Wellicht kun je vragen of PerC6 met onderstaande van doen heeft?
By Randolph E. Schmid
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Amid dire warnings of a bird-flu pandemic, the government is preparing to test an experimental vaccine and is increasing disease surveillance in hopes of reducing the toll from any eventual American outbreak.
Antiviral drugs are being stockpiled, and 2 million doses of vaccine are being stored for possible emergency use and to test whether they maintain their potency.
United Nations officials warned yesterday that the Asian bird-flu outbreak poses the "gravest possible danger" of becoming a global pandemic.
Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the National Press Club this week that "it is a worrisome situation," although she also said the United States "is not immediately on the brink of an avian flu epidemic."
The flu has affected poultry in eight Asian countries, with 45 deaths among people who caught the illness, a strain known as H5N1. In most of the human cases, the virus appears to have been transmitted from poultry. There also have been documented cases of this strain of flu being transferred from person to person, Gerberding said, but the outbreak was not sustained,.
What health authorities most fear is that the virus will mutate into a form that can pass easily from one human to another.
The first doses of an experimental vaccine are almost ready for testing. The new vaccine was prepared in two different concentrations and will be shipped to the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases for trials, said Len Lavenda, a spokesman for the pharmaceutical firm Sanofi Pasteur.
In addition to the vaccine scheduled for trials, Sanofi Pasteur has produced 2 million doses of bulk avian-flu vaccine, Lavenda said. The vaccine is being monitored for potency, he said.
Lavenda said any decision on using it if avian flu should spread would be up to the government. NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said that vaccine could be available for emergency use if needed. CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said that agency has a stockpile of antiviral drugs that could be used in the event of a pandemic, depending on the virus that emerges.
The disease has appeared in poultry in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. In an effort to catch any U.S. cases early, the CDC has urged health officials, hospitals and doctors to ask about recent travel by people with flu symptoms.
It called for testing patients for the bird flu if they have been in an affected area within 10 days and have confirmed pneumonia or other severe respiratory problems. In addition, the CDC said, testing should be considered for patients with a temperature greater than 100.4 who have visited such countries, visited a poultry farm and have a cough, sore threat or shortness of breath.