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This bird flue has been around since 1997
118 people have caught it adn 61 have died. Thats about 15 infections a year and about 8 deaths.
In the year 2000 there were 320,000 injuries on UK roads resulting in 3,400 deaths.
I'm selling my car and going to work with chickens, it's much safer.
Bird flu sells newspapers and makes people watch the news it's hyped up.
hype- its a plot by the drug companies who make flu meds. They want us all to get scared and go out and buy their "cure" that will come out a few months after the pandemic hits :)
1918 Spanish flu was a strain of avian flu. When it morphs into another strain that can be passed through humans, we will see H5N100R prototype in action.
Rusty~
I think that you are spot on...............saw a TV programme about it a while back............apparently the 1918 epidemic started in some transit camp hospital?
:)
"The 1918 has gone: a year momentous as the termination of the most cruel war in the annals of the human race; a year which marked, the end at least for a time, of man's destruction of man; unfortunately a year in which developed a most fatal infectious disease causing the death of hundreds of thousands of human beings. Medical science for four and one-half years devoted itself to putting men on the firing line and keeping them there. Now it must turn with its whole might to combating the greatest enemy of all--infectious disease," (12/28/1918).
I had a little bird,
Its name was Enza.
I opened the window,
And in-flu-enza.
Courtesy of 1918 Medical Camp Hospital
Half the soldiers in Europe died from this and not the enemy. :eek:
So it is something to be concerned about, I think the media though are running out of catastrophes to cover and so this will get leverage, well actually until Wilma passes then it's back to the birds.
some point for those calling this hype:
last time this mutated tens of millions of people died, it is highly mutagenic so it will jump to humans again.
FI the chinese strain mutates, well then most of the common flue medications wont work, the chinese have been useing them on their chicken population and the virus has allready mutated to deal with them. Yes that are new semiexperimental medications...but there are nowhere near enough...unless you are the top 1% of wealth in the US you wont get it.
thats it next time i've got a cold or any kind of sickness am going down to my nearest farm and sneezing on all their chickens. See how they bloody like it for a change!
Okay, allow me to bring some of my medical knowledge to this.
H5N1 is currently a bird influenze. Those people who have been infected have been in close contact with birds that have H5N1.
There have been no cases demonstarted of H5N1 being trasnmitted human to human.
In order to make a pandemic H5N1 needs to mutate into a form that can be transmitted human to human. This can be a spontaneous mutation or a person infected with both H5N1 and human influenza can make a new strain.
Most scientists close to H5N1 are of the opinion that it is a matter of when and not if H5N1 mutates so that it can be trasmitted human to human.
If/whene that occurs there will be a number of factors to take into account.
1) How infectious is the new strain and what is the incubation time that the strain is infectious, but shows no symptoms. If it is highly infectious and takes some time before sysmptoms show, a single infected person is likely to infect many others before realising they are ill and can be quarrantied and treated. These figures can be plugged into epidemiolocial models that model the spread of the pandemic. With high speed air travel and very lage city population densities global spread becomes more likely.
2) How deadly iwill the strain be? 50% of those infected with H5N1 have died. The 1918 influenze killed 1/6th of the global population. If its very deadly then I'm sure we can all do the math!
3) How effective are previous vaccines against the new strain? There are no guarantees that any stockpiled vaccines will work, although it is thought that many of those vaccinated with a generic H5 vaccine will at worst suffer much reduced sysmptoms. New vaccines will need to be made, but production must exceed the capability of the new strain to spread. Most scientists beleive that production will not be sufficient.
4) How many treatments are available. The only known treatment is Tamiflu, and that only limits the severity. Currently the UK has around 2 million doses with a population of 50+ million.
Most of this info is available in previous New Scientist Issues going back a few years. I'm providing the info from memory, sot the facts may not be 100%, but they won't be far wrong.
If this is highly infectious, spreads rapidly and kills a good percentage and government agancies are not in a position to help I reccomend going home, locking the door and not comming out until the preoblem has gone away.
Please note that if it kills 50% public services are likely to be affected severly - No gas/water/electric.
Hype or not?
Current media interest certainly, hype? Only if it all goes away without problem.
Steve <paranoid?>