Saturday, January 21, 2006

The Foul Fowl Flu Has Flown

...thanks to an Israeli scientist: London U: Sambucol 99% effective against avian flu

Retroscreen Virology, a medical research institute subsidiary of Queen Mary College, University of London, yesterday announced that a medical preparation, Sambucol, developed by Israeli company Razei Bar Industries (1996) Ltd., reduced the quantity of cells infected with the avian flu virus by 99%, compared with a control group not treated with the virus.

Retroscreen Virology examined the effectiveness of Sambucol against the H5N1 strain of avian flu, and found that it was at least 99 per cent effective at reducing the virus.

Razei Bar president Dr. Madeleine Mumcuoglu, who developed the preparation, and her company, agreed to expand their research to examine Sambucol’s effectiveness against avian flu on a larger scale. She said that preliminary research showed that the preparation acted effectively against a variety of avian flu strains. Laboratory research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Hadassah Ein Kerem campus found that Sambucol was effective against avian flu strains that attack human beings, pigs, and fowl.

Another clinical trial is current underway at Hadassah Medical Organization Ein Kerem. It is expected that this research will confirm previous findings.
(Hat tip: Smooth Stone)

3 comments:

J said...

too bad this cure can only go to those not boycotting israel ;)

Kiddo said...

We'll have to see where this one goes in the lab, as it appears to be a cytokine inhibitor, which is admittedly what we need in our arsenal against the ARDS component of the HPAI H5N1.

This may prove to be very helpful indeed in the event of a pandemic, as the only other option of treating the "cytokine storm" reaction as well as ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) are a few other unreliable drug treatments and ventilators, which there are not enough of to handle a pandemic situation.

You guys made me put my "virology hat" back on for a minute there!!

Great info and links always available at www.fluwikie.com

Kiddo said...

Folks, the situation in Turkey is getting remarkably bad, despite the WHO's official reports. That's actually my main area of unofficial research, virology, and I'm up on all of the flu blogs daily.

Please mail me if you have questions(re: the mutations, the latest, why the recreation of the 1918 virus scares the crap out of all of us virus nuts, etc.). It's just getting a little scary out there in "Virology World"!! But you've all helped me in "Blogger World" and I'd love to reciprocate.

A bit off topic, but as this situation potentially affects all of us, I think it's always quite relevant.