This is the famous National Geographic map, used by the US District Court, to try to give some familiar context to the distances in Alaska. The Yukon Kuskokwim delta is about western Kansas / eastern Colorado.
You can call the CDC Flu Information Hotline (English and Spanish) at: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic/
800-CDC-INFO (800-232-4636)
888-232-6348 (TTY)
cdcinfo@cdc.gov
In Alaska, if you see a group of dead or sick birds, especially if something you notice seems unusual, call 1-866-5-BRDFLU, (1-866-527-3358). 14apr2006 revised state alert notice To report dead or sick birds, where no obvious cause is apparent, call the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hotline at 1-866-5-BRDFLU (1-866-527-3358). Do not handle birds found sick or dead!
14apr2006—
For public health questions, human health concerns or planning for pandemic flu, call 1-888-9Panflu (1-888-972-6358) or Anchorage residents can call the local line: (907) 334-2292.
Safe food preparation by calling the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 1-888-MPHotline (1-888-674-6854).
The bartailed godwit will be sampled this spring.
The East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF) stretches from central Siberia to Alaska, down through Asia and across the Pacific to Australia and New Zealand. Holding around 7 million shorebirds, it is one of the smaller of the world’s major flyways, but is poorly known and highly threatened through reclamation on the staging grounds. This site highlights the research into the biology of migratory shorebirds being undertaken at the southern end of the flyway, in New Zealand….
These business card sized information cards take up less scarce bulletin board space than flyers and less counter or desk space. They are cheaper to mail out, too.
These are MS Word files with information formatted for standard business cards, Avery Label 5762.
This file has the front information.
Bird Flu card front
This file has the backside information, websites to start with.
Bird Flu card back
Let me know of any changes needed.
In addition to describing hoaxes and chain letters found on the Internet, we will discuss how to recognize hoaxes, what to do about them, and some of the history of hoaxes on the Internet.
Hoaxbusters has references to other sites including Read the rest of this entry »
The New England Journal of Medicine, March 30, 2006
Safety and Immunogenicity of an Inactivated Subvirion Influenza A
(H5N1) Vaccine, J.J. Treanor and Others [Free full text of this article]
Vaccines against Avian Influenza — A Race against Time G.A. Poland, [Free full text of this article]
New England Journal of Medicine March 30, 2006 editorial (retrieved 2006mar29)
The editorial has useful references for the Congressional study and definition of pandemic. Pam Read the rest of this entry »
This is an interesting news article which discusses how the avian flu may or may not become human H5N1, and the latest scientific discussion about what is known.
March 28, 2006
Making a Ferret Sneeze for Hints to the Transmission of Bird Flu
By DENISE GRADY” Read article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/28/science/28viru.html
Vern C. McCorkle and the Alaska Business Monthly has published an excellent think piece for businesses to consider. It’s in the March 2006 issue, pages 28-31. Unfortunately, it isn’t available on-line and all their own reprints are gone already (500!).
However, the publisher has kindly provided a pdf file version. If you can’t find a copy of the magazine article to reprint, let me know. I’m trying to find someone who can reprint the file and distribute copies to regional businesses, so it is easier for us locally to get a copy to read.
In the same issue is a related story by Deborah J. Myers, pages 68 to 71—
A Healthy Workplace: Employees need to be proactive in their diets and preventive care to remain healthy and to help their businesses remain profitable.
Obtain a copy from the locations in the comments. If that isn’t possible, please let me know.
Pam
Site Search Tags:
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Technorati Tags:
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The site views best with Opera or Firefox and not with Internet Explorer. Until I can fix the problem, only two posts will be visible at a time. This enables those of you using the Microsoft Browser to find the welcome page.
I am trying a different “theme” for the site. I have now increased the number of posts visible on any one page.
Thank you for your patience. Sorry it looks bad in MSIE.
Pam
By Laine Welch, March 25, 2006 Saturday
http://www.sitnews.us/LaineWelch/032506_fish_factor.html
FEDS SAY STOCKPILE CANNED TUNA - As more countries mobilize to prepare for potential outbreaks of bird flu, U.S. officials are telling Americans to stockpile canned tuna! … Leavitt told the conference audience, “When you go to the store and buy three cans of tuna, buy a fourth and put it under the bed. After four to six months, you’ll have a few of weeks of food.” (He also recommended stockpiling powdered milk.)….
Clearly, it would have been more politically correct for a government spokesman to include other canned fish in his recommendations.
http://declanbutler.info/Flumaps1/avianflu.html
Google Earth maps of avian flu spread put together by Declan Butler. He’s a journalist with Nature magazine, an international scientific journal similar to Science. I don’t have a computer new enough or an Internet connection fast enough to try these maps out, but most schools should be able to. He explains how he developed these maps. He also has links to other H5N1 maps.
Blog: http://declanbutler.info/blog/
Nature: http://www.nature.com
Here are some of the preparedness checklists from www.pandemicflu.gov, but transformed so they can be localized. The schools checklist was discussed earlier. The documents are in MS Word 97 file formats. Read the rest of this entry »
By ANN POTEMPA, Anchorage Daily News
Read the article here —
http://www.adn.com/life/story/7564836p-7476103c.html
Published: March 25, 2006, Last Modified: March 25, 2006 at 02:53 AM
About 40 biologists from throughout the state came to Anchorage Friday to learn how to test wild birds in Alaska for H5N1, the bird flu strain that’s killed birds and people in Asia and beyond….
This is a one-page summary graphic of the virus, historical influenza pandemics, and flyways. Nicely done, but in pdf format.
On the move File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat -
Lorena Iñiguez. Los Angeles Times. Hippocrates describes a disease that is … The virus, they believe, is being spread by wild birds as they travel along …
Sources: American Scientist, Institute of Medicine, Lancet, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wetlands International, World Health Organization Graphics reporting by Rosie Mestel, Tom Reinken and Karen Kaplan
Today is World TB Day. Many people in our area remember the TB impacts and prevention of their childhood. Some of the lessons learned then will be useful in preparing for any new pandemic. Unfortunately, younger people do not know that history; others have forgotten it. Remember the caution not to spit? Now that it is still sub-zero temperatures, check out the funny-looking little cones of ice in the AC store parking lot. Pam
Virulent Drug-Resistant TB Strain Emerges
By Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff Writer
March 24, 2006 Read the rest of this entry »
This reference comes from the excellent The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2006. http://scout.wisc.edu/ The Scout Report (ISSN 1092-3861) is published every Friday of the year except the last Friday of December by the Internet Scout Project, located in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Computer Sciences. It is a refereed listing of Internet sources of science, math, and engineering information. Pam
5. The Deadly Virus: The Influenza Epidemic of 1918 [pdf] Read the rest of this entry »
Karen Fluegel, former teacher at the Moravian Children’s Home and retired manager of the Moravian Book Store, recommends reading these books. They should be available at the Kuskokwim Consortium Library.
by Robert Fortuine. 1989. Publisher: University of Alaska Press. ISBN: 0912006587 (an excellent book)
by Susan Meredith with Kitty Gair and Elaine Schwinge. 1998. Published by Alaska Public Health Nurses Assoc. (about the ship of nurses which visited Villages, 1946-48) 0-965984-91-5, http://www.uaf.edu/uapress/books/AlaskasSearchforaKiller.htm
by Otto George. Publisher: Oregon Historical Society (1978). ISBN: 0875950620 (based at Akiak PHS hospital before it moved to Bethel).
by Nancy Jordan. 1996. Publisher: Epicenter Pr. ISBN: 094539750X (first Alaska health commissioner).
This is a good general introduction. The scientific references (bibilography) are useful. He also mentions the important role of historical Alaska Native tissue samples from 1918.
Nicholls H (2006) Pandemic Influenza: The Inside Story. PLoS Biol 4(2): e50
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0040050
The origin of the 1918 pandemic strain, by contrast, has been harder to crack. Nearly a decade ago, Taubenberger and his colleagues made a real breakthrough; they found isolates of the 1918 pandemic virus in the formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded lungs of an American serviceman [5] (Figure 4). They subsequently retrieved further samples of this deadly virus from a second soldier and also from a flu victim exhumed from a frosty mass grave in Alaska. Since then, they carefully sequenced one gene after another until they completed the task last year [6].
Connotea is a free website to help researchers and clinicians manage and share information. http://www.connotea.org/
The information is primarily research papers, but also news. Anyone can search for keywords, such as “bird flu” or “H5N1″ or “immunity”. Similar keywords will also appear that you can also search. This is a good bibliographic research tool.
What are related tags?
It is useful in evaluating information and strategic planning to compare and contrast with what others are doing. This is what Minnesota has done to alert people about being prepared. The format of the information is similar to that of WHO (posted previosuly) and might be a useful model for our local planning.
Pam
Talking points’ on bird flu brought up
Crookston Daily Times - Crookston,MN,USA
from Google Alert for: alaska bird flu
By Natalie J. Ostgaard, City Editor
With reports that the avian flu will soon be hitting birds in North America, Polk County Public Health Director Sheri Altepeter said her agency was updated earlier this week with a wealth of information on the topic. A list of “public health talking points” covers “pretty much everything we know about this at this time,” she said.
Press release announcing publication of the research in Nature, a referreed journal. While the paper has been peer-reviewed before publication, the research also needs to be verified by other scientists. See also the BBC story here. Pam
Public release date: 22-Mar-2006
http://www.eurekalert.org/
Contact: Yoshihiro Kawaoka
608-265-4925
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Although more than 100 people have been infected with the H5N1 avian influenza virus, mostly from close contact with infected poultry, the fact that the virus does not spread easily from its pioneering human hosts to other humans has been a biomedical puzzle.
Read the rest of this entry »
This is a listing of people in our region or Villages who are the immediate contacts for information or to relay questions. Please keep in mind that many of them are full-time employees with their own work to do. Nevertheless they are willing to help as much as they can.
Governmental employees may refer you first to their official agency speakers or to their agency webpages for information (see the category info sources). [Although special appropriation of federal funds has been directed to each state for use in H5N1 bird monitoring, it isn’t yet being used for local offices or extra personnel out here.]
Please add additons or corrections in the comments box below.
I had to convert the government’s version into a format that we could use locally, in MS Word 97 format, as a table using standrd fonts. I stripped out the macros and other gew-gaws.
The copy is available from here .
This could be used as a starting point for localizing the checklist. Please evaluate this checklist. How can it be improved?
This is a great set of questions to start with in each village, which applies to other activities, not just schools. If people prepare a set of questions to ask of their communities, please share with the rest of us here.
I’ll look up the checklist for schools (Pandemic Flu school checklists: http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/tab5.html) and get it posted here.
Read the rest of the article here (because of copyright restrictions, entire copyrighted materials cannot be posted elsewhere on the Internet)–
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Wednesday, March 22, 2006; 7:48 AM
WASHINGTON — The nation’s schools, recognized incubators of respiratory diseases among children, are being told to plan for the possibility of an outbreak of bird flu.
Bird Flu: Communicating the Risk by Peter M. Sandman and Jody Lanard
2005 Perspectives in Health (Panamerican Health Organization), vol 10, No. 2, retrieved 18 March 2006.
Many experts believe that avian influenza is a time bomb for human health. But how to deal with the many uncertainties surrounding the issue? Two leading risk communication experts give their best advice on sounding the alarm about what might be the next great flu pandemic—or not.
