The secret to curing those infected with avian influenza may lie in the blood of those who have survived the disease, new research shows.
According to a study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, antibodies from those who have survived bird flu could be used in blood plasma transfusions to help those trying to fight the disease.
Blood plasma transfusions were used by doctors during the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, and it is thought that the same technique could be used to supplement the use of vaccines or Tamiflu and other anti-virals in the event of an avian-influenza pandemic.
U.S. military and biotech researchers examined papers on blood plasma transfusions written between 1918 and 1925 and found that influenza-influenced pneumonia sufferers who were given blood plasma transfusions were 21 percent more likely to survive than those who were not. That figure jumped to 41 percent if the transfusion was administered in the first three days of infection.
Sixteen percent of those given the transfusions died, compared with 37 percent of those who were not.
It is not suggested that the use of blood plasma transfusions could replace anti-viral medication; in developing countries, however, where access to vaccines and anti-virals is limited, blood plasma transfusions could be an effective form of second-line defense.
Writing in Annals of Internal Medicine, the study's authors said: "Our analysis suggests that patients with Spanish influenza pneumonia who received transfusion ... may have experienced a clinically important reduction in the risk for death and improvements in clinical signs and symptoms."
The research was limited, however, by the fact that the studies that the researchers investigated used small sample groups and were poorly done by today's standards. Despite this, John Treanor wrote in an editorial accompanying the research, "the concept is important and it should be explored further, especially given our lack of proven interventions to prevent or treat illness due to H5N1 influenza."
--
Five people from Indonesia's Sulawesi Island have been admitted to hospital with possible bird flu.
Runizar Ruesin of the Indonesian Health Ministry said that samples from the patients -- from Palu, the province's capital -- had been sent to a government laboratory in Jakarta for testing but that they all showed symptoms of bird flu.
The Indonesian government has released no further details regarding the patients, the status of their health or whether they had come into contact with sick or dead birds prior to being admitted to hospital.
According to Zulkarnain Hassan of the Indonesian Agriculture Ministry's Avian Influenza Crisis Center, there have been recent outbreaks of avian influenza in birds in Palu and in other areas of the province.
--
Also in Indonesia, two people from West Java -- the worst-hit part of the country -- have been admitted to hospital after showing signs of avian influenza infection.
Seventeen-year-old Asep Ridwan was hospitalized Tuesday evening. He came from the Cikelan area of West Java, a region that has seen three bird-flu infections and three suspected deaths from bird flu in recent weeks.
There had been an outbreak of avian influenza in Ranca Salak, the hamlet where Ridwan lived, but it has yet to be established what contact, if any, Ridwan had with the birds before being admitted to hospital.
An unnamed 39-year-old man from Cigadog, a hamlet near to Ranca Salak, was admitted to the same hospital overnight with suspected avian influenza.
--
Vietnam's National Steering Board of Bird Flu Prevention (NBBFP) this week announced that newly hatched chicks were to be culled as a means of preemptively controlling the spread of avian influenza in the country.
There is already in place a ban, imposed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, on hatching chicks until February 2007. It was an earlier attempt to curtail the spread of avian flu, but is being widely ignored.
From Friday, all newly hatched chicks are to be culled. Chicks hatched prior to Sept. 1 must be vaccinated, or they too will be culled without compensation.
--
The strain of bird flu found in wild swans in Michigan earlier this month was not the deadly Asian strain, it has been confirmed.
Two mute swans were found on the shores of Lake Erie Aug. 14. Initial tests showed they had the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, but indicated that it was a low pathogenic strain.
Final tests conducted by the Department of Agriculture's National Veterinary Services Laboratories, in Ames, Iowa, confirmed the low pathogenicity of the strain.
