucers, new observations by the Cassini spacecraft reveal. The moons, which lie within the giant planet's rings, may have come by their strange shape by gradually accumulating ring particles in a ridge around their equators.
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Both moons have a flattened shape, being wider than they are tall. But their uncanny resemblance to UFOs only became clear recently, when Cassini viewed them with its powerful cameras.
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The images revealed that the smooth ridges girdling the moons' equators lie in the same plane as Saturn's rings and are also as thick as the vertical distance that the moons appear to travel as they move through the rings.

An animation shows how Saturn's moons Pan and Atlas grew by sweeping up particles from Saturn's rings. Animation Video Credit: Courtesy of CEA/ANIMEA

Now, scientists led by Sébastien Charnoz of the University of Paris in France have run computer simulations suggesting that these ridges are made of material swept up from Saturn's rings.
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The origin of the planet's famous rings is still a mystery. But one theory suggests that early in the solar system, one or more large, icy bodies broke up near the planet, creating detritus that then settled into flat rings.

If that is so, Pan and Atlas's cores may have been fragments of this breakup. After the rings flattened into a plane, ring particles may have fallen onto the moons, building up equatorial ridges. The ridges "could be considered as 'fossilised' accretion discs that once may have surrounded Pan and Atlas", the researchers write in the journal Science.

The process probably stopped long ago, since the moons' current orbits are thought to prevent the tenuous material still remaining around them to settle onto their surfaces.
Reference Here>>

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Tick, Tick, Tick, - Indo H5N1 Death Toll To 74

It is now against the law to raise poultry in residential areas in Indonesia. Many wonder how authorities are going to police this new regulation, given that over 30 million families have poultry in their backyard. Image Credit: New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV)

Tick, Tick, Tick, - Indo H5N1 Death Toll To 74

Last month, Indonesia had five deaths tied directly to the Avian bird flu virus (H5N1). This makes this country the deadliest of all countries with deaths from the transference of the flu disease from birds.

It is now only one full week into April and already two deaths have been recorded in this hot spot for bird flu transference activity.

Excerpts from Medical News Today (UK) -

Indonesian Bird Flu Human Death Toll Reaches 74
Avian Flu News - Article Date: 07 Apr 2007 - 8:00 PDT

A 29-year-old man died of H5N1 bird flu infection, Indonesian authorities have confirmed today - the 74th human to die of bird flu infection in the country. The man came from Central Java province. According to authorities, he had been in close contact with infected poultry prior to becoming ill.
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Scientists fear that the H5N1 bird flu virus strain will eventually mutate and become easily human transmissible. This has not happened yet. Humans do not catch bird flu from birds easily - it is extremely rare for one person to infect another person.

One way H5N1 could mutate might be by infecting a person who is ill with the normal human flu virus. The bird flu virus would then have the opportunity to exchange genetic information with the human flu virus and acquire its ability to spread easily from human-to-human (become easily human transmissible). If this happened we could be facing a serious (global) flu pandemic.
Reference Here>>

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