The feared pandemic flu that could kill 150 million people worldwide might have begun
 

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article337233.ece

Experts fear bird flu mutation in eastern Turkey
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 08 January 2006

UN experts headed for a remote area of eastern Turkey yesterday to find out whether it is witnessing the start of the much-feared pandemic of bird flu that could kill 150 million people worldwide.

The World Health Organisation, which has sent a team of six to the area, centred on the town of Dogubayazit, in the mountains near the Iranian border, says the result of the investigations should be known "in the next few days". Yesterday, however, fog kept the experts stuck in the capital, Ankara.

The area is already the site of the world's worst outbreak of the disease, which has so far killed about 75 people. And the virus, codenamed H5N1, is spreading rapidly in Turkey.

Three children from the same family in the area, Mehmet, Fatima and Hulya Kocyigit, have died of the disease. Turkish sources said yesterday that tests had confirmed that another two patients had caught it.

In all, 26 people, mainly children, are being treated for suspected bird flu in hospital in Van, where the three siblings died. Ominously it is believed they come from several provinces in the east of the country.

Another six children are in hospital in Diyarbakir, 250 miles south of Dogubayazit, and a family of seven are being treated in Istanbul after travelling from the east of the country.

The total number of cases, the first reported outside China and south-east Asia, is approaching a third of the total of 142 known to have occurred worldwide since 2003. The virus, which it is believed wild birds spread to poultry and then to people, has also been found in birds in several of Turkey's eastern provinces. Yesterday it was detected in two wild ducks at a lake near Ankara, far to the west.

Some experts say the sudden increase in the disease in people means the virus has mutated to enable it to spread more efficiently from poultry to people. They fear also that it may have started to move from person to person, signalling the start of a devastating spread around the world.

But others believe the Turkish outbreak has been fuelled by close contact with infected chickens which have been brought into homes to shelter them from harsh weather.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...974978,00.html

The Sunday Times January 08, 2006

Turkish deaths put Europe on bird flu alert
Jonathan Leake and Gareth Jenkins

THE number of Turkish people thought to be infected with avian flu rose to more than 50 this weekend, prompting concern that the disease may be about to spread into Europe.



Yesterday a British laboratory confirmed that a Turkish brother and sister who died last week had the feared H5N1 strain of avian flu.

A third child from the same family in Dogubayazit, in eastern Turkey, has now died of avian flu and dozens more suspected cases have emerged.

?The laboratory in the UK said that they have detected H5N1 in samples of the two fatal cases,? said Maria Cheng, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation. They are the first fatalities outside East Asia.

The disease is most likely to have been carried to Turkey by migratory birds, which have already spread it across Asia and parts of Russia. Last year a number of birds with the illness were found in Europe. The fear is that these will cross-infect domestic poultry, which will pass the disease on to humans.

Yesterday six more children who have tested positive for avian flu remained in a critical condition in the Turkish city of Van, near Dogubayazit. Another 24 suspected cases are being treated in a special ward in the university hospital.

A further 18 patients with symptoms of the disease, most of them children, are being treated in hospitals in the eastern cities of Yozgat, Erzurum and Diyarbakir. Other cases are being investigated.

The more the virus comes into contact with humans, the more likely it is to mutate into a form that can be transmitted between people. This has not yet happened; if it does it could start a global pandemic.

The H5N1 strain has killed half of all the people who have contracted it. The Spanish flu of 1918, which killed 40m people, was fatal in fewer than one in 10 cases.

Professor John Oxford, an expert on flu at Queen Mary?s medical school, London, said the most worrying aspect of the deaths in Turkey was the large number of human cases resulting from exposure to a small number of birds. He urged British authorities to follow the Dutch in ordering farmers to separate poultry from wild birds by keeping them indoors.

Yesterday Mehdi Eker, the Turkish agriculture minister, confirmed that bird flu had also been identified in two dead ducks found by a reservoir near Ankara, the capital, about 750 miles west of Dogubayazit. And Necdet Unuvar, of the Turkish health ministry, said: ?There has also been a large number of suspicious deaths amongst birds in three other counties in Ankara.?

The finds suggest that the disease is moving rapidly westwards and that its arrival in western Europe is only a matter of time.

Officials around Dogubayazit warned the government on December 16 of a surge in bird deaths but it took another 12 days for an investigation to begin. When Muhammet Ali Kocyigit, 14, became Turkey?s first avian flu victim last week, a government spokesman criticised doctors for mentioning the disease because they were ?damaging Turkey?s reputation?.

In southeast Asia, more than 70 people have died from H5N1 since 2003 but none has involved human-to-human transmission.

A European commission spokesman said last night: ?The latest deaths are a tragedy but, for the moment, we believe we are doing all we can and that we have in place the measures we need to guard against the spread of bird flu.?

This weekend Zeki Kocyigit, the father of the three dead children, said they contracted the disease after the family slaughtered and ate a sickly chicken.

At his two-room house in the poor Kockiran neighbourhood of Dogubayazit, he said: ?When Muhammet Ali was getting worse, everybody in the hospital was too busy celebrating the new year to pay any attention. On the evening of January 1, when he began to deteriorate, I was alone by his bedside. His last words were, ?Cuddle me, Daddy.? I did and I felt him kiss me on my cheek. Then he died.?

woot woot everyone stay indoors and watch porno

:helpme :helpme :helpme

Also..

Panic in Istanbul

http://www.showtvnet.com/haber/gunce...006/grip.shtml

Hit the camera next to the big turkey image and after 18 seconds of commentary relax and enjoy (God their news broadcast suck! :1orglaugh )

Man this is just terrible. I hope there's some way we can get in under control before it becomes a huge pandemic like everyone fears.

Damn this is going to get ugly

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...ub=CTVNewsAt11

Experts worried bird flu spreading among humans

Updated Sat. Jan. 7 2006 7:07 AM ET

CTV.ca News

Bird flu claimed a third child from the same Turkish family Friday, leading some experts to wonder whether the deadly virus has mutated into a strain able to move from human to human.

Hulya Kocyigit, 11, died from the H5N1 strain only days after two of her teenage siblings succumbed to the illness.

"We are treating this with a lot of concern," World Health Organization spokesperson Maria Cheng told CTV News.

"Any time avian influenza affects humans, it is a concern and we need to fully investigate this to understand what's going on."

Lab results released Friday confirmed the deadly strain killed older siblings Mehmet, 14, and Fatma, 15, said Turkish Health Ministry Undersecretary Necdet Unuvar.

Although Hulya was diagnosed with the disease while at the hospital in the eastern city of Van, tests still need to be completed to confirm the original diagnosis.

Hulya's six-year-old brother also fell ill but is said to be recovering.

Officials at the Van hospital, where all the siblings were treated, said they are caring for seven other patients with similar symptoms -- including high fevers, coughing and bleeding in the throat.

One young boy, Yusuf Tunc, is in critical condition. Tunc has already tested positive for H5N1, but it is unclear whether he had any connection to the Kocyigits.

Other reports said there are up to 23 potential cases in that hospital.

The number of closely related incidents of bird flu is unprecedented. Normally, human cases are isolated, with just two simultaneous cases at the most.

"This is unusual, and the WHO has to ask themselves whether something has changed," said Prof. Earl Brown, from the University of Ottawa.

"Has the virus changed, or is it something to do with the people in Turkey and their immune systems, or something regional with respect to people?"

Because of initial errors in the lab testing, which did not indicate the virus to be H5N1, measures for controlling the disease might have been delayed.

"This is a much larger outbreak than previous, and this is why the world's eyes are on this," said Dr. Neil Rau, an infectious disease expert based in Toronto.

And because Turkey is on the edge of Europe, the deaths show that a possible pandemic would not be restricted to Asia, as potentially infected migratory birds carry the disease across the planet.

Dangerous conditions

The Kocyigits lived in a one-room cottage in the village of Dogubayazit. The children were all involved in helping raise poultry on their small farm, the Turkish Press reported.

When the family's chickens began dying last year, they cooked and ate the birds that were still alive, doctors said. There were also reports of the children playing catch with decapitated chicken heads.

Turkish officials responded to the outbreak by organizing a cull of 5,000 birds in the affected area, to be completed Sunday.

"We have a pandemic plan ready. There is no need to be too alarmist," said Health Minister Recep Akdag, adding that Turkey has enough stocks of medicine to deal with an outbreak.

Turkey's farm minister said bird flu had been detected in two wild ducks near the capital Ankara, nearly 1,000 km west of the currently affected area.

Six children were also being tested for suspected bird flu in the city of Diyarbakir, hundreds of kilometres southwest of Dogubayazit.

More than 70 people have died in Asia from the H5N1 strain since 2003.

Watch out for SARS as well, scary stuff.

Bush and his damn Bird Flu Machine.

wait. He has a weather machine. I forgot.

SARS?! :1orglaugh

Along with the other diseases that were going to doom us all. Been a few coming for decades now!

SARS had the potential to be catastrophic. But it lacked something very important : It wasn't contagious. (You had to be in close contact for a long period of time with a sick person)

Flu is a different thing. You're infected? You will infect 8 other people.. and so on..

Flu pandemic isn't science fiction or media hype. We had 3 pandemics in the last century. A new flu virus dangerous to the humans appear every 25 to 40 years. It's a cycle. The last one was in 1969 (A mild pandemic, less than 1 million people died). My uncle, was 16, died from that one (The Hong Kong Flu).

We're overdue for a new flu pandemic. Could it be H5N1? Who knows..

Guys, this is media beat-up. People have been dying of bird flu for eons. Just that now, the media know if some poor dick who lives in the backblocks of Serbia or Turkey dies of bird flu, they give it page 1 prominence and all the clots fall for it. (i.e buy the Murdock shit rags and watch the electronic media so that you can have your senses assaulted by McDonalds (Who says shit tastes good).

To be honest, the word needs a pandemic and we need it to take out more that 150 million. Lets start with several billion and if this includes India, China, Africa, Mexico, South America and Indonesia (I apologise to any over populated country that I missed out) and the world would be a better place. Less greenhouse gases, less demand on food, water. Less destruction of wilderness. Less logging. Wow, let's start praying for a pandemic, I think we need it now.

Lyn from Oz

Africa is NOT a country, I know, I know, this might come as a shock to you, but I'm just letting you know

If you see the signs of a pandemic sweeping across Europe... you should really think about selling all your stocks and mutual funds. I have read reports by economists that predict a prolonged crash of every stock market in the world and you really really want to be in cash and not stocks or bonds if this thing starts to spread big time.

It's close to Iran. I wonder if a nuclear bomb would save us from the flu.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone is thinking this right now :winkwink:

:1orglaugh :thumbsup

You bring up an interesting point. While not so realistic, is it ever okay for one country to inflict disaster on another to prevent the spread of an outbreak?

We're overdue for a pandemic. It's part of life, live every day to the fullest yada yada.

Let me know when I should stock up on supplies...

More people die will die of salmonella and other bacterias. Learn to cook and wash your hands, before you turn on the TV.

I Invented H5N1.

:sleep :sleep

If the country doing the bombing is the US and the country getting bombed is any country other than the US, we already know the answer :winkwink:

thats EXACTLY what I was thinking!

there are 6 Billion people in the entire world.

you mean like sars was going to be the end of the world ?

I already picked out a sail boat down the street at the marina that I'm going to confiscate if the bird flu ever hits like they claim it could.. My ass will be heading to some island in the Atlantic for a few months..

Why so you can die of malaria or some other illness found in exotic places that is even more deadly without treatment from competent and modern medicine found in populated areas of advanced technology and medicine?

I was just on a cruise through the Panama Canal, and it was astonishing to learn that thousands of Americans died from Malaria and Yellow Fever in just a few years there when it was being constructed.

good

some good ole population control

we need some more dead people, we are overpopulating ourselves.

Does it pain you to be sooooooooo stupid?

right...
http://www.numbersusa.com/overpopula...cadegraph.html

http://www.improb.com/teach/lessons2...-in-texas.html

Speaking of cash ... perhaps gold is a better option because cash can easily get devalued; U.S. Dollar is devalued so much already.

Gold is around $540 per ounce now and appears to be continuing the upward trend ... $1000+ per ounce is looking more and more realistic. Welcome thoughts...

Ron

yeah interesting... I have some shares in GG and the EFT GLD, I wonder if I should load up with some more GLD, your thoughts?

from $540 to $1000? forget it

Good point. I shall reword - 'all African Countries', but you overlooked my major omission - all the arab countries, but then I did apologise if I missed any of the countries that breed like fleas.

It's pity the Us didn't drop a few more Aids infected monkeys around. They didn't count on the silly buggers eating them instead of having sex with them.

Oh, that is another story.

Lyn from Oz

No Carrier = Bird Flu Fan

Wow,that`s one of the stupidest things I`ve read here in a long time.
And this is GFY.Congrats! :helpme

Some consider GLD shares to be somewhat sketchy ... it may be better to buy gold directly - check out Kitco ... one can buy gold direct and take delivery, or, more realistically, have the gold held in their account for safety and easy on-line trading.

http://www.kitco.com/

Ron

People said similar when oil was trading around $40 / barrel ... it wouldn't go up much more ... but within months it was up to $60 / barrel ... some then said it couldn't stay that high ... but here many months later, and oil price is holding steady around $60.

My question isn't exactly what price gold will be, but what are the odds of gold prices, due in part to the bird flu, greatly increasing? ... ie. to $700, or $800, or whatever.

Ron

There are so many factors that effect gold prices its hard to know where to start. The most important one according to many is the manipulation by central banks that have been artifically suppressing the price for many years by selling into any rallies... However, the US debt causing the potential collapse of the greenback, consumption and demand in India and China... where people hold gold under their mattress and other things are what I hear are the catalysts for an increase in addition to to what you mention about global issues like bird flu...

I would rather hold the GLD ETF than deal with storing and insuring...actual gold.

Nah..watch "LOST" instead. At least that way those who "survive" might pick up some survival skills for the aftermath.

just a little flu...

that's what you get for playing with dead birds.

Heard on the news tonight that 50% of those who get the bird flu die.

Those ain't good odds, obviously.

This doesn't look good.

I thought shit like this was only supposed to kill invading Martians.

do as much coke and fuck as many whores as you can NOW while you still can!!!!