Guest guest Posted March 5, 2006 Report Share Posted March 5, 2006 Europe counts cost of bird flu, fresh cases emerge 04.03.06 1.00pmBy Peter Millership LONDON - Europe's poultry industry counted the multi-million-dollar cost of the spread of bird flu in lost sales today after United States agencies urged more funds to fight a possible deadly human pandemic that could kill millions. As the world took steps to prepare for such an outbreak, Romania and Greece detected new cases of the deadly H5N1 virus. Sweden and Switzerland found more bird flu in wild birds and Turkey in poultry flocks. China issued a national bird flu warning that migratory birds returning during the spring could cause more human cases. "There are some places where prevention and control efforts have weak links," Chinese Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu told a cabinet conference today. China has had 14 human cases of people infected with H5N1 bird flu, eight of them fatal. H5N1 has killed birds in more than 30 countries in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and Africa. It has spread to 14 new countries in the past month and has infected 174 people since 2003, killing 94 of them. Scientists say H5N1 is mutating steadily and may eventually acquire the changes it needs to be easily transmitted from human to human. Because people lack any immunity to it, it could sweep the world in a matter of weeks or months, killing tens of millions and bringing economies to their knees. Congress agreed US$3.8 billion ($5.71 billion) of US$7.1 billion US President George W. Bush requested last year to fight a possible pandemic. "But it really takes a lot of time and a lot of money. There are a lot of black boxes out there where something could emerge and we won't be able to find it," Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told a House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee. The World Health Organisation said today that a three-day meeting of experts in Geneva which starts next week would sharpen plans for containing any human bird flu pandemic. France's poultry sector, the biggest in Europe, is now losing 40 million euros ($72.37 million) a month as bird flu hits sales at home and abroad, French officials said. The Paris government has said more than 40 countries have restricted imports of French poultry following the outbreak of H5N1 at a turkey farm in the east of the country. Germany's poultry industry has lost more than 140 million euros since last autumn because of bird flu, with demand down some 20 per cent from previous levels. Germany identified more than 140 cases of wild birds with H5N1, as well as a cat. It reported two new cases of bird flu today. Hungarian poultry producers said their sales had fallen by up to 20 per cent since H5N1 was first found there in dead swans on February 21. Chicken sales were hardest hit. But a health expert said bird flu in poultry did not pose a food safety risk as it is unlikely a sick chicken would be killed for consumption and cooking meat and eggs would kill the virus. Dr Judith Hilton, at Britain's Food Standards Agency, said salmonella posed more of a risk to consumers than bird flu. Romania today detected H5N1 in domestic birds in a village west of Bucharest and in a goose in the city of Buzau. Avian flu has been found in 40 villages and a small Black Sea resort since the virus was first detected in the Danube Delta in October. Birds have been culled swiftly and Romania has not reported any cases in humans. Greece, where poultry sales are down by up to 80 per cent since the first case was reported in February, said three more H5N1 cases were confirmed in swans, bringing the total infected birds there to 22. Turkey confirmed three new cases of the H5 strain of bird flu in poultry in an area west of Istanbul and said culling of birds was under way. Samples were being tested for H5N1. Four children died of H5N1 in eastern Turkey in January, the first human fatalities outside east Asia. Switzerland, which on Thursday said it had found its first case of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus in a wild duck found in Geneva, discovered five more cases of H5 bird flu in wild birds. The birds were being tested for H5N1. Sweden detected eight new cases of H5 in wild birds after its first suspected cases of H5N1 strain earlier this week. Samples from four possible Nigerian human bird flu cases have arrived for tests at a laboratory in Britain, the WHO said. An outbreak of H5N1 was confirmed at a commercial farm in Nigeria's Kaduna state on February 8 and has spread since to other states in Africa's most populous country. - REUTERS http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/11/story.cfm?c_id=3 & ObjectID=10371048 This is good news and they are doing healthy food at some schools now in NZ and Jamie Oliver has inspired some schools to make healthy food as well. I just feel so sorry for these kids getting weighed down with junk food, then later drugs to feel good. Nicky Eating healthy to work better 04.03.06By Deborah Zabarenko WASHINGTON - That fast-food burger, monster take-out sandwich or bag of nutritional nothing you got from the vending machine at work does more than make you sluggish after lunch. It is probably making your company less productive. The global cost amounts to billions of dollars a year in lost productivity, considering that a diet loaded with fat and sugar puts workers at risk for diabetes and obesity-related illnesses, says Christopher Wanjek, who wrote the book on food in the workplace. Obesity accounts for as much as 7 per cent of total health costs in industrialised countries, Wanjek reported in Food at Work, a review commissioned by the UN International Labour Office. Fat workers are twice as likely as fit workers to miss work. In the United States, the total cost attributable to obesity was US$99.2 billion in 1995. "We're not talking about polio or smallpox. Those diseases were hard to eradicate," Wanjek said. "We're talking about nutritional diseases. This should be a no-brainer. Provide access to better food and the disease will go away." There were solutions, but most required imagination and investment. A high-end example is Dole Food, which subsidised a healthy dining room for workers at its headquarters in Westlake Village, California, with an unlimited salad bar for US$1.50, free fruit snacks in the morning, free vegetable snacks in the afternoon and encouragement to go to the gym. After six months, tests on 60 volunteers found lower cholesterol, lower levels of certain proteins that are predictors of heart disease, lower triglycerides and glucose levels, said Jennifer Grossman, director of the Dole Nutrition Institute. "It really is in the company's best interests to do it, in addition to boosting morale," Grossman said. Not every company can afford to do what Dole did, but US health care giant Kaiser Permanente believed employees might eat more healthily if local farmers set up stalls on the company's grounds. They turned out to be right. "Location is everything," said Preston Maring, a doctor who came up with the farm market plan. "If we put markets in the pathway that people normally walk, it's hard to pass up a fresh peach in the middle of August." Farm markets are a safe bet at Kaiser's northern Californian base, where local produce is easily available year-round, but Maring noted that the programme has expanded to 24 locations around the US. The company pays only for whatever Government permits are required. Innovative programmes elsewhere: * Healthy workplace canteens such as the one at Husky Injection Molding Systems in Ontario, Canada, where red meat and deep-fried items are banned and three helpings of vegetables come with every meal. * Training for street-food vendors in hygiene and food safety in South Africa, Tanzania and India. * Subsidised meal vouchers for use at restaurants and food shops in Brazil, Hungary, Romania, France, Britain, Sweden, India, Lebanon and China. The UN has been interested in worker nutrition for decades, but until now it focused on poor countries where the issue was getting enough food and clean water to employees, rather than heading off obesity. Wanjek described a vicious cycle based on poor workplace nutrition: "Poor nutrition leads to poor health, bringing on a lack of energy, strength and co-ordination and a lower learning potential, making for a poorly qualified job pool with lower productivity, resulting in a loss of competitiveness, higher business costs and lower investment and economic growth." - REUTERS http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/11/story.cfm?c_id=11 & ObjectID=10369222 One in four Britons holds down two jobs 20.02.06 4.00pm One in four British workers has a second job, partly to pay off debts or just survive, a survey released today showed. Most of those have held down more than one job for over a year, while one in five has spent more than five years in two posts, a survey of 1000 adults by financial services company Liverpool Victoria showed. Over half of those with two jobs put 10 or more hours a week into their extra occupation. More than one in six worked at least 21 hours a week on top of their regular employment. The main reasons for having two jobs included paying for day-to-day living expenses, paying off debts or student loans or saving for a holiday, the survey showed. Workers in southwest England were most likely to have two jobs, followed by those in Scotland and the East Midlands. People in eastern England were least likely to be affected. A separate survey by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), also released on Monday, painted a different picture. The TUC said almost half of employees want to work fewer hours and millions would give up pay for a better work-life balance. TUC research showed workers in education and financial services were the keenest to cut down their working week. An analysis of the working habits of 60,000 households showed that manufacturing workers are also unhappy with the number of hours they work. The research was published ahead of "Work Your Proper Hours Day" on Friday, which the TUC has calculated is the day that people who worked unpaid overtime will start to get paid if they did all their unpaid work at the start of the year. - REUTERS http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=204 & ObjectID=10370961 Teens warned that kissing could kill 04.03.06 Researchers have probed another activity that can spread meningococcal disease among teenagers - kissing. A study in the British Medical Journal says intimate kissing of multiple partners can increase a teenager's risk of contracting meningococcal disease by up to four times. The study looked at 144 teens aged 15 to 19 years. It identified intimate kissing - with tongues - as a new risk factor. The researchers defined "multiple partners" as two to seven partners in two weeks. Meningococci bacteria pass easily between people through coughing, sneezing and saliva. In the general population about 10 per cent of people may carry the meningococcal bacterium in the back of their throats. But in students this can be up to 40 per cent because of their "social interaction", according to the study. Researchers in the study said getting information to teens about the increased risk from kissing was unlikely to have a significant impact, but in New Zealand Dr Diana Martin, principal scientist at Environmental Science and Research (ESR), said informing teenagers of the newly identified risk would be a good start. "The message about the risks of sharing drink bottles has been well picked up. Perhaps we now need to make it clear to teens that kissing is also likely to increase their chances of getting this disease. "By giving them this new information they can choose to modify their behaviour and make sure they are fully immunised." In England and the United States there was a dramatic increase in the incidence and fatality rate among teens from meningococcal disease during the 1990s. New Zealand is in the 15th year of a meningococcal disease epidemic: 5882 people contracted the disease between 1991 and the end of 2005 - 238 of them died. In New Zealand one strain has caused the epidemic which led the Government to introduce its Meningococcal B Immunisation Programme in 2004. There have been early signs of a reduction in the disease. Dr Martin said the MeNZB vaccine only offers protection against the predominant B strain, so people need to remain vigilant for other forms of meningococcal disease. Time was running out for 5 to 19- year-olds to be vaccinated. The mass vaccination programme for this age group ends June 30, so they need to start first doses as soon as possible, Dr Martin said. The vaccine would be available until the end of December for 5 to 19- year-olds needing to complete second and third doses. Nearly three million MeNZB doses have now been given to New Zealanders aged 6 weeks to 19 years. More than 1,026,000 young people have started the programme and over 920,000 have had all three doses. - NZPA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.