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China Fails to Provide Flu Samples to U.S. Researchers

posted by chromas on Wednesday August 29 2018, @04:47PM   
from the butt-heads-on-trade-agreements dept.

takyon writes:

The Chinese government appears to be withholding samples of the bird flu virus H7N9, requested by U.S. researchers:

The samples are critical for studying the virus and developing life-saving treatments and vaccines in preparation for potential outbreaks or pandemics. Usually, countries share viral samples "in a timely manner" without any fanfare under an agreement established by the World Health Organization to address such potential flu threats. That usually means a matter of months.

But according to The New York Times, China has failed to share the samples for more than a year, despite persistent requests from government officials and researchers, including those at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Moreover, scientists and experts worry that, as the US and China continue to butt heads on trade agreements, the issue of sharing biological samples and other medical-related materials could worsen.

We can make our own flu, and send them live samples.

Also at The New York Times.

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Original Submission

• Re:Needed for what? (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 29 2018, @07:06PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 29 2018, @07:06PM (#727948)

  More from the 2018 cochrane review:

  Conclusions favourable to the use of influenza vaccines
  were associated with a higher risk of bias. The authors of
  studies in this review made claims and drew conclusions that were
  unsupported by the data they presented. In addition, industryfunded
  studies are more likely to have favourable conclusions, to
  be published in significantly higher-impact factor journals, and to
  have higher citation rates than non-industry-funded studies. This
  difference is not explained by either their size or methodological
  quality (Jefferson 2009b). Any interpretation of the body of evidence
  in this review should be made with these findings in mind.

  [...]

  Implications for practice
  Healthy adults who receive inactivated parenteral influenza vaccine
  rather than no vaccine probably have a 1%lower risk of experiencing
  influenza over a single influenza season (2.3%versus 1%,
  moderate-certainty evidence) and probably have a 3.4%lower risk
  of experiencing influenza-like illness (ILI) (21.5% versus 18.1%,
  moderate-certainty evidence). The numbers needed to vaccinate
  (NNVs) for influenza and ILI were 71 and 29, respectively, reflecting
  high rates of ILI in the control groups for many of the trials.
  The NNV of 29 conceals variation in the absolute reduction in
  ILI for low- and high-risk groups, and the degree of benefit may
  vary at least in part due to inconsistent symptomclassification. Extrapolatiing
  these effects to settings other than those of the studies
  is challenging due to uncertain methods for confirming influenza
  and variation in the absolute reductions in ILI following vaccination.
  We found low-certainty evidence that hospitalisation rates and
  time off work may be comparable between vaccinated and unvaccinated
  adults, although the confidence interval around the effect
  for hospital admission is wide and there was substantial variation
  in the direction of effect on time off work. Vaccines increase the
  risk of a number of adverse events, including a small increase in
  fever, but the effect on nausea or vomiting is less clear.

  Parent

  Starting Score:	0		points
  Moderation		+3
  Informative=3, Total=3
  Extra 'Informative' Modifier		0
  Total Score:		3