S.Korea to slaughter thousands of birdsSat, 20 Jan 2007 05:27:50 GMTBy KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea - South Korean quarantine officials are set to slaughter 273,000 poultry after an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, the Agriculture Ministry and health officials said Saturday. The outbreak occurred at a chicken farm in Cheonan, about 60 miles south of Seoul, earlier this week, the fifth such outbreak since November, said Lee Joo-won, a ministry official. "We plan to start slaughtering 273,000 poultry within a 500-meter radius of the outbreak site and destroying eggs as early as Saturday evening," Lee said. The ministry also said it will make a decision whether to kill another 386,000 poultry on Sunday while limiting the movement of about 2.16 million chickens and ducks from 90 farms within a six-mile radius of the outbreak. South Korea culled 5.3 million birds during the last known outbreak of bird flu in 2003. The H5N1 virus began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003 and has killed more than 160 people worldwide. Most human cases have resulted from contact with infected birds. Scientists fear the virus could mutate into a form that is more easily transmitted between people, possibly creating a pandemic that could kill millions. "People can be infected with H5N1 virus at any time but the disease is curable if people take the antiviral drug Tamiflu within 48 hours after the infection," said Kwon Jun-wook, an official at the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kwon, the KCDC's director of the communicable disease control team, also called for thorough preparations against the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu. Earlier this month, South Korean officials said that the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus had been transmitted to a human during a recent outbreak among poultry, but the person showed no symptoms of the disease as the poultry farm worker developed natural immunity to the disease. Global fund to help buy malaria drugsFri, 19 Jan 2007 16:08:25 GMTBy ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A global fund is being created to subsidize the purchase of a new generation of anti-malaria drugs for Africa, where the mosquito-borne disease kills 1 million people a year, mostly children under 5, a World Bank-sponsored forum announced Friday. The two-day conference of 80 health experts, African government ministers and nongovernment organizations was called to build on a 2004 report by Nobel economics laureate Kenneth Arrow on how to make the new drugs affordable to the world's poorest and most vulnerable people. The drugs, Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies, or ACTs, are meant to replace chloroquine and other old generation drugs sold in Africa and Southeast Asia for about 10 US cents per treatment but which have become ineffective. "Old medicines have become useless because of the emergence of resistance," Arrow told reporters at the end of the conference. Until recently, ACTs were produced for about US$2.50 per three-day treatment, but the retail price was two or three times that much. Production costs are now dropping to about $1.00 , World Bank experts said. People earning $1 to $2 a day cannot afford ACTs even at the reduced price. "With the likely markup, they are well above the purchasing power of the average African," Arrow said. ACTs are based on Chinese herbal medicine but use a combination of ingredients, which makes it harder for the malaria parasite to develop resistance than the single-action drugs which no longer work. The conference began the task of building a network of donor countries, led by the Netherlands, and of setting up the architecture for administering the fund. Drugs would be distributed by government health programs and by local stores, where most people now buy their medicines. Initial estimates say the fund will need about $80-100 million in the first year, building up to about $250 million per year in subsequent years, said Andreas Seiter, the World Bank official heading up the project. Buyers would place orders directly with pharmaceutical companies, but would be billed for only a fraction of the cost. The manufacturers would invoice the global fund for the remaining amount, Seiter said, bringing down the cost to the consumers to roughly what they pay now for chloroquine. Seiter said he expected the structure of the fund to be completed this year, with the first subsidized drugs finding their way to village stores in the first half of 2008. Olusoji Adeyi, the World Bank's coordinator of public health programs, said it took 18 months of discussions to reach a broad agreement on the need for the subsidy. The plan will work in tandem with the bank's malaria-prevention programs to provide mosquito nets and insecticide to affected areas. Malaria victims suffer fever, chills, and flu-like symptoms that leave them debilitated and could lead to death if untreated. The Center for Disease and Control Prevention says 350-500 million cases of malaria occur each year worldwide, making it one of the deadliest diseases in underdeveloped parts of the world. Nigerian Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo welcomed the plan. "We are very happy about it," he said. "The global fund initiative, or whatever it will be called, should have started yesterday, not today." The World Bank says malaria affects about 110 million Nigerians a year from a population of more than 130 million. The bank said almost 29 percent of Nigerian children's deaths and 11 percent of deaths among pregnant women are caused by malaria. Pa. school kids like mystery fatThu, 18 Jan 2007 22:36:04 GMTBy JENNIFER C. YATES, Associated Press Writer PITTSBURGH - It isn't mystery meat — it's more like mystery fat. And the kids in the Plum Borough School District have been eating it and liking it. The secret ingredient is a plant-based fat substitute called Z Trim. It's been in the school's popular ranch dressing for months, quietly reducing the fat and calories students are getting when they load up their salads and chicken with it. "It's really good. Better than my ranch at home," says 16-year-old Juliann Sheldon, who used the dressing to top off her salad of lettuce, baby spinach, chunks of chicken and croutons. The Plum Borough district in suburban Pittsburgh is believed to be the first school district in the country to use the fat substitute. School officials say the dressing's flavor is preserved, even though fat and calories are cut. "Sometimes getting healthy foods into isn't always the easiest thing to do, if they know about it," said Maryann Lazzaro, the district's food service manager and a registered dietitian. The district began using the product 10 months ago, but just told the students about the switch Thursday. "I think it tastes the same as it did before," said Tina DeLuca, 16. Z Trim, which has no fat, is made from the hulls of corn, oats, soy, rice and barley. It was developed by a scientists at a U.S. http://www.ztrim.com |
