H5n1

WASHINGTON -- As bird flu spreads more quickly than expected into Europe, the Food and Drug Administration announced measures yesterday to speed up the development and approval of new vaccines. The agency proposed the guidelines amid concerns about the ability of the United States to deal with an outbreak of an avian flu pandemic. Companies that make flu vaccines rely on a slow, egg-based process, and FDA officials expressed hope that the new guidelines would encourage other manufacturers to step in and use faster technologies to develop additional vaccines.

Official Washington is finally in a public tizzy over the possibility that a particularly deadly strain of avian flu could explode into a worldwide pandemic that could quickly take millions of lives here and around the globe -- just like the lethal 1918 flu outbreak. The heightened sense of alert is very much needed and long overdue -- but it should prompt aggressive and thorough preparations, not a wholesale invitation for deploying the U.S. military for civilian law enforcement, as President Bush suggested Tuesday.

LONDON -- British authorities confirmed yesterday that an outbreak of bird flu discovered among turkeys at a poultry farm in eastern Britain had been caused by the deadly A(H5N1) strain, which has killed humans in other parts of the world. The disease has killed 2,500 turkeys near Lowestoft since Thursday, making it the biggest outbreak of the strain reported in Britain since concern about its global spread began to take root in 2003. An additional 160,000 birds will be culled to prevent the disease from spreading to other locations, government officials said.

HONG KONG -- A yellow sign stenciled with interlocking black rings and a single word hangs over Kennedy F. Shortridge's laboratory. That word is "Biohazard.""In here," Shortridge said, opening the chrome door of an incubator, "we will grow the virus."Dozens of scientists around the world, principally in Hong Kong and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, are working feverishly to understand the new flu virus that has spread from chickens to humans here, so far killing two.The flu, called H5N1, is a previously unknown strain of influenza virus that has jumped directly from chickens to humans, a leap that apparently had not occurred in previous flu outbreaks.

WHEN FLU vaccine was in short supply last year, U.S. authorities took pains to ensure that the drug was given to the people who needed it the most. Unfortunately, the world is not acting quite so judiciously when it comes to the far deadlier threat posed by avian influenza. While there is no vaccine yet developed that can protect humans against the H5N1 virus, there are two antiviral drugs that could help treat avian flu in its early stages and prevent its spread. The best-known of these is oseltamavir, or Tamiflu.

The single most important thing that happened in Sino-American relations last week was not President Bush's third visit to Beijing, an all-too-limited exercise in bilateral diplomacy. It was not China's announced intention to buy $4 billion worth of Boeing aircraft at some point in the near future. Nor was it Chinese President Hu Jintao's somewhat vague vow to take steps to reduce Beijing's $200 billion annual trade surplus with Washington. Instead, the single most important bilateral development last week was China's quick, aggressive and unusually transparent response to outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu among its residents.

ROME --Defying the dire predictions of health officials, the flocks of migratory birds that flew south to Africa last fall, then back over Europe in recent weeks did not carry the deadly bird flu virus or spread it during their annual journey, scientists have concluded. International health officials had feared that the disease would spread to Africa during the southward migration and return to Europe with a vengeance during the reverse migration this spring. That has not happened, which is a significant finding for Europe because it is far easier to monitor a virus that exists domestically on farms but not in the wild.

Leonardtown -- These days, Maryland's front line of defense against an invasion of the deadly bird flu looks, quite literally, like a wild goose chase. On foot, in trucks and by boat, a team of biologists from the Department of Natural Resources is swooping down on flocks of geese to test them for avian influenza, specifically Asian H5N1, a strain that has caused the death of more than 100 people and millions of birds overseas. Wildlife experts suspect that if the deadly form of the virus enters this country, it will most likely be through birds that mingle in the arctic during the breeding season before returning to their wintering grounds.

WASHINGTON -- In an effort to head off an epidemic of dangerous bird flu, the nation's chicken farmers will immediately begin testing nearly all flocks for influenzas, an industry trade group announced yesterday. The National Chicken Council said that poultry-processing companies that control about 90 percent of the nation's chicken production had joined the program. By Jan. 16, they are to start testing about 1.6 million birds a year, said a council spokesman. A poultry expert, Dr. Carol Cardona, said the decision "makes perfect scientific sense" in that it creates a system for spotting mutating influenza strains and could help avert panics over routine flus that affect birds.

COLLEGE PARK - In a low-slung building far from virus-plagued Southeast Asia, scientists are leading a sweeping inquiry into the role that migratory waterfowl and other wild birds might play in spreading avian flu. The research is one groundbreaking aspect of a $5 million project intended to address some of the many unanswered questions about the virus. Avian flu resides harmlessly in the gut of ducks and other waterfowl but is capable of hopscotching into species such as chickens, pigs and-most worrysome-humans.