poses a "massively frightening" potential threat to humanity. 600 million could die.
 

Anyone else watching this crisis?

Now they are reporting more human cases in thailand.

"In a pandemic, 30% to 40% of the population likely would be infected, and as many as one-third could die. That was the fatality rate on the H5N1 strain when it emerged in Hong Kong in 1997, killing six of the 18 people who fell ill."

So this means that around 600 million people could die if the virus mutates..

Bird virus could mutate into pandemic flu, scientists warn

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...flu-usat_x.htm

ANN ARBOR, Mich. ? As health officials around the world keep a watchful eye on reports of a handful of SARS cases in China, a potentially more ominous threat could be emerging in Vietnam.

Scientists attending an international symposium on SARS expressed growing concern Tuesday about an avian influenza virus that has killed at least five people in Vietnam. They fear that it could mutate into a form of flu that would be deadly to humans and highly contagious, causing a pandemic.

"Everyone is looking at this avian influenza and worrying it is 'the P word,' " said Stephen Ostroff of the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC sent six scientists this week to Vietnam to help investigate the outbreak, and the World Health Organization announced it is trying to quickly produce a vaccine to protect humans. Wire reports say authorities in Vietnam are killing chickens to halt the disease.

Analysis of samples of the virus, called A(H5N1), shows it has not yet developed the ability to spread from one person to another. That can happen if a bird flu virus and a human flu virus meet in an environment in which they can swap genes, resulting in a virus that is new to humans, as the H5N1 virus is, and is as easily passed from person to person as the flu.

About 18 illnesses and deaths, all but two of them children, are being investigated in Vietnam, Ostroff said. "We could be looking at the tip of the iceberg."

Of special concern is that human flu is circulating in Vietnam now, Ostroff said, so there are opportunities for human and avian flu viruses to commingle. In addition, this is the season of Tet, the Lunar New Year, which has brought thousands of tourists into the country, where they could potentially be exposed.

"One of the lessons from SARS is that the virus can be all over the world in two weeks," said Arnold Monto, director of the University of Michigan Bioterrorism Preparedness Initiative. But he says he is more concerned about a flu pandemic because experience shows that with SARS "you can put the genie back in the bottle."

Flu is far more contagious and hard to contain. In a pandemic, 30% to 40% of the population likely would be infected, and as many as one-third could die. That was the fatality rate on the H5N1 strain when it emerged in Hong Kong in 1997, killing six of the 18 people who fell ill.

That outbreak was contained through a massive public health effort; all the poultry in Hong Kong were slaughtered in three days, an action that many scientists believe averted a pandemic. The same virus struck again in Hong Kong in February 2003, killing one person.

WHO has warned that the H5N1 strain "has properties that make it a potential risk to human health of considerable significance."

It mutates quickly and tends to pick up genes from flu viruses that affect other species. The virus started in geese, moved to chickens and then to ducks and wild birds. Outbreaks have killed millions of birds in Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

This "simultaneous occurrence of large and highly fatal outbreaks of H5N1 in birds is unprecedented," WHO says.

"I believe the avian flu will develop the ability to transmit from human to human," said Zonghan Zhu of Beijing Municipal Central Laboratory of Infections and Immunity. If so, public health systems may not be ready.

Progress has been made since the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome in late 2002, experts say, but no public health system is prepared to manage the flood of sick and frightened people a pandemic could create.

Federal health agencies recognize the potential of pandemic flu as a major threat, Monto said, but they have not moved quickly to try to solve problems inherent in making a vaccine or to stockpile antiviral medications. Public health experts "are further along," he said, "but we need more of a sense of urgency."

Chicken flu 'could be human disaster'

LINK


CHICKEN flu poses a "massively frightening" potential threat to humanity, a leading medical journal says today.

At least five people in Vietnam are now known to have died in the latest outbreak of dangerous influenza carried by birds.

The Lancet medical journal warned in an editorial that standard vaccines would be useless against the virus if it started spreading through human communities.

At present the avian influenza strain, known as H5N1, is not thought capable of passing from person to person.

But experts fear it might acquire the ability if its DNA mingles with that of a human flu virus. Such "reassortment" is a well-known feature of viruses.

If this were to happen, the scene could be set for a major world-scale disaster like the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which killed up to 40 million people.

The Lancet said, "The fear is that a strain such as H5N1 might reassort with a human influenza virus to become contagious among people. In view of the high mortality of human influenza associated with this strain, the prospect of a worldwide pandemic is massively frightening."

Wild birds were the main source of avian influenza, but live poultry markets in Asia provided the virus with a breeding ground.

In 1997, 18 people in Hong Kong were admitted to hospital with H5N1 infection, and six died.

This outbreak was the first documented example of direct transmission of the strain to humans.

It resulted in 1.4 million chickens and other poultry birds - the entire stock in Hong Kong - being destroyed.

Another outbreak in the former colony in 1999 saw 1.25 million birds culled.

Last year two Hong Kong residents developed H5N1 influenza after returning from China, and one died. In the same year, a related strain, H7N7, broke out in the Netherlands poultry industry and killed a vet.

The latest outbreak has sent experts from the World Health Organisation, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, racing to Vietnam.

By Tuesday, a fifth person in the country had died from H5N1 influenza, according to the WHO. Bird stocks in Japan and South Korea had also been infected.

Traditional vaccines cannot be made to combat either H5 or H7 avian influenza. The viruses rapidly kill off the chick embryos normally used in the vaccine production process.

Genetic engineering can also be employed, but vaccines made by this method have not yet been studied in clinical trials, said The Lancet.

Antiviral drugs, meanwhile, are expensive and not effective enough against the viruses.

The Lancet added that influenza was more contagious than Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. It was unlikely to be controlled by quarantine measures effective against Sars.

Got any more doomsayer articles for me to get depressed about?

ok is there anything anyone can do about it? NO

so go on in life

You are absolutely right. That doesn't mean I want to act like it's not happening. Pandemics occur every 30-40 years. We just have to accept it.

exactly,

Ehhh... I dont think it will get that bad. Look how quick they detained SARS

Ehm... YES?
Scientists can create vaccins, governments can search for and quarantine infected people... there's a lot that can be done about it.

great,

Sure! :)

Experts fear bird flu pandemic

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=30015

The bird flu crisis in Asia grew on Thursday as Thailand was said to have recorded its first human case and a warning was given that the virus could mutate into a more serious form.

Three countries announced a ban on imports of Thai chickens. The World Health Organisation said that if bird flu started spreading between humans it could cause a more serious epidemic than Sars.

An editorial in the UK medical journal the Lancet today says that standard vaccines would be useless against the virus if it started spreading.

British companies, which import about 50 000 tons of Thai chicken each year, seemed to be relaxed on Thursday about the impact that avian flu might have.

Members of the British Poultry Council emphasised that it did not represent a food safety risk, but warned that if Thailand had been wrongly denying the existence of the flu, that would seriously damage its trading with the EU.

The Food Standards Agency issued a statement saying that the outbreak in the far east was not thought to pose a food safety risk to British consumers, and that no restrictions were being imposed.

At present the avian influenza strain, known as H5N1, is not thought to be capable of passing from person to person. But there are fears that it might acquire that ability if its DNA mingled with that of a human flu virus. Such genetic "reassortment" is a well-known feature of viruses.

The Lancet said: "In view of the high mortality of human influenza associated with this strain, the prospect of a worldwide pandemic is frightening."

The latest warnings came as Senator Nirun Phitakwatchara, who chairs the Thai parliament's social development and human security committee, claimed that his country had recorded its first human case of the avian flu which has ravaged Vietnam and is sweeping through Asia.

Despite not being able to offer corroboration, the senator said that one of Thailand's three suspected cases had tested positive.

He said those who knew about the subject were being bullied into silence. "The case in Suphan Buri [province] has tested positive, that is for sure," he said.

"All the academics and experts have had to shut up due to political interference. As a matter of fact, they realised that the outbreak had occurred since last November."

He also accused the government, which denies the crisis, of a huge cover-up.

The prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, said the test results had not yet been returned, and the illnesses sweeping the country's poultry industry were the less dangerous avian cholera and bronchitis.

He insisted that poultry products from Thailand -- which is one of the world's five biggest exporters of chicken -- were safe for human consumption.

The public health minister, Sudarat Keyuraphun, said her ministry "has no intention of covering up any bird flu case ... but up until now, I insist they are only suspected cases."

Japan, Cambodia and Laos have already banned imports of Thai chicken. The EU health commissioner, David Byrne, said he was worried enough to ask the Thai agriculture ministry for a written report. "We are watching it closely," he said.

Six-million Thai chickens have died or been culled to contain the problem.

Fear about bird flu mounted on Wednesday when officials in Vietnam, where five people have died from the illness, admitted that nearly 900,000 chickens possibly exposed to the virus had been sold to the public.

A World Health Organisation spokesperson in Vietnam, Bob Dietz, said on Thursday that the spread of the virus was a cause for "growing concern".

"The more widespread it becomes, the more chance there is that it could alter its form," he said. - Guardian Unlimited ? Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

they were enough to get me depressed. I prefer to suicide than die due to a stupid bird disease. damn

SARS isn't airborne. Influenza is. You can breath and spread the flu to everyone else.

With SARS, you had to be in very close contact for a long period of time (like hospital staff).

Oh... that's true

We are all going to die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bio always scared me more than nuc or chem...

I guess that's a problem when ya had to read too much info on it in a previous life (job)...

but like EB mentioned...nothing you can do if shit like that happens...live every day as if it were your last...and SMILE :)

Don't panic. It's not a pandemic yet.

We are at the first stage.

Novel Virus Alert

Novel virus detected in one or more humans
Little or no immunity in the general population
Potential but not inevitable
precursor to pandemic

Pandemic Alert

Novel virus demonstrates sustained person-to-person transmission and causes multiple cases in the same geographic area

Pandemic Imminent

Novel virus causing unusually high rates of morbidity and/or mortality in multiple, widespread geographic areas

Pandemic

Further spread with involvement of multiple continents; formal declaration made

Second Wave

Reoccurrence of epidemic activity within several months following the initial wave of infection
Pandemic Over

Cessation of successive pandemic ?waves,? accompanied by return (in the United States) of more typical wintertime ?epidemic? cycle

You risk death everyday if I worried about all shit I go mad. Just live life while you can fuck all the other bullshit.

After being sick with that awful flu this year....this freaks me out.
Next time I travel, it will be with face mask:helpme

probably getting worked up over nothing

Yeah, it's probably just something small like aids.

yeh, I hear viruses tend to be pretty tiny...


:glugglug

I am not liking the number of nasty things that have been going around lately. Maybe it's the news but it is getting to me. I mean with West Nile, SARS, Bird Virus, and Mad Cow you start to worry about the forces of nature some.

I worry that people are a part of that 'forces of nature' equation...

but I"m a bit of a consiracy theorist freak so....

Honestly earth would be a much better place with 600 million less inhabitants.

Nature has always sorted out the problems and nature will always do so in the future. I find it so ironic that people freak out about what nature can do but don't stop poluting the air, land and water.

Isn't there a patch for windows that I can just download and fix the problem?

it might be a good idea to start selling those Chick-Fil-a stock.

Beef has been getting a bad rep lately. Eat more Beef :)

it is no longer safe to go outdoors. but i don't do much of that doing the winter anyway so hopefully i'm safe

Go Veg and quit eating critters.

Question, since this morning my parrot is sneezing, should I get tested???

Maybe it's not natural and it was man created and birds were used as the host because they migrate... If you were going to create a virus, what better way of ensuring maximum spread.

In the far east they eat them lol maybe that's how they catch it...

Just don't have it near gyf or it will start making farting noises and going "YOU SHOULD HAVE GONE TO.... XXXX"