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Originally Posted by sleazybunny
It's all media hype about a threat that's been there for years. Only reason it's in the news now is cus a good old US Army Lab has recreated the 1918 Spanish Flu to "study it and develop a vaccine".
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Only true to the extent that the recreation of that virus has provided a "hook" for broader stories, as did Bush's recent announcement that he may use the military to help with vaccination in the event of an epidemic.
The H5N1 bird flu began spreading across Asia in 2003 and it has now reached Indonesia (where it has already caused human deaths) and Russia. Although no-one can be sure if it will develop into a global pandemic, a couple of weeks ago I read that some Japanese scientists believe the spread is close to a critical mass that will make its further spread inevitable.
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Originally Posted by Tat2Jr
I'm ordering a supply of TAMIFLU! I aint gonna wait on my government, after Katrina I know I'm on my own.
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The bad news is that in late September, there was a Reuters article from Hong Kong stating that flu strains passed to humans in Japan and Vietnam were proving resistant to Tamiflu. Apparently injectible forms of Relenza are still effective, but it was reported on the BBC earlier this week that one of the problems is that until the exact strain which passes to a large number of humans is identified, the effectiveness of vaccines cannot be known. Another is that by the time useful vaccines are available in large numbers, the virus is likely to have mutated.