A1A South

CAIRO (AFP) — Egypt’s health ministry announced the death on Friday of a woman from the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the 22nd human death from the disease since it was discovered here in 2006.

“Walaa Ahmed Abdel Geleel, 30, died on Friday, the 22nd death from bird flu from among 49 cases in the country since the disease was first discovered (in Egypt), a ministry official told the MENA news agency.

She first showed signs of infection on April 2 and was taken on April 9 to a Cairo hospital, where she died, MENA reported.

Abdel Geleel’s case was Egypt’s second death from the disease in a week.

On Saturday, Mohammed Idris Hassan Ibrahim, 19, from the Nile Delta province of Beheira, died in hospital after being unuccessully treated with Tamiflu.

In January, four people died of the disease in just one week, after safety precautions had been relaxed in the belief that the virus had disappeared when no case had been reported for six months.

Egypt’s location on major bird migration routes and the widespread practice of keeping domestic fowl near living quarters have led to it being the hardest-hit country outside Asia.

Despite a government ban on raising poultry on rooftops — an age-old tradition in Egypt — chicken, ducks and geese continue to exist on many rooftops, alongside a multitude of pigeon coops.

The government says it is conducting a vigorous campaign to combat the spread of the virus through vaccinations and raising awareness, but experts and officials have warned against people dropping their guard.

Earlier this year, Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali warned against slackness in the preventative measures taken to fight bird flu.

Health ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shahin has repeatedly urged the public to remain vigilant and deplored the relaxation of precautions.

Officials have also warned sick people that failure to report they have been in contact with contaminated domestic fowl makes it more difficult to detect the virus and to treat it.

Many of those infected are fearful of revealing their symptoms as they would lose a source of revenue and they fear the anger of their neighbours throughout the village who may have their flocks slaughtered.

As a result, many sufferers are often hospitalised too late for medical treatment to work.

Women and children have borne the brunt of the virus because of their role in taking care of domestic fowl.

A national campaign to slaughter possibly infected birds is more often than not seen as a threat from authorities in which people have no faith.

The authorities recommend eating factory farmed chicken whose origins can be traced. Almost two years since H5N1 appeared in Egypt, the country has become one of the most affected in the world.

The WHO said earlier this year that countries around the world had improved their defences against bird flu, but the situation remained critical in Egypt and Indonesia where the risk of the H5N1 virus mutating into a major human threat remains high.

Source: AFP

Interesting. According to the article, the people that are sick with bird flu are too afraid of their neighbors’ reactions to report to the hospital until they are well advanced in the disease for treatment to be effective.

Drug enforcement officials are scratching their heads over how to combat the latest innovation in drug smuggling: radar-dodging semisubmersible vessels packed with tons of cocaine.

Two years ago, U.S. counter-drug surveillance spotted only three semisubmersibles, but that rose to 40 last year and could reach 120 before 2008 is done. But spotting them is easier than catching them.

Only eight have been intercepted in the past 15 months — one captured and the others scuttled. Colombian officials have nabbed seven empty craft on land before they were loaded with drugs.

Meanwhile, as the armada grows, the amount of cocaine seized by authorities dropped 25 percent last year — 208 tons, down from 257 tons in 2006.

“As the drug cartels adapt, we need to get ahead of their thinking — we have to be innovators ourselves,” said Adm. James Stavridis, head of the U.S. Southern Command, based in Miami. “We need wide area surveillance systems, acoustics, and better intelligence tools to stop this emerging pattern of smuggling.”

The low profile of the custom-built vessels, which cut through the water at wave height, makes them hard to detect on radar. Sometimes they hide in the shadow of fishing boats.

The vessels are designed and built in Colombia; officials there recently uncovered a clandestine shipyard deep in the jungle.

U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen believes the semisubmersibles are a response to the United States’ tactic of using snipers in helicopters to shoot out engines of the speedboats, long the smugglers’ preferred means of transport. The submersibles’ engines are harder to hit as they are wrapped in steel casing below the water line.

“They stay just enough above the water to obtain air for the engines and the crew,” said Zachary Mann, of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Usually staffed by a two- or three-man crew, and able to carry up to 10 tons of cocaine at a time, they can plough through the sea at about 8 mph with a range of up to 2,000 miles, according to officials at Southern Command.

U.S. counter-drug surveillance efforts rely on advanced “over the horizon” ground and airborne radar systems, including Customs’ long-range P-3 Orion aircraft flying out of Jacksonville and Corpus Christi, Texas.

“They are really the eyes and ears in the sky,” said Mann. “We can see a lot with them. They can really reach out and touch someone.”

When a suspicious craft is detected, U.S. Coast Guard cutters are deployed to the scene to give chase.

The sudden surge in numbers signaled that traffickers had switched tactics, say analysts.

“What this shows is a real onslaught in the use of this new technology,” said Bruce Bagley, a drug expert at the University of Miami. “It makes you wonder how many are making it to their destination.”

The U.S. Coast Guard made the first seizure of a semisubmersible in November 2006. It was captured 90 miles off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Officials dubbed it “Bigfoot” — the existence of such craft had been rumored, but no one had actually seen one.

In August 2007, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted another off the coast of Guatemala and arrested the crew after they scuttled the 50-foot-long vessel, estimated to be transporting 5.5 tons of cocaine.

One analyst described the vessels, estimated to cost $1-million to $2-million each, as 21st century “ironclads,” referring to the steel-hulled warships of the Civil War.

“Somebody has made a huge investment in the manufacturing of them,” said Adam Isacson, an expert on U.S. drug policy in Colombia at the Center for International Policy. “But the profit margins are so high this doesn’t eat into them so deeply.”

Prosecution of crews from scuttled vessels is hard because of the lack of drug evidence. So, the Coast Guard is seeking legislation that would make the use of “unflagged” semisubmersibles in international waters punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

“There’s really no legitimate use for a vessel like this,” says Allen, of the Coast Guard.

Tampa Bay Online

Hunh. I don’t have any objections to dropping explosives materials on them that would make them completely submersible (and permanently submerged).

JACKSONVILLE, FL — Police say they’ve arrested a man who was selling fake crack to residents of a Northside nursing home.

Hillmon Arnold, 22, admitted he was targeting the seniors at the Golden Retreat Center on Moncrief Road because he knew their government benefits checks arrived on Thursday, a police report says.

Officers say Arnold told them he was selling the fake crack to support his own marijuana habit.

A tip from a staff member at the retirement home led police to Arnold, the report says.

Once officers caught up with him, the report says officers patted him down and found a Tylenol pill bottle with seven Tylenol pills and one small rock of what appeared to be crack cocaine inside.

Officers tested the rock with a chemical kit and the results showed the crack was fake, according to Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Melissa Bujeda.

Arnold was arrested on felony charges of selling, manufacturing, or delivering a counterfeit controlled substance.

Source: First Coast News

Dang. I thought the nursing home residents would be flying high on government paid for drugs.