Yukon Kuskokwim Nushagak science

Native America Calling did a program today about MRSA so I figured I’d better finish this draft post. We had several people from Bethel call-in with good tips.

The TIME magazine article says the resistant bacteria are “racing across the US” but we have had a high prevalence here in the region for some time. It would be nice if someone could find the figures for the number of cases per capita per year, the trends over time, and just how sick people get.

Protection against acquiring the resistant infection is similar to that of protecting against H5N1—wash your hands, maintain your health. If we reduce our disease load (morbidity), for example, lessen the number of MRSA cases, then we have a better chance of not getting as sick from any epidemic.

A nasty, drug-resistant staph infection–the kind usually seen in hospitals–is racing across the U.S.
By CHRISTINE GORMAN, Sunday, Jun 18, 2006,

“It has spread rapidly through parts of California, Texas, Illinois and Alaska and is beginning to show up in Pennsylvania and New York.

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What can be done to keep ahead of the Avian Flu?

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

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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 »

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.

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.

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If someone could help locally distribute the state’s Fish & Game pamphlet on what hunters should know, please contact Phil Perry at F&G in Bethel. Is there a store or post office or tribal office where people could come to pick up the pamphlets?

Local number for Phil is 543-2979. Toll free number in Alaska is 1-800-425-2979

What Hunters Should Know About Avian Influenza

This is contained in a pdf file, obtainable from the excellent US Fish & Wildlife website for Alaska issues. http://alaska.fws.gov/media/ avian_influenza/index.htm

Could someone please critique the research design and share its strengths and weaknesses?

Could someone or group translate the bird names into their local and scientific names?

The sampling document is here

SAMPLING PROTOCOL FOR HIGHLY PATHOGENIC ASIAN H5N1 AVIAN INFLUENZA IN MIGRATORY BIRDS IN ALASKA
Alaska Interagency HPAI Bird Surveillance Working Group, March 1, 2006

Here is the list of birds to be sampled–
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I would like to encourage a school class, maybe history or social studies or language, to collate the best suggestions from the published histories, so we could share them on this site. Here are some examples I had previously run across. Also a suggested reading list (see my comment on this post. Karen Fluegel’s reading list here) Pam

….Nowadays, many people believe that more children could have survived the epidemic, if their parents had known how to care for them. But because they had not encountered this kind of sickness before, many parents did not know what to do. For example, when temperatures of the children became extremely high, many parents did not attempt to cool them down. Some who did survive—and who are still alive today—may owe their survival to parents who had better information about how to care for them…. Lesson II: History of the Cup’ik People

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I know that US Fish & Wildlife Service is asking for help fom hunters. I cannot find the announcement on the FWS website, but here is the contact info for the scientist in charge.

Deborah Rocque
Environmental Contaminants Specialist
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Fisheries and Habitat Conservation
1011 E. Tudor Road
Anchorage, AK 99503 Phone: (907) 786-3398
Fax: (907) 786-3350
Email: deborah_rocque AT fws DOT gov
http://alaska.fws.gov/internettv/fisheriestv/contaminantstv/directory.htm