Eleven-year-old budding footballer Imogen Papworth-Heidel has completed her target of 7.1 million keepy-uppies – and has raised thousands of pounds for charity in the process.Imogen, from Hauxton, near Cambridge, wanted to do a keepy-uppie for every key worker in the United Kingdom, and she completed the final 3,000 at Cambridge United’s Abbey Stadium on Wednesday.- Advertisement – “So many people have supported her and it really shows the warmth of humanity during a really difficult time for people.“The amount of support from such a vast variety of people has been amazing – a grandad just out from Covid, first thing he does out from hospital is go in his garden and do some keepy-uppies for her!“We have had amputees and blind people doing keepy-uppies, so it has been absolutely fantastic.“And it has also inspired people to go out in the garden and be active – many people have said that to us and how it has helped them with their own mental health.”Imogen added: “We have raised over £11,100 and my original target was £1,300.“We smashed that target, which is so amazing!”
Image:Imogen completed her 7.1 million keepy-uppie challenge on Wednesday – Advertisement – “He inspired me to do the challenge, he was raising so much money, and I even met him, which was amazing, and give him his Pride of Britain award.“I told him about the challenge and he said it was ‘quite cool’ – and that is quite a cool thing!” Imogen trains with Cambridge United’s youth academy and Essex County FA Girls Regional Talent Club and, asked if she would like to play for the Lionesses one day, she said: “That is one of my dreams.“Going there (St George’s Park), inspired me even more.”The Arsenal and Cambridge fan has been inspiring others this year – and her amazing efforts have raised money for the NHS, Mind, The Fire Fighters Charity, Police Care UK, The Care Workers Charity, SSAFA – The Armed Forces Charity, Education Support, East Anglian Air Ambulance, and Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust.At the time of writing, she has raised over £12,000 and donations continue to arrive on her JustGiving page. She said: “Going to see the England players was so amazing, we met Tammy Abraham, he did some keepy-uppies, and I met Lucy Bronze. “I also met Isobel Christiansen and Georgia Stanway, and they were all really lovely.“I haven’t got a favourite but Marcus Rashford did some [keepy-uppies] as well and that was quite cool.”Imogen’s parents both work with the NHS in the field of patient safety, and her dad Karl was the official counter for the challenge.He said: “We are really proud of her, we thought it was going to take years.“I wasn’t sure I would be around for it! “It was really amazing to complete the challenge in under seven months,” Imogen told Sky Sports.“At the beginning, we thought it would take 97 years to actually finish this – I would be older than Captain Tom!- Advertisement –
Image:Imogen shows off the skills she hopes may lead to an England Lionesses call-up one day 0:44
Imogen has been helped along the way to her incredible final total by keepy-uppie ‘donations’ from approximately 2,000 people across the globe, including some well-known faces, who she bumped into at England’s St George’s Park training complex.- Advertisement – Imogen has completed her challenge to reach 7.1 million keepy-uppies – with a little help from those around the world inspired by her fundraising efforts. Pictures from @CUCTrust
Image:Captain Sir Thomas Moore completed 100 laps of his garden earlier this year and inspired Imogen into the bargain She started her challenge back in April, inspired by Captain Tom Moore, who raised £33m for the NHS when he completed 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday.
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Image:Scott Brown watches on as Celtic fall further behind to Sparta Prague Neil Lennon conceded there needs to be a culture change at Celtic after his side suffered an “unacceptable” 4-1 defeat at home to Sparta Prague to leave their Europa League hopes hanging by a thread.Lukas Julis scored a hat-trick as Sparta claimed a stunning away win that sent Lennon’s side to the bottom of Group H with one point from three games.- Advertisement – “It’s an accumulation of things catching up. We need to show a bit more humility and get back on the training ground. It’s a bitterly disappointing performance.“We don’t do the basics well enough. The first goal, it should never get past the first post. It’s lackadaisical and we have to do better.“The group is probably gone. We need to get some respect back with our next performance. I’ve been here a long time and that’s a very poor performance from a Celtic team.”
Image: Celtic are bottom of Europa League Group H after three games – Advertisement – – Advertisement – “There was a lack of hunger tonight and I don’t know where it’s come from because we’ve put in a really good performance on Sunday. I’ve defended the players up until now but that was unacceptable tonight.“We go from top in the group last year against teams of a similar standing and now we’re one point in nine. I don’t know where that’s gone, so we need to take a look at that.“We picked the same team because of the performance in Lille. Nothing surprises you in football but that first-half performance was very poor. The defending for the third goal was very poor.“This isn’t the biggest challenge I’ve faced in my time at the club. It feels like it is because it’s present. But it won’t happen again, that’s for sure.” Celtic went into the game on a high after their impressive 2-0 William Hill Scottish Cup semi-final win over Aberdeen at Hampden on Sunday, which ended a rare four-game winless run.Lennon kept an unchanged side but it was a somewhat calamitous night for the Scottish champions, who came unstuck in a tumultuous spell midway through the first half.Sparta didn’t look back after Julis’ opener, and Lennon added: “It was poor. We started the game OK and then got really ragged with the ball. Our passing, technique. I keep saying if we don’t defend set-pieces properly we’ll get punished.
Image:Lukas Julis scored a hat-trick to pile misery on Celtic – Advertisement – The Czech Republic side had a clutch of players missing through injury and Covid-19 issues, including No 1 goalkeeper Milan Heca and teenage star Adam Hlozek, but it proved to be a chastening night for Lennon, whose side have now won just one of their last six games in all competitions.“There needs to be a culture change within the club,” Lennon said. “I need to look at the culture, get them more hungry, get them back to basics. All those things Sparta did.“We have to be far more aggressive in our play. As the manager I have to accept responsibility but the players have to look at themselves too.
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– Advertisement – On Friday, Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was disclosed to have tested positive, though “pains were taken” to keep it a secret. Four other unnamed White House aides also tested positive.COVID-19 cases in the United States are once again surging, spurred as expected by cold weather forcing Americans indoors and by a gleeful contempt for masks and social distancing by a sizable portion of the population. The news of a promising vaccine provides hope, but it will take months to produce any significant quantity of a vaccine. In the meantime, holding indoor parties continues to be an extremely bad idea even if (especially if?) you are yourself a member of the “White House coronavirus task force”—as Ben Carson is.- Advertisement –
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‘Half doctor, half netballer’ are the words housed within Guscoth’s biography on Twitter, and she has always been open about how the two parts of her life complement each other and balance her.In Adelaide Thunderbirds’ announcement of her departure from Suncorp Super Netball (SSN), the defender shared the challenges she faced working in Australia.“Being a full-time athlete has huge perks but as imports we are so restricted with our visas as to what we can do outside of the sport, even in a voluntary role,” Guscoth told the Thunderbirds’ website.“Although we tried to explore options to allow me to do more medical work around training, it was becoming more difficult especially with COVID-19.“Given the ongoing pandemic, working in some capacity is something that I am keen to be able to do.”“I am very grateful to the Thunderbirds for the opportunity to play in SSN,” she continued. “It had never been something I thought that I would achieve.”In returning to Team Bath, Guscoth will be able to step back into a netball environment she s incredibly comfortable in and have the chance to develop her medical career too.
Get Sky Sports Golf for just £10 a month – Advertisement – All four days of The Masters exclusively live. Get our £10 golf offer. Find out more here.
Defending champion Tiger Woods started with a bogey-free 68 Seven months after the tournament was originally scheduled, the 84th Masters eventually got underway in early-morning rain before the players were called back in after only 25 minutes, with the rain getting heavier and the threat of thunderstorms in the area.But the dark clouds made way for bright skies and led to a raft of low scores, with Casey’s seven-under opener leading the way by two shots from Webb Simpson, Xander Schauffele and Justin Thomas, who was five under after 10 holes when darkness ended play for the day.
1:41 Lee Westwood admitted it was nice to be back at The Masters and says he was playing well and is looking forward to tomorrow’s play after a fine four-under 68 Tiger Woods says that the energy in this year’s Masters is so different due to the lack of spectators but he was pleased with his bogey-free 68 World No 1 Dustin Johnson looked in fine form as he eagled the second and birdied the eighth in a stress-free outward 33, with two-time champion Bernhard Langer again defying his age on such a huge layout, the 63-year-old making his fourth birdie of the day at the first to get to three under shortly before the klaxons sounded to bring the players in.DeChambeau sprayed his ball to all parts with a wayward driver and had to scramble hard to save pars until running out of luck at the 13th, when his ambitious second from the pine straw sailed into a bush over the green – leading to a double-bogey seven at the easiest hole on the course.But the pre-tournament favourite dug deep to salvage a two-under 70 thanks to a birdie-birdie finish, while 1987 champion Larry Mize was also two under for his 18 holes at the age of 62. Paul Casey matched the best round of his Masters career as a superb 65 earned him the early first-round lead after a lengthy storm delay at Augusta National.- Advertisement – Paul Casey says he has been feeding off the buzz of the players to help his performance after a bogey-free round of 65, leaving him seven-under-par on the first day of The Masters “The Masters, though, it still has a buzz to it. There’s an energy and a little bit of a vibe. Yes, it’s clearly a lot less than what we are used to, but there’s something about this place that is still special and I felt excited to be here.”While Casey was sitting pretty at the summit, his compatriot Lee Westwood also enjoyed a fast start as he matched the 68s of Woods, Hideki Matsuyama, Louis Oosthuizen and 2018 Masters champion Patrick Reed.Westwood stormed to the turn in 31 with five birdies, although the putts dried up on the back-nine and he bogeyed the 12th and was unable to make fours at either the 13th or 15th, settling for six pars in a row to finish on four under par. Paul Casey leads by two after an opening 65 McIlroy’s latest bid to complete the career Grand Slam of majors again got off to an uncertain start, pulling his approach left of the target at the first and needing three to get down from there, and he was clearly not on top of his game although he did pull one shot back at the long eighth.The 33-year-old had just dumped his approach to the 10th into the front greenside bunker when play was suspended due to darkness and, with 50 players currently under par, McIlroy will need to step it up when play resumes early on Friday morning.Join us live at the earlier time of midday on Friday for Featured Group action from Augusta, featuring Rory McIlroy and world No 1 Dustin Johnson. Live on Sky Sports The Masters and Sky Sports Main Event.
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2:13 Tiger Woods says that the energy in this year’s Masters is so different due to the lack of spectators but he was pleased with his bogey-free 68 – Advertisement – Tiger Woods made an ominous start to the defence of the title he won in memorable style last April, returning a 68 and keeping a bogey off his card for the first time on a Masters Thursday, but Rory McIlroy was out of sorts late in the day and bogeyed the first before getting the shot back at the long eighth in an outward 36.McIlroy will resume on the 10th hole early on Friday morning, but Casey can enjoy a relaxing Friday morning after a first round which was a remarkable 16 shots better than his opening 81 last year that led to him missing the halfway cut for the first time since 2012.Casey defied the difficulty of starting at the 10th and began with a birdie that set the tone for his day, the veteran Englishman picking up shots at both par-fives and the short 16th, and he found himself in the outright lead on six under when he rolled in a nice putt for eagle at the second.
Lee Westwood admitted it was nice to be back at The Masters and says he was playing well and is looking forward to tomorrow’s play after a fine four-under 68 “Well, I’ve got form round here, but the conditions are very different this week,” said Westwood, who is making his 19th start at Augusta after missing the last two years. “I have been playing well recently. I shot a poor first round last week in Houston but bounced back with a 69, which could have been 65 or 64. Today was a 68, could have been a 64, 63 quite easily.”Woods declared he “did everything well” as he broke 70 for only the second time in round one of the Masters, the 44-year-old following a solid three-par start with three birdies in four holes from the 13th, although he would pick up only one more shot at the first and parred in from there.Matthew Wolff, fourth at the PGA Championship and runner-up to Bryson DeChambeau at the US Open, continued to impress in just his third major start as he cruised to four under after 11 holes, with world No 2 Jon Rahm safely in the clubhouse after a 69 which was matched by Tony Finau and England’s Matt Wallace.
Rory McIlroy struggled over the front nine The 43-year-old converted another birdie chance at the par-three sixth, and three solid pars closed out an excellent day’s work which Casey revealed was inspired by being at “special” Augusta having previously struggled with the lack of spectators, particularly at the PGA Championship.“This is something I’ve looked forward to,” said Casey, who has five top-10 finishes in his 13 Masters appearances. “I was vocal earlier in the year at Harding Park about not enjoying golf in a pandemic.“But I’m acutely aware that I’m in a very fortuitous position. I still get to be a professional golfer and play championship golf, but I didn’t know how the fanless experience would be. And so far, I’ve not enjoyed it, and I’ve lacked energy. I’ve had nothing or very little to draw from being out playing tournament golf.
2:47 Paul Casey says he has been feeding off the buzz of the players to help his performance after a bogey-free round of 65, leaving him seven-under-par on the first day of The Masters
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– Advertisement – SpaceX has signed contracts with Nasa valued in excess of $3bn to develop, test and fly an astronaut taxi service. As part of this relationship, the company ran a demonstration mission in May in which astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken were taken to the station and then returned safely to Earth.
– Advertisement – The sweetest dedication. Pregnant Mandy Moore gushed over her expanding family while accepting her People’s Choice Award on Sunday, November 15.“To the love of my life, Taylor [Goldsmith], I’m so excited to bring this baby boy into my life with you,” the This Is Us star, 36, said in her acceptance speech for the Drama TV star award. “To all of you who championed and supported our show and the Pearson family from the beginning, we truly wouldn’t be here without you.”- Advertisement – On Friday, November 12, Moore told Hoda Kotb that she would keep her budding belly hidden on This Is Us with the help of “laundry baskets, oversized purses and God knows what [else].” She added, “I’ve also heard they can digitally change things if need be.”
Mandy Moore attends the 2020 E! People’s Choice Awards held at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California and on broadcast on Sunday, November 15, 2020. Todd Williamson/E! Entertainment/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty ImagesThe Emmy nominee’s TV husband, Milo Ventimiglia, exclusively told Us Weekly last month that Moore’s pregnancy would “creep up” on the cast and crew.- Advertisement – “I’m sure as she’s evolving in her birth, as her belly is growing, then we’ll probably be playing some of those notes up to the Big Three’s birth,” the Gilmore Girls alum, 43, explained in October, referencing Kate, Randall and Kevin Pearson’s characters. “As far as I understand it, Mandy’s not really showing right now.”As far as the precautions he and the other cast members are taking while filming amid the coronavirus pandemic, the actor told Us at the time: “Mandy and I were inches away on Saturday doing a few scenes together. She’s regularly tested [and] I’m regularly tested because of the seriousness of COVID and knowing that Mandy’s pregnant. We have 150 souls on our crew and nobody wants to put them at risk. I trust Mandy and how she goes about her life away from work, and I think Mandy trusts me for how I go about my life away from work. We’re always mindful of that.”Listen to Us Weekly’s Hot Hollywood as each week the editors of Us break down the hottest entertainment news stories! The actress cradled her baby bump in her black Brandon Maxwell dress, adding, “You’re part of our growing family.”
Mandy Moore accepts the award onstage for the 2020 E! People’s Choice Awards held at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California and on broadcast on Sunday, November 15, 2020. Christopher Polk/E! Entertainment/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty ImagesThe New Hampshire native concluded by saying that she felt “humbled and honored” to receive the award from fans of the NBC show. “It’s just beyond,” Moore said.The “When I Wasn’t Watching” singer announced in September that she and her husband, 35, have a son on the way. “Baby Boy Goldsmith coming early 2021,” the pregnant star captioned her Instagram reveal at the time.- Advertisement –
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May 23, 2005 (CIDRAP News) – The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced that $1.33 billion will be available in this year’s round of funding to states to improve preparedness for terrorism and other public health emergencies.The total includes $862.8 million in funds administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to boost preparedness for bioterrorism, infectious disease outbreaks, and public health emergencies. Another $471 million will be passed out by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to improve hospitals’ ability to cope with events that cause large numbers of casualties.The total amount is down about $14 million from last year’s total, which included $849.6 million in CDC grants and $498 million in HRSA grants. The money goes to states, territories, and four metropolitan areas: Los Angeles County, Chicago, New York City, and Washington, DC.The package is the fourth in a series of large federal allocations for public health preparedness that began in 2002, following the terrorist attacks and anthrax mailings of 2001.HHS said the funds will be used to upgrade infectious disease surveillance and investigation, prepare the healthcare system to deal with mass casualties, expand public health laboratory and communications capacities, and improve disease-reporting communication between hospitals and city, local, and state health departments.Setting specific objectivesOne important new wrinkle in the process this year is that the CDC is making an earnest attempt to define preparedness in terms of specific goals and performance capabilities.The CDC released a document May 13 to guide jurisdictions through the application process. The document includes a lengthy set of goals, under the headings Prevent, Detect/Report, Investigate, Control, Recover, and Improve. The guidelines spell out particular outcomes, tasks, and measures of performance under each goal.”The preparedness goals or measurements—that is a new piece to the cooperative agreement,” CDC spokesman Von Roebuck told CIDRAP News. “They have not been in there before. They do build a bit up on the past recommendations as far as key points that we wanted to have covered. They actually are a work in progress. . . . We’ll listen to what states have to say, and they’ll be modified in some way if necessary.”Last year the CDC guidelines were framed in terms of focus areas or activities, such as planning, epidemiology and surveillance, biological laboratory, risk communication, and training, according to Aggie Leitheiser, assistant commissioner for the Health Protection Bureau in the Minnesota Department of Health.”It was focused much more on tasks,” Leitheiser told CIDRAP News. “This year they’ve switched to identifying the goals that we’re trying to achieve with this work. They’ve identified nine, and in that, I believe, are over a hundred critical tasks or subtasks.”The goals and tasks have performance measures linked to them. For example, the prevention goal includes planning for all kinds of public health emergencies. For one of the performance measures in that category, Leitheiser said, “We are to measure the time it takes to get our initial wave of personnel to a staging area to staff emergency operations, and the target is 90 minutes.”For another example, the “investigate” goal calls for speeding up the identification of causes, risk factors, and appropriate interventions for those affected by threats to public health. One of the related performance measures is to be able to start an epidemiologic investigation within 3 hours after an unusual pattern of disease cases is detected.Another goal is to speed up the detection and reporting of dangerous agents in tissue, food, or environmental samples. One of several associated performance measures is the ability to send a sample potentially containing an infectious agent to a reference laboratory within 60 minutes after collecting it.”We’re very pleased to see the switch” in approaches, Leitheiser said. “Rather than ‘How many meetings did you have?’ [the CDC is asking], ‘Can you show you’re able to act effectively?'”Questions raised about progressShe said many groups, including Congress, the CDC, and state health departments, have been asking how much progress has been made in bioterrorism preparedness with the money that’s been spent in recent years. “I think the CDC is moving in a deliberate way to answer those questions,” she said.Not that the new guidance is flawless, Leitheiser said. “Some of them [performance goals] are frankly a little unrealistic. For example, that we be able to handle 1% of the population calling in for information. That would be 50,000 people, which would probably take down the phone system.”She also said that with the new approach, applying for the funds will probably take more work this year. Officials will have to write a description of how they plan to develop the ability to handle each of the critical tasks in the guidance.”I think it’s very good, but change is always hard,” she said.Leitheiser said the guidelines for HRSA funding for hospitals didn’t change as much as the CDC guidelines did this year. “The HRSA grant I think has been more focused from the beginning,” she said. “They are trying also to be aware of measurement and impact, but they didn’t go to the same format that CDC did.”The CDC money includes a base grant of $3.9 million for each jurisdiction, plus an additional amount based on population, according to Roebuck of the CDC. The amounts range from $4.9 million for Wyoming to $61.3 million for California. Thirty-one states and cities are due to get more money this year than they did last year, while 23 will receive less.The HRSA funds are allocated much the same way as the CDC money, with a base grant plus an amount based on population. David Bowman, a HRSA spokesman in Washington, DC, said the base grant this year is slightly lower than the $1 million used last year. Sums range from about $1.3 million for Wyoming to $39.2 million for California.Health departments have until Jul 13 to apply for the CDC funds, and the money will be available for spending starting Aug 31, Roebuck said.Bowman said the deadline for applying for HRSA funds is Jul 1, with the money becoming available after Aug 31.Program for cities expandsWith the CDC funding, HHS is expanding a program to help major cities develop the ability to quickly provide oral drugs to the entire population in a public health emergency. Last year 21 urban areas received funds under the program, called the Cities Readiness Initiative. This year, the CDC is increasing the total funds for those 21 areas by $10 million and is adding another 15 metropolitan areas in 15 states, HHS reported.Funds for the program this year will total $40.18 million, officials said. The largest sums are slated to go to New York City ($5.1 million) and Los Angeles ($3.44 million).The CDC is also continuing a program begun last year to strengthen infectious disease surveillance in states bordering on Mexico and Canada. A total of $5.44 million will be available for the Early Warning Infectious Disease Surveillance Program in the border states.The money is for developing and implementing a program to detect, investigate, and report unusual infectious disease cases in the border regions, HHS said. Twenty states are to receive shares of the money, but most of it will go to Texas (about $2 million) and California ($1.5 million).The CDC’s guidelines also ask states to take steps to prepare for an influenza pandemic. One suggestion is that states use CDC funds to buy supplies of the antiviral drug oseltamivir and store them in hospital-based caches funded by HRSA. Health departments could then use the drug to treat their own staff members if needed in a pandemic, the guidelines say.See also:May 13 HHS news releasehttp://archive.hhs.gov/news/press/2005pres/20050513.htmlCDC’s “Cooperative Agreement Guidance for Public Health Emergency Preparedness”http://www.bt.cdc.gov/planning/guidance05/index.asp
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Resveratrol is an antioxidant that is found in at least 72 plant species and is known to help protect the heart and nervous system and help prevent cancer, says the report. The researchers did a series of experiments in which they exposed cells to a flu virus and added resveratrol an hour later. They also exposed groups of mice to the virus and treated them with resveratrol or a placebo. The researchers also tested the effects of starting resveratrol treatment at different intervals after infecting cells with the virus. Treatment was most effectivereducing viral growth 87.5%when treatment began 3 hours after virus exposure. Effects were lower but still significant when treatment began 6 hours after infection, and treatment had no significant benefit if delayed until 9 hours after infection. Rather than directly attacking the flu virus itself, resveratrol seems to block host-cell functions that are essential for viral replication, says the report by Anna T. Palamara and colleagues at the University of Rome. They write that the substance holds promise as a possible weapon against flu. Palamara AT, Nencioni L, Aquilano K, et al. Inhibition of influenza A virus replication by resveratrol. J Infect Dis 2005 May 15;191(10):1719-29 [Abstract] May 31, 2005 (CIDRAP News) Resveratrol, a chemical found in grapes and other fruits, inhibits the reproduction of influenza viruses in cell culture and mice, according to a recent report in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. “For these reasons, RV merits further investigation as a potential weapon for combating the growing threat of influenza,” the authors conclude. In the tests on mice, the researchers found that resveratrol treatment increased survival by 40% in treated mice, compared with mice that received a placebo. The level of virus found in the lungs 6 days after infection was 98% lower in treated mice than in the placebo group. “We have shown that RV [resveratrol], a natural polyphenol whose concentration in red wine is 1.5-3.0 mg/L, can inhibit the in vitro and in vivo replication of influenza A virus without producing any significant toxicity,” the article states. The apparent ability of resveratrol to block host-cell functions that flu viruses rely on offers important advantages, the researchers say. Compared with existing anti-flu drugs, resveratrol would be less likely to induce resistance by flu viruses, and it would probably be effective for all types and strains of flu virus. In an initial cell-culture experiment, treatment with resveratrol at 20 mcg/mL reduced flu virus replication 90%, and treatment with 40 mcg/mL blocked replication completely. However, because the higher concentration damaged the cells, the lower concentration was used in further tests. Given these and other findings, the researchers concluded that resveratrol interferes with the manufacture of proteins made late in the viral replication process, such as hemagglutinin, and limits the transport of viral ribonucleoproteins from the cell nucleus to the cytoplasm. The authors also determined that the molecular mechanism for resveratrol’s effects has to do with the inhibition of protein kinase C activity and its dependent pathways.
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Meanwhile, the WHO released several updates today on aspects of avian flu and pandemic preparedness. “There is still a window of opportunity for substantially reducing the risk of a human pandemic evolving from H5N1 by controlling the virus at its source, in animals,” said Joseph Domenech, the FAO’s chief veterinary officer. A report by the Asian bank envisions two potential scenarios, according to an Associated Press (AP) report yesterday. Both scenarios assume that 20% of the region’s population would get sick in a pandemic lasting about a year and that 0.5%, or 3 million, would die. WHO statement on Geneva meetinghttp://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr56/en/index.html WHO statement on the role of antiviral drugshttp://web.archive.org/web/20110411140209/http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/antivirals2005_11_3/en/index.html In one scenario, a pandemic would seriously affect economic demand for 6 months, reducing consumer spending, trade, services, and investment by $99 billion, the AP reported. In the other scenario, a pandemic would restrict economic activity for a year, leading to $282 billion in losses. In addition, the agency said H5N1 can survive for “at least one month at low temperatures,” which means that freezing and refrigeration will not kill the virus or reduce its concentration in contaminated meat. Also, in countries with outbreaks, eggs may have the virus on both the outside and inside, so eggs should not be eaten raw or partially cooked. In an update on vaccine research and development, the WHO said one of the several companies developing H5N1 vaccines plans to present the results of its clinical trials to the WHO by early December. “However, if a pandemic were to begin within the next few months, no company would be ready to move immediately into commercial production,” the agency said. “The Geneva meeting will first consider how to contain the H5N1 virus in birds,” the WHO said in a statement today. The agenda will also include strengthening of disease surveillance systems, development of vaccines, and access to antiviral drugs. The statement also said current trends indicate that most developing countries “will have no access to a vaccine during the first wave of a pandemic and perhaps throughout its duration.” The meeting is being organized by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), and the World Bank, along with the WHO. It comes on the heels of US President George W. Bush’s release this week of his administration’s strategy for addressing the pandemic threat. WHO vaccine research updatehttp://web.archive.org/web/20110214224324/http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/vaccineresearch2005_11_3/en/index.html Nov 4, 2005 (CIDRAP News) – The Asian Development Bank estimated this week that an influenza pandemic in Asia could kill 3 million people and possibly trigger a world recession, as the World Health Organization (WHO) geared up for a major conference on global strategy for limiting the pandemic threat. The WHO said today that the M2 inhibitors “could potentially be used against pandemic influenza, but resistance to these drugs may develop rapidly and this could significantly limit their effectiveness. Some currently circulating avian H5N1 strains are fully resistant to the M2 inhibitors, while others remain fully susceptible.” On food safety issues, the WHO emphasized that the H5N1 virus does not spread to humans through properly cooked food. However, the agency also said that H5N1 and other highly pathogenic viruses spread to nearly all parts of an infected bird, making proper handling and cooking imperative. The bank’s report emerged as the WHO was completing plans for a meeting of more than 400 health experts, policy makers, economists, and industry representatives in Geneva next week to work toward a “global consensus” on how to control the H5N1 avian flu virus in domestic animals and prepare for a possible human flu pandemic. In a statement on the role of antiviral drugs in combating a pandemic, the WHO suggested that two older antiviral drugs, amantadine and rimantadine, could still be of some use. Researchers reported last year that H5N1 viruses in Vietnam and Thailand were resistant to amantadine, leading to a belief that M2 inhibitors would be of little use if H5N1 leads to a pandemic. The second scenario would nearly stop Asia’s economic growth and could also mean a 14%, or $2.5 trillion, reduction in global economic activity, the AP reported. WHO food safety statementhttp://web.archive.org/web/20110214224033/http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/foodrisk2005_11_03/en/index.html See also: Transcript of Nov 2 press briefing on the US government’s HHS Pandemic Influenza Planhttp://archive.hhs.gov/news/press/2005pres/20051102.html
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