Bird Flu - Archives
October 14th - October
18th, 2005
Now Greece?
Greece has confirmed a bird flu outbreak at one of its Aegean islands.
It will be a week before the strain of the virus is known.
October 18th,
2005
Looking for Profits in
Bird Flu
Reuters features an article on currency traders and their outlook on how
a bird flu panic might affect currency movements. The main points:
"Speculators are
already looking at this," said Craig Russell, senior foreign exchange dealer
at Alaron FX in Chicago. "Negative news is a chance to make a profit. People
will short the currency." Shorting is where an investor borrows a currency
and sells it, betting he will be able to profit by repaying the loan with
currency bought at a lower price….
The expectation is
for an initial knee-jerk reaction in the currency of a country where any
human epidemic breaks out, but that afterwards the currencies of countries
most dependent on international trade and travel would be hit hardest. "I
can't imagine it's good for any currency but the Aussie and kiwi dollars
bear the brunt of global risk events," said Michael Jansen, currency
strategist at National Australia Bank in New York. Investors see the
fortunes of the Australian and New Zealand dollars as sensitive to even
slight changes in global economic growth as they are commodity-based
currencies, whose economies are heavily reliant on international trade….
"Since it is
impossible to predict when and with what magnitude such a pandemic would
hit, the only thing that would be fairly certain is that the market would
experience increased volatility until the uncertainty of the situation wore
off," said Global Forex Trading chief currency dealer Kurt Hoeksema….
If a bird flu virus
were to infect significant proportions of the global population even
safe-haven currencies and securities like the Swiss franc and U.S. Treasury
bonds might come under pressure, analysts said. Then "we could potentially
see an outflow from currency markets and into commodities such as gold for a
short period of time as they could potentially be viewed as a currency
substitute/store of value," said George Davis, chief technical analyst at
RBC Capital Markets in Toronto.
The
Motley Fool
investor website also carries a report (registration – which is free – is
required) on stocks that could benefit. They are Roche Holdings, Gilead
Sciences, Biota Holdings, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi-Aventis. No surprises
there.
October 18th,
2005
Generic Tamiflu
The Taiwanese Department
of Health has
written
to Roche requesting negotiations on the generic production of Tamiflu.
Meanwhile, Thailand is apparently
going ahead
with its own production, without consulting Roche.
October 18th,
2005
Thumbs Up for Tamiflu
An
Aussie scientist has said Tamiflu will likely be effective against any
bird flu that hits Australia.
Professor
Bill Rawlinson, a virologist from the Prince of Wales Hospital, said there
was no need for people to panic that Tamiflu was no longer an effective
vaccine….A bird flu outbreak in Australia would be the result of a new
strain able to spread from humans to humans, and such a strain was more
likely than not to be sensitive to Tamiflu, he said. Australian health
officials have stockpiled Tamiflu, as well as a similar drug, Relenza.
Professor Rawlinson said any strain of flu resistant to Tamiflu was likely
to also be resistant to Relenza. "If bird flu comes to Australia, it is
possible that resistance will be a problem - but it is unlikely," he said.
October 17th,
2005
Will We All Die?
Is there a vaccine
and how can I get it F-A-S-T?
Don’t hold your
breath (unless there’s a chicken about).
So says an
amusing and lengthy report in Britain’s
The
Sunday Times,
titled “How to Survive Bird Flu” and sub-titled “The deadly H5N1 virus is
heading our way. Will we all die?”
It carries
a lot of practical information, and ends with reassurance:
DON’T PANIC JUST YET
We humans love to
scare ourselves, but rarely do our worst fears come to be — partly because
we worry so much. Consider these scares of the past…
Here’s the
list:
Global nuclear holocaust
Global cooling
The millennium bug
Mad Cow disease
Anthrax
SARS
October 16th, 2005
Tamiflu Update
First we hear
that several companies plan generic versions of Tamiflu. Now we learn that
there’s
not enough star anise.
Production of Tamiflu,
made by the Swiss company Roche, is being hampered by a shortage of star
anise, a star-shaped fruit grown in China and the source of shikimic acid
from which Tamiflu is made in a year-long process. Ninety per cent of the
harvest is already used by Roche.
October 16th, 2005
Romania Gets
Tough
Romania has
launched a
massive
poultry cull, after confirmation that bird flu discovered in the country
was H5N1. The village where the virus was discovered has been isolated, and
authorities are also creating a buffer zone of four counties. Pigs are being
rounded up, and hunting has been banned.
October 16th, 2005
Bird Flu Hits
Europe
Here in
Melbourne,
The Age newspaper reports that an
outbreak of bird flu in Romania is H5N1, according to the Romanian state
veterinary authority.
October 15th, 2005
The Headline
Says It All
“Bird
Flu Virus That Is Drug-Resistant Is Found in Vietnamese Girl”
Washington Post
In other drug
developments:
The
Philippine Department of Health has urged local drug manufacturers to
try to make their own versions of Tamiflu. “[Health Undersecretary Alex]
Padilla said the
Bureau of Food and Drugs would issue a certificate of product registration
authorizing the sale of a locally produced vaccine in the Philippine market.
‘It’s up to (Roche) to file a complaint.’”
Sanofi-Pasteur is to begin clinical trials in (northern) spring 2006 of
its vaccine.
Two bloggers,
Stephen Gordon and
Andrew Sullivan, call for Roche to be forced to allow generic production
of Tamiflu. Says Sullivan: "We have no time to waste."
October 15th, 2005
Indian Company
to Make Generic
Tamiflu
Cipla,
India’s third-largest drugs manufacturer, says it plans to start producing a
generic version of Tamiflu. The company says it has finished reverse
engineering the drug, and believes it can have small commercial quantities
available as early as January. This is despite claims from Roche, holder of
the Tamiflu patent, that it could three years for another company to be able
to produce the drug.
October 14th, 2005
Bird Flu and
the Stock Market
The
Wall Street Journal has presented an investor’s guide to stocks that
might benefit from their exposure to bird flu. The obvious name is, of
course, Swiss company Roche Holdings, which makes Tamiflu, and whose shares
have climbed 15% in three months. However, the article has put the spotlight
on the small Australian company Biota Holdings, which makes the anti-viral
drug Relenza. Biota shares have quadrupled in three months. Two other
companies involved in bird flu vaccine developments are Sanofi-Aventis SA
and Chiron Corporation. Also mentioned in the article is Gilead Sciences,
which developed Tamiflu with Roche. Finally, the article highlights Korean
kimchi (hot pickled cabbage) manufacturer Pulmuone. Some reports suggest
that kimchi might help ward off flu infections.
October 14th, 2005
Vaccine Update
New
Scientist has placed online a lengthy article on bird flu vaccine
developments. It repeats what has already been said, that even if a vaccine
is developed, it may not be possible to produce enough. The article also
points to commercial and political obstacles. Its conclusion:
If the political will
were there, we could already be taking steps to protect ourselves against
the first wave. When researchers at the vaccine maker Chiron tested the
blood of people who had received an experimental vaccine against a 1997
strain of H5 bird flu, they found it cross-reacted strongly with the H5 flu
that killed people in Vietnam last year. This raises hopes that a vaccine
against 2004 or even 1997 H5, say, might work against an H5 pandemic strain,
even if it differs slightly. "We are confident that a vaccine is feasible
even if it is not fully matched to the pandemic strain, as long as there is
a strong adjuvant," Giuseppe del Giudice of Chiron told New Scientist. While
it may not protect 100 per cent, it might mean that H5 does not kill so many
people. And it would act as a "priming" dose, meaning people would later
require only one shot of vaccine matched to the pandemic strain.
October 14th, 2005
North Korea
Knows That Transparency Necessary
WHO
Director-General and Korean national
Lee Jong-wook has told a Seoul press conference that North Korea was
well aware of the threat posed by bird flu.
"When an
avian influenza outbreak was reported in the North last time, we told
Pyongyang that sharing information with WHO and receiving our
medication and equipment would help them," Dr. Lee said. "North Korea knows that it has to handle the case transparently."
In March,
North Korea
reported that it had culled hundreds of thousands of chickens after a
bird flu outbreak at “two or three” farms, including Hadang farm in
Pyongyang, one of the capital city's largest. It did not specify the strain
of flu, but asked
for international assistance. North and South Korean officials have held
government-level talks on the problem. Such meetings are rare, and it
suggests that
North Korea
takes the bird flu threat seriously. In July it was reported that North
Korea had
successfully ended the outbreak, which it said was of the H7 strain.
October 14th, 2005
Roche to Boost
Tamiflu Production
Roche has taken steps to boost production of Tamiflu. However,
the 12
months it takes to make Tamiflu means governments that have yet to order
will have to wait, Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche Holding AG said
Wednesday…."We asked governments several years ago to make Tamiflu orders
for pandemic purposes well in advance," Roche spokesman Alexander Klauser
told The Associated Press. "We explained the procedure to them, how it works
and that we had to start production well in advance or we wouldn't be able
to produce Tamiflu in the required amounts on time."…Roche said there are 10
complex steps to make Tamiflu and it would be unrealistic to outsource the
complete procedure, as outside companies would need up to three years to set
up production as well as gain the capacity and know-how.
October 14th, 2005
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