The Jim Bakker Show

Bird flu strikes Tennessee chickens again, in a less-dangerous form

The Avian influenza virus is harvested from a chicken egg as part of a diagnostic process in this undated U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) handout image. REUTERS / Erica Spackman / USDA / Handout via Reuters

By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A commercial flock of 17,000 chickens in Tennessee has been culled after becoming infected with low-pathogenic bird flu, state agricultural officials said on Thursday, days after a more dangerous form of the disease killed poultry in a neighboring county.

Authorities killed and buried chickens at the site in Giles County, Tennessee, “as a precaution” after a case of highly pathogenic flu in Lincoln County led to the deaths of about 73,500 chickens over the weekend, according to the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. It said officials did not believe birds at one premise sickened those at the other.

Highly pathogenic bird flu is often fatal for domesticated poultry and led to the deaths of about 50 million birds, mostly egg-laying hens, in the United States in 2014 and 2015. Low-pathogenic flu is less serious and can cause coughing, depression and other symptoms in birds.

The highly pathogenic case in Tennessee was the first such infection in a commercial U.S. operation in more than a year and heightened fears among chicken producers that the disease may return.

The spread of highly pathogenic flu could represent a financial blow for poultry operators, such as Tyson Foods Inc and Pilgrim’s Pride Corp, because it would kill more birds or require flocks to be culled. It also would trigger more import bans from other countries, after South Korea, Japan and other nations limited imports because of the case in Lincoln County.

Jack Shere, chief veterinary officer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said in an interview that there was speculation the highly pathogenic virus found in Tennessee shared similar characteristics with a low-pathogenic virus that circulated in Tennessee, Kentucky, Minnesota and Illinois in 2009.

Wild migratory birds can carry the flu without showing symptoms and spread it to poultry through feces, feathers or other contact.

“This virus can mutate very easily, so low-pathogenic issues are just as important – when they are circulating among the wild birds – as the high-pathogenic issues,” Shere said.

Both cases in Tennessee were located along the state’s southern border with Alabama, one of the country’s top producers of “broiler” chickens for meat. They also were both in facilities for chickens that bred broiler birds and involved the same strain, H7N9, according to Tennessee’s agriculture department.

The state said it was testing poultry within a 10-kilometer radius of the Giles County site for the flu and so far had not found any other sick flocks.

“When routine testing showed a problem at this facility, the operators immediately took action and notified our lab,” said Charles Hatcher, Tennessee’s state veterinarian.

H7N9 is the same name as a strain of the virus that has killed people in China, but U.S. authorities said the Tennessee virus was genetically distinct.

U.S. officials have said the risk of bird flu spreading to people from poultry or making food unsafe was low.

Low-pathogenic bird flu also was recently detected on a turkey farm in Wisconsin. Authorities there decided to keep the birds under quarantine until they tested negative for the virus, rather than to cull them, according to the state.

(Additional reporting by Mark Weinraub in Washington, D.C.; Editing by G Crosse, Richard Chang and Bernard Orr)

U.S. reports low pathogenic bird flu outbreak in Wisconsin: OIE

PARIS (Reuters) – The United States reported an outbreak of avian flu on a farm in Wisconsin, the second in the country in less than a week although the virus found this time is considered less virulent, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said on Tuesday.

A strain of low pathogenic H5N2 avian flu has been discovered in a flock of 84,000 turkeys in Barron County, Wisconsin, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in a report posted on the website of the Paris-based OIE.

The USDA said the turkey flock was tested after birds showed signs of depression and the infected premises were quarantined.

The new outbreak comes after the detection of highly pathogenic H7 bird flu last week in a chicken breeder flock in Tennessee farm contracted by U.S. food giant Tyson Foods Inc.

As opposed to highly pathogenic strains which can cause high mortality rates among poultry, low pathogenic ones typically cause few or no clinical signs in birds.

In 2014 and 2015, during a widespread outbreak of highly pathogenic avian flu, primarily of the H5N2 strain, the United States killed nearly 50 million birds, mostly egg-laying hens. The losses pushed U.S. egg prices to record highs.

The USDA said tests had shown that the H5N2 virus detected in Wisconsin was of North American wild bird origin and distinct from the H5N2 viruses found in 2015.

The risk of human infection in poultry outbreaks is low, although in China more than 110 people died this winter amid an outbreak of the H7N9 virus in birds.

The detection of a first case of bird flu in the United States this year prompted several Asian countries, including South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, to limit imports of U.S. poultry.

(Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide and Gus Trompiz, editing by David Evans)

Hard to detect, China bird flu virus may be more widespread

quarantine researcher checking chickens on poultry farm for bird flu

By Dominique Patton

BEIJING (Reuters) – Bird flu infection rates on Chinese poultry farm

BEIJING (Reuters) – Bird flu infection rates on Chinese poultry farms may be far higher than previously thought, because the strain of the deadly virus that has killed more than 100 people this winter is hard to detect in chickens and geese, animal health experts say.

s may be far higher than previously thought, because the strain of the deadly virus that has killed more than 100 people this winter is hard to detect in chickens and geese, animal health experts say.

Poultry that have contracted the H7N9 strain of the avian flu virus show little or no sign of symptoms. That means any infection is only likely to be detected if farmers or health authorities carry out random tests on a flock, the experts said.

But in humans, it can be deadly.

That’s different to other strains, such as the highly pathogenic H5N6 that struck South Korean farms in December, prompting the government to call in the army to help cull some 26 million birds.

But that strain didn’t kill any people.

There have been multiple outbreaks of bird flu around the world in recent months, with at least half a dozen different strains circulating. The scale of the outbreaks and range of viral strains increases the chances of viruses mixing and mutating, with new versions that can spread more easily between people, experts say.

For now, H7N9 is thought to be relatively difficult to spread between people. China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention has said the vast majority of people infected by H7N9 reported exposure to poultry, especially at live markets.

“There are very few, if any, clinical signs when this (H7N9) virus infects birds, and that’s the main reason we’re not seeing reporting coming from poultry farms in China,” said Matthew Stone, deputy director general for International Standards and Science at the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).

INTENSIVE OUTBREAK

As many as 79 people died from H7N9 bird flu in China in January alone, up to four times higher than the same month in past years.

While spikes in contamination rates are normal in January – the main influenza season – the high level of human infections has prompted fears the spread of the virus among people could be the highest on record – especially as the number of bird flu cases reported by farmers has been conspicuously low.

The high number of human infections points to a significant outbreak in the poultry population that is not being detected, says Guan Yi, director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Center of Influenza Research at the University of Hong Kong.

“If we have so many human infections, naturally it reflects activity, an intensive outbreak in chickens. They are highly associated,” he said.

China has the world’s largest flock of chickens, ducks and geese, and slaughtered more than 11 billion birds for meat in 2014, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The last major bird flu outbreak in China, in 2013, killed 36 people and cost the farming industry around $6.5 billion.

CONTROL CHALLENGE

The experts’ assessment underscores the challenge for China’s government and health ministry in monitoring and controlling the H7N9 outbreak in both people and poultry.

While, with few visible signs of infection in birds, it’s easier for farmers to flout the reporting rules and continue selling poultry at market, Stone at the OIE said China has a “very significant” surveillance program at live markets.

The government promised on Thursday to tighten controls on markets and poultry transport to help battle the virus.

The agriculture ministry last month collected more than 102,000 serum samples and 55,000 virological samples from birds in 26 provinces. Of the latter samples, only 26 tested positive for the virus, according to data on the ministry’s website.

But the rapid rise in human infections and spread to a wider geographic area is likely to increase pressure on Beijing to do more poultry testing at markets and on farms.

The ministry did not respond to faxed questions on its surveillance efforts.

The National Health and Family Planning Commission said on Thursday the spread of H7N9 among people was slowing.

Some Chinese netizens have called for more timely reports on infections, and some experts have said China has been slow to respond to the human outbreak. The authorities have warned the public to stay alert for the virus, cautioning against panic.

Others played down the threat to humans, as long as they stay away from live markets.

“As scientists, we should be watching this outbreak and the effectiveness of any control measures,” said Ian Mackay, a virologist and associate professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. “We don’t have a vaccine available for H7N9 in humans, but we do have effective antivirals.”

“So far, the virus does not spread well between humans,” he added. “As members of the public, who do not seek out live poultry from markets in China, we have almost nothing to worry about from H7N9 right now.”

(Reporting by Dominique Patton in BEIJING, with additional reporting by Ben Hirschler in LONDON; Editing by Josephine Mason and Ian Geoghegan)

Proliferation of bird flu outbreaks raises risk of human pandemic

wokers gather ducks that may have bird flu

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) – The global spread of bird flu and the number of viral strains currently circulating and causing infections have reached unprecedented levels, raising the risk of a potential human outbreak, according to disease experts.

Multiple outbreaks have been reported in poultry farms and wild flocks across Europe, Africa and Asia in the past three months. While most involve strains that are currently low risk for human health, the sheer number of different types, and their presence in so many parts of the world at the same time, increases the risk of viruses mixing and mutating – and possibly jumping to people.

“This is a fundamental change in the natural history of influenza viruses,” Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease specialist at University of Minnesota, said of the proliferation of bird flu in terms of geography and strains – a situation he described as “unprecedented”.

Global health officials are worried another strain could make a jump into humans, like H5N1 did in the late 1990s. It has since caused hundreds of human infections and deaths, but has not acquired the ability to transmit easily from person to person.

The greatest fear is that a deadly strain of avian flu could then mutate into a pandemic form that can be passed easily between people – something that has not yet been seen.

While avian flu has been a prominent public health issue since the 1990s, ongoing outbreaks have never been so widely spread around the world – something infectious disease experts put down to greater resilience of strains currently circulating, rather than improved detection or reporting.

While there would normally be around two or three bird flu strains recorded in birds at any one time, now there are at least half a dozen, including H5N1, H5N2, H5N8 and H7N8.

The Organization for Animal Health (OIE) says the concurrent outbreaks in birds in recent months are “a global public health concern”, and the World Health Organization’s director-general warned this week the world “cannot afford to miss the early signals” of a possible human flu pandemic.

The precise reasons for the unusually large number and sustained nature of bird outbreaks in recent months, and the proliferation of strains, is unclear – although such developments compound the global spreading process.

Bird flu is usually spread through flocks through direct contact with an infected bird. But Osterholm said wild birds could be “shedding” more of the virus in droppings and other secretions, increasing infection risks. He added that there now appears to be “aerosol transmission from one infected barn to others, in some cases many miles away”.

Ian MacKay, a virologist at Australia’s University of Queensland, said the current proliferation of strains means that “by definition, there is an increased risk” to humans.

“You’ve got more exposures, to more farmers, more often, and in greater numbers, in more parts of the world – so there has to be an increased risk of spillover human cases,” he told Reuters.

BRITAIN TO BANGLADESH

Nearly 40 countries have reported new outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in poultry or wild birds since November, according to the WHO.

In China, H7N9 strains of bird flu have been infecting both birds and people, with the of human cases rising in recent weeks due to the peak of the flu season there. According to the WHO, more than 900 people have been infected with H7N9 bird flu since it emerged in early 2013.

In birds, latest data from the OIE should that outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian flu have been detected in Britain, Italy, Kuwait and Bangladesh in the last few days alone.

Russia’s agriculture watchdog issued a statement describing the situation as “extremely tense” as it reported H5N8 flu outbreaks in another four regions. Hungarian farmers have had to cull 3 million birds, mostly geese and ducks.

These come on top of epidemics across Europe and Asia which have been ongoing since late last year, leading to mass culling of poultry in many countries.

Strains currently documented as circulating in birds include H5N8 in many parts of Europe as well as in Kuwait, Egypt and elsewhere, and H5N1 in Bangladesh and India.

In Africa – which experts say is especially vulnerable to missing flu outbreak warning signs due to limited local government capacities and weak animal and human health services – H5N1 outbreaks have been reported in birds in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria and Togo. H5N8 has been detected in Tunisia and Egypt, and H7N1 in Algeria.

The United States has, so far this year, largely escaped bird flu, but is on high alert after outbreaks of H5N2, a highly pathogenic bird flu, hit farms in 15 states in 2015 and led to the culling of more than 43 million poultry.

David Nabarro, a former senior WHO official who has also served as U.N. system senior coordinator for avian and human influenza, says the situation is worrying. “For me the threat from avian influenza is the most serious (to public health), because you never know when,” he told Reuters in Geneva.

HIGHLY PATHOGENIC H5N1

H5N1 is under close surveillance by health authorities around the world. It has long been seen as one to watch, feared by infectious disease experts because of its pandemic potential if it were to mutate an acquire human-to-human transmission capability.

A highly pathogenic virus, it jumped into humans in Hong Kong in 1997 and then re-emerged in 2003/2004, spreading from Asia to Europe and Africa. It has caused hundreds of infections and deaths in people and prompted the culling of hundreds of millions of poultry.

Osterholm noted that some currently circulating H5 strains – including distant relatives of H5N1 – are showing significant capabilities for sustaining their spread between wild flocks and poultry, from region to region and farm to farm.

“What we’re learning about H5 is, that whether its H5N6, H5N8, H5N2 or H5N5, this is a very dangerous bird virus.”

Against that background, global health authorities and infectious disease experts want awareness, surveillance and vigilance stepped up.

Wherever wild birds are found to be infected, they say, and wherever there are farms or smallholdings with affected poultry or aquatic bird flocks, regular, repeated and consistent testing of everyone and anyone who comes into contact is vital.

“Influenza is a very tough beast because it changes all the time, so the ones we’re tracking may not include one that suddenly emerges and takes hold,” said MacKay.

“Right now, it’s hard to say whether we’re doing enough (to keep on top of the threat). I guess that while it isn’t taking off, we seem to be doing enough.”

(Additional reporting by Ed Stoddard in Johannesburg, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Polina Devitt in Moscow and Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris; Editing by Pravin Char)

Saudi Arabia warns on cyber defense as Shamoon resurfaces

KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia on Monday warned organizations in the kingdom to be on the alert for the Shamoon virus, which cripples computers by wiping their disks, as the labor ministry said it had been attacked and a chemicals firm reported a network disruption.

An alert from the telecoms authority seen by Reuters advised all parties to be vigilant for attacks from the Shamoon 2 variant of the virus that in 2012 crippled tens thousands of computers at oil giant Saudi Aramco.

Shamoon disrupts computers by overwriting the master book record, making it impossible for them to start up. Former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the 2012 Shamoon attack on Saudi Aramco was probably the most destructive cyber attack on a private business.

In the 2012 hacks, images of a burning U.S. flag were used to overwrite the drives of victims including Saudi Aramco and RasGas Co Ltd. In the recent attacks, an image of the body of 3-year-old drowned Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi was used in recent attacks, according to U.S. security researchers.

The Shamoon hackers were likely working on behalf of the Iranian government in the 2012 campaign and the more-recent attacks, said Adam Meyers, vice president with cyber security firm CrowdStrike. “It’s likely they will continue,” he said.

State-controlled Al Ekhbariya TV said on Twitter, using the hash tag #Shamoon, that several Saudi organizations had been targeted in recent cyber attacks.

The state news agency, meanwhile, said the labor ministry had been hit by a cyber attack, but that it did not impact its data.

Jubail-based Sadara Chemical Co, a joint venture firm owned by Saudi Aramco and U.S. company Dow Chemical, said it had experienced a network disruption on Monday morning and was working to resolve the issue.

The company made the disclosure on its official Twitter account after the warning by Al Ekhbariya TV, which cited the telecoms authority.

It did not say whether the disruption was due to a cyber attack but said as a precautionary measure it had stopped all services related to the network.

Other companies in Jubail, the hub of the Saudi petrochemicals industry, also experienced network disruptions, according to sources who were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

Those companies sought to protect themselves from the virus by shutting down their networks, said the sources, who declined to identify specific firms.

(Reporting by Reem Shamseddine. Additional reporting by Jim Finkle.; Writing By Maha El Dahan; Editing by Mark Potter and Andrew Hay)

Zika striking women at higher rates than men: U.S. study

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Adult women in Puerto Rico were significantly more likely to develop Zika than men, researchers said on Thursday, raising new questions about the potential role of sexual transmission of the virus from males to females.

The study, published in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly report on death and disease, evaluated more than 29,000 laboratory-confirmed cases of Zika since the outbreak began in Puerto Rico in November 2015.

The data show that of all Zika cases with laboratory evidence of infection, 62 percent were female. The results pattern similar observations from Brazil and El Salvador, the authors said.

One obvious explanation might be that pregnant women are more likely than men to seek treatment for Zika because of the potential risk of birth defects.

To account for that, the researchers excluded all pregnant women who tested positive for the virus. Of the remaining 28,219 non-pregnant women and men testing positive for Zika, 61 percent of these cases occurred in women over the age of 20.

The Zika findings differ from prior outbreaks in Puerto Rico of arboviruses transmitted by the same mosquitoes as Zika. For example, in the 2010 dengue outbreak and the 2014 chikungunya outbreak, infections were equally distributed among men and women.

“It is possible that male-to-female sexual transmission is a contributing factor to this skewing of the burden of disease toward women,” the CDC said in a statement summarizing the findings.

However, the contribution of sexual transmission to overall Zika rates is just beginning to be explored, the CDC said. It could be that women are more likely than men to seek care if they are sick, or that women are more likely to develop Zika symptoms if they become infected.

The CDC is conducting blood tests of individuals living near people with confirmed Zika to try to answer some of these questions.

Zika infections in pregnant women have been shown to cause microcephaly – a severe birth defect in which the head and brain are undersized – as well as other brain abnormalities. The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last year in Brazil, which has since confirmed more than 2,000 cases of microcephaly.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Andrew Hay)

Florida declares new area of Zika transmission in Miami

By Julie Steenhuysen

(Reuters) – Florida officials on Thursday announced a new area of Zika transmission in the Miami region and have called on the federal government for funding to help fight the outbreak.

Florida Governor Rick Scott said state health officials have confirmed that local transmission of the mosquito-borne Zika virus is occurring in a new small area in Miami-Dade County, where the state believes two women and three men have been infected by the virus.

The governor said the state’s health department believes Zika transmission is only occurring in Miami-Beach and in the new area, which covers about 1 square mile (2.6 square km).

Zika, which is spread primarily by mosquitoes but also sexually, is a concern for pregnant women and their partners because the virus has been liked with a series of birth defects including microcephaly, marked by small head size and underdeveloped brains that can lead to severe developmental problems in babies.

Last month, U.S. health officials urged pregnant women to consider putting off all nonessential travel to Miami due to the Zika virus even as the state lifted a travel warning for the Wynwood, the Miami neighborhood which was the first site of local Zika transmission in the continental United States.

Florida has reported a total of 164 cases of Zika caused by local mosquito transmission, including 19 people who were infected in the state but live elsewhere. There are also five cases in which it was not clear whether transmission occurred in Florida or elsewhere.

In a statement released on Thursday, Scott said the announcement of the new area of transmission underscores the “urgent need” for federal funding to fight the virus, adding that the state still has not received any of the funding that was approved by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama two weeks ago.

Scott said he has asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to work directly with the Miami-Dade Mosquito Control District to identify best practices for defeating Zika in the new area.

Florida officials had already reported four of the five cases of Zika that occurred in the new area of transmission in Miami-Dade County. “With the confirmation of today’s case, this area now meets the CDC’s criteria for a new zone,” officials said in a statement.

The Zika virus was first detected in Brazil last year and has since spread across the Americas. It has been linked to more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly in Brazil.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Thailand confirms first Zika-linked microcephaly in Southeast Asia

City worker fumigates area to get rid of mosquitoes carrying Zika

By Aukkarapon Niyomyat

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand reported on Friday the first confirmed cases in Southeast Asia of microcephaly linked to mosquito-borne Zika, as the World Health Organization urged action against the virus across the region.

The confirmation of two case of microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size, came a day after U.S. health officials recommended that pregnant women postpone non-essential travel to 11 Southeast Asian countries because of the risk of Zika.

“We have found two cases of small heads linked to Zika, the first cases in Thailand,” Prasert Thongcharoen, an adviser to the Department of Disease Control, told reporters in Bangkok.

He declined to say where in Thailand the cases were found but officials have said they were not in Bangkok.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the cases were the first of Zika-linked microcephaly in Southeast Asia and the virus infection represented a serious threat to pregnant women and their unborn children.

“Countries across the region must continue to strengthen measures aimed at preventing, detecting and responding to Zika virus transmission,” Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, the WHO’s regional director, said in a statement.

U.S. health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, which can lead to severe developmental problems in babies.

VIRUS SPREADING

The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last year in Brazil, which has confirmed more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly that it considers to be related to Zika infections in the mothers.

Zika has spread extensively in Latin American and the Caribbean over the past year or so, and more recently it has been cropping up in Southeast Asia.

Thailand has confirmed 349 Zika cases since January, including 33 pregnant women, and Singapore has recorded 393 Zika cases, including 16 pregnant women.

Some health experts have accused Thai officials of playing down the risk of Zika to protect its thriving tourist industry, but Prasert dismissed that.

“Thailand is not hiding anything and is ready to disclose everything,” he said, adding that other countries in Southeast Asia might also have cases of Zika-linked microcephaly that they have not disclosed.

The WHO said Thailand’s response was an example for the region.

“Thailand’s diligence underscores the commitment of health authorities to the health and wellbeing of the Thai public, and provides a positive example to be emulated,” Singh said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday people should consider postponing travel to Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste (East Timor), and Vietnam.

The CDC has already issued a “travel notice” for Singapore, and said such a warning would be considered for the new countries if the number of cases rose to the level of an outbreak.

Thailand’s confirmation of Zika-linked microcephaly comes ahead of China’s week-long “Golden Week” holiday with Thailand expecting 220,000 Chinese visitors, up from 168,000 for the week in 2015, Tourism Authority of Thailand governor Yuthasak Supasorn told Reuters.

NO VACCINE

There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected.

There are also no specific tests to determine if a baby will be born with microcephaly, but ultrasound scans in the third trimester of pregnancy can identify the problem, according to the WHO.

Zika is commonly transmitted through mosquitoes but can also be transmitted sexually.

Another Thai health ministry adviser urged everyone to work to stop the spread of mosquitoes but said people should not panic.

“Don’t have sex with a Zika-infected person. If you don’t know if they are infected, then use a condom,” the adviser, Pornthep Siriwanarangsan, told reporters. “We can’t stop women from becoming pregnant … but we mustn’t panic.”

Health authorities in the region said they were stepping up monitoring, but there has been little testing and officials said the real number of cases was bound to be higher than the confirmed figure.

“We do not test everybody, we test only those who are symptomatic,” said Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubia, health secretary in the Philippines, which has reported 12 Zika cases.

“Yes, we are positive that the number is higher because we are not testing everyone.”

Malaysia, which has reported six cases of Zika, including two in pregnant women, said it would seek information from Thailand on the particular strain of the Zika virus there.

“We are taking serious notice of the reports in Thailand, and we will reach out to the Thai authorities for more information … so that we can be more prepared,” Malaysia’s health minister, Subramaniam Sathasivam, told Reuters.

Authorities in Vietnam, which has reported three cases of Zika, ordered stepped up monitoring of pregnant women.

In Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, head of disease outbreak and surveillance Dwi Oktavia said there had been no sign of any increase in birth defects there. Indonesia had one Zika case in 2015 but has confirmed none since then.

Microcephaly in babies can lead to respiratory problems related to malformation of the brain, a serious threat to the lives of babies. Children with microcephaly face lifelong difficulties, including intellectual impairment.

Zika was first identified in Uganda in 1947 and first isolated in Asia in the 1960s. It was unknown in the Americas until 2014.

(Additional reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre, Juarawee Kittisilpa and Panarat Thepgumpanat, Kanupriya Kapoor in JAKARTA, Roxanna Latiff in KUALA LUMPUR, Karen Lima in MANILA and Pham Thi Huyen My in HANOI; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Doctors say Haiti ripe for large Zika outbreak, virus under: reported

By Makini Brice

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Posters warning of the dangers of Zika only reached Haiti’s health ministry in August, six months after the country reported an outbreak, in one example of delayed prevention efforts that have health experts worried a “large epidemic” is looming.

Gabriel Thimothe, a senior health ministry official, said the public service posters would be distributed to hospitals and airports shortly, but that health funding had been cut this year and foreign aid was sparse to fight the mosquito-borne virus that can cause severe birth defects.

Zika infections in pregnant women have been shown to cause microcephaly – a defect in which babies’ heads and brains are undersized – as well as other brain abnormalities.

Widespread fumigation that has limited the virus’ spread in other Caribbean nations such as Cuba only began in Haiti last month. Publicity campaigns have been all but invisible and hospital workers were on strike for much of the year.

“We’re expecting a large epidemic but we don’t know when it will occur,” said Jean-Luc Poncelet, the World Health Organization’s representative in Haiti. “There is under-reporting.”

Such an epidemic could severely strain Haiti’s fragile healthcare system, battered by an earthquake in 2010 that killed 300,000, and still struggling with a cholera epidemic that has sickened nearly 800,000 people.

WHO data show 5,000 suspected cases have been reported in more prosperous neighbor Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti and has a similar population and climate. Haiti by contrast, has reported 3,000 suspected cases, according to numbers shared by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That makes Haiti’s Zika infection rate about 30 per 100,000 people, compared to 82 per 100,000 in Brazil, where the connection between Zika and microcephaly was first detected, and 50 per 100,000 in Dominican Republic

The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last fall in Brazil, which has since confirmed more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly.

RAINY SEASON

In the Dominican Republic there were spikes in infections in March and May, broadly coinciding with rainy seasons on both sides of the island, a time when mosquitoes and diseases they carry normally flourish. In Haiti, the number of cases reported each week generally dropped from February through the rains.

A long strike by medical residents at most public hospitals coincided with that decline, raising the question of whether there were fewer infections or a lack of health workers available to register cases.

A Zika task force, which includes the government and non-governmental organizations, was formed in May, Thimothe said. Several U.S. health officials in Haiti told Reuters that the United States provided $3 million in August to combat Zika in the country, money that was initially intended to be deployed against Ebola in West Africa.

Thimothe said the impact of an explosion of microcephaly cases would be devastating, but denied the condition was more widespread than thought, even though many Haitian women give birth at home rather than in clinics.

His position is supported by WHO data through June, which did not show an uptick in microcephaly or Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder that can cause temporary paralysis and has also been linked to Zika.

But Louise Ivers, the senior health and policy advisor for Partners in Health, which along with Haitian organization Zanmi Lasante runs a hospital in the central town of Mirebalais, said she had seen at least 12 cases this year of Guillain-Barre, normally a rare condition.

The same hospital registered two microcephaly cases, including one confirmed to be linked to Zika, this summer.

“Maybe we are too late for prevention. Maybe we just have to manage the consequences,” Ivers said. “This could just be the tip of the iceberg.”

(Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Alistair Bell)

U.S. fights Zika mosquitoes with limited arsenal

By Julie Steenhuysen

(Reuters) – Over Wynwood, the Miami neighborhood where Zika gained a foothold in the continental United States, low flying planes have been spraying naled, a tightly controlled pesticide often used as a last resort. It appears to be working, killing at least 90 percent of the target mosquitoes.

Across the Biscayne Bay in Miami Beach, wind and high-rise buildings make aerial spraying challenging. So, the effort in the popular tourist destination has focused on ground-sprayed pyrethroids – pesticides that are safer but don’t always work.

The arrival in Florida of Zika, a virus that can cause a crippling birth defect known as microcephaly, has drawn into focus the limitations of the U.S. mosquito control arsenal.

Larvicides reduce future populations relatively safely. But for use against the mature mosquitoes that spread disease, only two classes of pesticides are approved. Each has drawbacks.

Organophosphates, such as naled, are effective. But there are strict controls to limit risk. Pyrethroids are safer but have been used so much that mosquitoes, in many places, are immune.

“That’s really the weak link in much of the United States,” said Michael Doyle, director of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District. “We’re kind of caught off guard.”

DENGUE PREVIEW

Doyle led a 2009 effort against a dengue outbreak in South Florida, the first in the United States in nearly a century. Authorities threw everything they had at the Aedes aegypti, the same mosquito that carries Zika: backpack fogging, door-to-door yard inspections looking for watery breeding sites and larvicide spraying.

Still, 88 people were infected before the virus was brought under control more than two years later, and there continue to be sporadic cases in Florida.

The outbreak highlighted gaps in the mosquito control arsenal that remain, according to pesticide makers, abatement officials and entomologists. Few companies make pesticides for use in public health outbreaks, a niche market that is expensive to get into, has a limited upside and varies season to season.

Safety testing a new pesticide can cost up to $250 million and take 10 years, said Karen Larson, vice president of regulatory affairs at privately held Clarke Mosquito.

As long as a product remains on the market, companies must continue testing for unforeseen side effects, an expense that some makers have blamed for decisions to abandon products.

“There’s not a lot of profit,” Larson said.

Sales of the Dibrome brand of naled have been estimated at $12 million a year. By comparison, total crop pesticide sales for some companies can exceed $500 million in a single quarter.

Bayer, Dow Chemical, BASF and other agricultural pesticide makers “are not interested in going after a $20 million or $30 million a year market,” said William A. Kuser, investor relations director at Dibrome maker American Vanguard Corp.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved several new pesticides in recent years. But it has received few requests for using them against mosquitoes, said Jim Jones, Assistant Administrator for the agency’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.

“Although it’s of critical importance, the amount one can sell is small and it’s variable, which makes it difficult for business planning,” Jones said. “You can go many years without having much of a market at all, then suddenly, whether it’s because of a nuisance outbreak of mosquitoes or something like West Nile or Zika, the market grows significantly.”

Abatement authorities have pressed for help with the cost of developing mosquito control pesticides. The 1996 U.S. Food Quality Protection Act includes a provision for subsidies to defray the expense of safety testing, but Congress has never funded it.

RISK AND RESISTANCE

At least 49 cases of locally transmitted Zika infections have been reported in Florida, most in Wynwood and Miami Beach. Most people have no symptoms or mild illness.

Because of the microcephaly link, efforts are focused on preventing infection among pregnant women.

In Wynwood, the campaign began with pyrethroids, synthetic versions of a chemical derived from chrysanthemums. Amid signs of resistance, authorities switched to naled.

Developed as nerve agents, organophosphates, at high doses, can cause nausea, convulsions and death. They can be toxic to wildlife, including bees. The EPA considers naled safe at permitted ultra-low concentrations, and it is sprayed annually over 16 million acres in the United States.

But it is banned in Europe, where the risk is seen as unacceptable. In the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, where Zika is widespread, the governor prohibited naled amid protests over safety concerns.

Although naled killed more than 90 percent of mosquitoes in traps set in Wynwood, the Aedes aegypti’s resilience remains a concern.

“This is truly the cockroach of mosquitoes,” said Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

DROPPING PESTICIDES

CDC entomologist Janet McAllister said pyrethroid resistance typically is limited by the mosquito’s small range. When resistance to one pyrethroid develops, another often works.

Still, she said, “we would love to see additional classes of insecticides available because, even in places that may have an effective tool today, that doesn’t mean it is going to last down the road.”

The EPA can fast-track its evaluation of new pesticides and expand the use of old ones. In response to Zika, it expedited new uses for pesticide-treated bed nets and mosquito traps.

Still, development of pesticides is painstaking. Even if the EPA speeds up its evaluation, required safety data can take years to collect. And the expense of ongoing safety testing has prompted companies to drop products.

Bayer CropScience, for example, told distributors it dropped the pyrethroid resmethrin in 2012, rather than do additional testing. Clarke Mosquito gave up temephos, a larvicide, six years ago, because of costs, Larson said.

That decision led to stockpiling in southwest Florida, said Wayne Gale, director of the Lee County Mosquito Control District.

“We purchased just about every bit,” he said.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Lisa Girion)

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