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More Bad Flu News



Ankora (UPI) Jan 16, 2006
Avian flu has claimed a fourth human victim in Turkey, while in the United States the regular old flu has proven resistant to two drugs.

A 12-year-old girl named Fatma Ozcan who died Sunday tested positive for bird flu, Turkish authorities said. She originally tested negative, but after the illness was found in her brother a new test confirmed the presence of the lethal H5N1 strain.

Turkey has become the epicenter of the bird flu's breakout from Southeast Asia, and Turkish officials along with World Health Organization experts have been racing to contain it. There is still no evidence of human-to-human spread, which could set off a worldwide pandemic killing millions.

The more prosaic strain of human influenza circulating in the United States this year has now defeated two common anti-virals, amantadine and rimantadine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced. As a result, doctors shouldn't prescribe them against the influenza A (H3N2) strain circulating this year.

"This is certainly unexpected news as we now have to remove a few tools from our tool box that we use to combat influenza," said CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding. "Thankfully we still have antivirals available that work, but this new development serves as a reminder of the importance of getting people vaccinated to prevent them from getting influenza in the first place."

The CDC's alternate recommendations for the rest of this year's flu season are Tamiflu and Relenza. Eighteen states are reporting widespread or regional outbreaks, the CDC said.

In Britain, environmental officials Monday confirmed a duck shot in Scotland did not have the lethal H5N1 strain, according to The Scotsman. The duck was infected with the H6N2 strain of bird flu, which does not infect humans, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said.

In other consumer-health news:

-- Scientists say they have discovered a variant gene that increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes. The TCF7L2 gene is carried by more than one-third of the U.S. population, the New York Times reported.

The finding was reported in the journal Nature Genetics by researchers at Decode Genetics, which specializes in finding the genetic roots of human diseases by studying the homogenous Icelandic population.

-- Despite the impression left by those ubiquitous bladder-control commercials, men are more bothered by the condition than women, says a new report in the journal BUJ International.

The study of more than 11,000 people in six European countries also found many of those who suffered from overactive bladders were reluctant to treat it as a medical problem.

"Thirty-two percent of the people interviewed said that their condition made them depressed and 28 percent reported feeling stressed," said lead researcher Debra E. Irwin of the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina.

"Yet 48 percent of women and 40 percent of men felt that it was not a valid medical condition."

Source: United Press International

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EU Presses China Over Bird Flu Fight

Brussels (AFP) Jan 16, 2006
The European Union's health chief pressed China and other Asian states Monday to coordinate better in fighting bird flu, as he headed for Beijing for a conference on the global threat.







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