Support : Publications : Chronolog Archives : July/August 2004

Highlight:
Bird Flu Epidemic—EMBASE® Supports Critical Research Efforts

Bird flu, or avian influenza, is a highly contagious viral disease that erupted in several countries in Asia in 2003 and early 2004. Within a few months, reports of the disease jumped from local outbreaks to an epidemic of international significance. Although this type of influenza usually affects chickens, turkeys, ducks and other birds, it has the potential to cross over from animals to humans. In a January 2004 joint statement, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), and World Health Organization (WHO) requested assistance from the global community and warned that bird flu presents a risk of evolving into an efficient and dangerous human pathogen.

EMBASE (File 72,73/EMED) supports critical research efforts for global health threats such as avian influenza. Updated daily, the database covers more than 4,000 international drug and biomedical journals published in 70 countries from Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Africa, Japan, China, Australia, and New Zealand.

In addition to its devastating effect on poultry production, there is a very real threat of bird flu evolving to a virulent influenza strain that would be a dangerous human pathogen. In fact, EMBASE already contains documented reports of human fatalities from bird flu, such as this news item from Nature: "Human fatality adds fresh impetus to fight against bird flu" [Nature (2003) 423:6935 (5)].

EMBASE answers the international scientific community's need for access to cutting-edge research literature. The sample titles below, all published in 2003 or 2004, illustrate the broad coverage of avian influenza:

"Generation and evaluation of a high-growth reassortant H9N2 influenza A virus as a pandemic vaccine candidate" [Vaccine (2003) 21:17-18 (1983-1988). Date of Publication: 16 May 2003]

"Cross-species infections" [Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology (2003) 278:- (47-71)]

"Nucleic acid sequence-based amplification methods to detect avian influenza virus" [Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications (2004) 313:2 (336-342). Date of Publication: 9 Jan 2004]

"Are We Ready for Pandemic Influenza?" [Science (2003) 302:5650 (1519-1522). Date of Publication: 28 Nov 2003]

"Sequence Analysis of Recent H7 Avian Influenza Viruses Associated with Three Different Outbreaks in Commercial Poultry in the United States" [Journal of Virology (2003) 77:24 (13399-13402). Date of Publication: Dec 2003]

"Wet markets ­ A continuing source of severe acute respiratory syndrome and influenza?" [Lancet (2004) 363:9404 (234-236). Date of Publication: 17 Jan 2004]

Here are several ways to search for the topic on EMBASE:

• Bird flu is an example of a zoonose, or a disease that is communicable from animal to human. Search using the preferred EMTREE term "avian influenza."
  
  
• Use the EMTREE, The Life Science Thesaurus, which contains more than 46,000 drug, biomedical and biological terms, plus over 190,000 synonyms for alternate drug and disease names. Relevant terms for the avian influenza topic include zoonosis, influenza vaccine, virus transmission, epidemic, and more.
  
  
• Use the EXPLODE command to automatically retrieve more specific terms. For example, the geographic name Asia can be exploded to retrieve more than 50 specific country names in one simple step.
  
  
• Dialog eLinks are available in EMBASE, providing links to the complete articles.

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