Live Flu Virus Found in Victims Blood

[moonstar]

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Live bird flu virus found in victim's blood

HELEN BRANSWELL

 

Canadian Press

 

Toronto — Live H5N1 avian flu virus can be isolated in the blood of its human victims, a finding that will be reported by Thai researchers in an upcoming issue of a scientific journal.

 

Evidence that H5N1 can spread via the bloodstream to parts of the body not normally attacked by influenza viruses confirms this particular flu strain poses special challenges for both patient treatment and infection control, experts say. It also raises theoretical questions about the safety of the donated blood system should H5N1 trigger a pandemic.

 

“This is the first report of a high amount of (H5N1) virus in blood in humans,” University of Ottawa virologist Earl Brown said of the findings, outlined in a letter slated for publication in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

 

“That's a bit surprising because blood is poisonous to flu virus. If you take any blood ... and add it to flu, you kill it (the virus). This showed that the virus was living in the blood,” said Dr. Brown, who was not an author of the letter.

 

While some types of viruses spread well in blood, cases of viremia — viral infection in the bloodstream — have only rarely been reported with influenza.

 

The researchers — from Chulalongkorn University, Srinakharinwirot University and the National Institute of Animal Health, all in Bangkok — reported on the case of a five-year-old Thai boy who died of H5N1 infection Dec. 7.

 

A blood sample drawn on the day he died contained high levels of live virus.

 

The finding helps to explain reports that some humans with H5N1 experience what is called systemic infection, with the flu virus spreading beyond its normal home in the respiratory track to organs that would typically go untouched by human flu viruses.

 

Other research groups have reported finding traces of H5N1's RNA in blood. Those findings were highly suggestive that the virus was using the bloodstream to disseminate throughout the body, but were not strong enough evidence to rule out that spread was actually occurring via other routes such as the lymphatic system.

 

Researchers at Oxford University's clinical research unit at the Hospital for Tropical Medicine in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, for instance, reported last year on a boy whose H5N1 infection spread to his brain, causing encephalitis.

 

The lead author of that report, virologist Menno de Jong, said his group has found viral RNA in the blood of about half of the H5N1 patients in which they've looked for it.

 

“It was really surprising for influenza, because the case reports of human influenza and viremia are so rare,” he said from Ho Chi Minh City.

 

“It's probably quite common in H5N1 infected patients.”

 

That poses challenges for treating patients infected with H5N1 because if the virus is spreading through the blood, so too must drugs that aim to combat the infection.

 

Currently there are only four flu antivirals on the market and one, zanamivir (sold as Relenza) is administered to the respiratory tract by inhalation. The drug would need to be formulated in an injectable form to be useful for systemic infection, Dr. de Jong said.

 

It also raises concerns about infection control for health-care workers and laboratory scientists coming in contact with the blood of H5N1 patients — although precautions against contact with blood are widespread as a consequence of years of experience with blood-borne infections like HIV and hepatitis C.

 

“I think for this kind of flu, infection control measures should include all bodily secretions, basically,” Dr. de Jong said.

 

The findings also raise questions about whether blood transfusions could be a source of infection if H5N1 were to become a pandemic strain.

 

Canadian Blood Services and the American Red Cross have been studying the issue, but currently it is believed that the risk is more theoretical than real, because influenza's incubation period is so short. Once people develop symptoms they would be unlikely to want to give blood and would probably be turned away if they showed up to a blood-donor clinic.

 

"From the blood-donor and blood-supply point of view, the issue would be whether there's virus in the blood before the patient becomes ill,” said Dr. Jeffrey McCullough, who holds an American Red Cross professorship in transfusion medicine at the University of Minnesota.

 

“Once you've got somebody that's sick, of course, they wouldn't be acceptable as a blood donor,” he said.

 

[Mother]

This is another wake up call for us preppers. If we are made to care for our family at home, without help from the medical community, then what,if anything can be given to combat this virus in the blood?????

 

I keep having the feeling (have had for months now, hense my push to get my family/friends to prepare also) that this whole issue is much bigger than the general public is seeing or being told. With the recent push to get people prepared I believe that there is more to this "pandemic" than first meets the eye. That it's not ONLY the pandemic that's at issue here. Does anyone else have any suspicions or ideas on this?

 

It's an awful feeling to be so paranoid

[PlanoPa]

You aren't alone...I got the same feeling that there is more going on behind the scenes than we are being told about...they dont want to wake up the sheeple...

 

Q

[gardnmom]

There are many reasons right now for pushing people to prepare. With the threats coming in from outside of possible boycots on goods and oil to all out war, the immigration issue, Tiawan being threatened. We as a people need to be ready. Most of our supplies now come from out of country, When you look at all the possibilities there is more reason than ever to get ready for problems.

[cartoongirl]

There is always much more going on behind the scenes.

 

The allmighty dollar....politics.

 

Speaking, illegal immigrants. IMO, this is why there are so many illegal immigrants, because the gov't let it happen. But that is a long story.

[PlanoPa]

Lois I couldn't agree with you more...DH and I have even started planting our own fruit trees, got a hand crank short wave radio...still stock food but now we have branched out into other areas after taking stock of what we have and looking at all the different problems so we could kind of figure what we would need. Like mother said in another post...we took stock of our lives, stopped and looked around us. What we see is a world in trouble. We do believe that BF will eventually get around to going h2h along with a host of other problems that we as a nation could face.

 

Q

[cartoongirl]

Q,

 

With time on our side we are getting there.

 

"Taking stock of your life". Like that.