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Avian flu

PlantAKiss

Moderator Schmoderator Fluorescent fluorite, Engl
For the last couple of weeks I've been hearing a lot about the new strain of avian flu (technically "H5-N1" I believe). Tonite CNN had several news reports on it...and its really frightening.

For anyone who hasn't heard...there is a new strain of avian flu breaking out in Asia. It is believed to be the next pandemic that will sweep the world. The last one was the Spanish flu around 1918. That flu killed about 100 million people...5% of the people who got it died and the virus traveled around the world three times. THIS flu is expected to be even worse. At the moment only 60 people have died. These people caught it from birds. The flu has not yet mutated to be able to be tranmitted from human to human but that is expected to happen. Once that happens...and they are quite sure it will...THEN we are in for a rough ride.

They are saying that not 5% but 50% (1 out of 2) of the people who contract it will die. And we are talking millions and millions of people.

- There is no vaccine. Only once the virus mutates can they make vaccine and then it will take about 6 months to make it.
There will not be enough vaccine to go around as only a few labs can make it.
- There will not be enough hospitals to handle all the sick people.
- They may have to quarrantine entire cities to contain it.
- They will probably have to use the military to enforce the quarrantine.
- There will probably not be enough people left to run businesses, etc...either from deaths or people being to afraid to go to work.
- No country is prepared to handle this. The U.S. even less so than some other countries like in Europe.
- This is not an IF...its a WHEN.

It is considered to be the No. 1 health crisis in the world today. Countries are scrambling to prepare the health industry for this looming epidemic. They said it could happen tomorrow...in 6 months... in a year or so. They aren't sure when...but with its similarity to the Spanish flu...they think this is flu will be the next pandemic (which occur every so many decades). I guess in medieval times it was the Black Plague.

Not very encouraging news for the future....
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I guess the only good news is health officials ARE taking this very seriously and are starting NOW to prepare although its not likely we will be anywhere close to prepared once it starts to spread to humans.

Anyone else been hearing about this impending tragedy?
 
You never know. Halving the world population might resolve a lot of issues. If everyone is dying, things like class distinction and other prejudices might just completely dissapate. Or the chaos might make them a lot worse.

-D. Lybrand
 
I've heard a little about this, very little.
But just going on what Pak said, if it is equal to the spanish flu, it would cause way more problems today then it did back in 1918. Then most people didn't travel more than a few miles from their homes.Today it's common for someone to travel to many cities in one day. Just imagine what would happen if just one infected person, got on an airplane and flew from London to New York. That one person could infect thousands. Then those thosands would continue their flights to cities all over the US and the world. It' could spread like lighting.

AAAHHHHH CCHHEWWW

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Oh no
 
lol I've been sneezing this morning.
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Yep...that's what they are saying. People move around the world so quickly and so freely now, that they have little hope of containing it to Asia or within any infected city. And they are saying its going to be far worse than the Spanish flu and the population is more dense too. It really doesn't sound good...
 
I think another problem with the spread of sicknesses, is people no longer call in sick when sick. For some reason our work places generally want us to suck it up and go in to work. All that does is expose many many more people to that. So I'm sure that is not going to help the situation at all. I worked in a call center as a customer service representative for about 3 years, I had never been sick so many times as I was there. But I AM the type to stay home when sick. I'm also the type to sit and talk crap about you if you showed up to work sick. Folks, if you're sick. Stay home. Don't go to work. Don't go to the store. Don't go to the movies....
Andrew
 
I got my flu and pneumonia shots yesterday.  Probably would not protect me against H5-N1 but it is better than nothing.  Actually getting a dose of the common flu is not all that bad...stay home, get plenty of rest and drink lots of liquids.  Sounds like a good idea to me.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]- No country is prepared to handle this.  The U.S. even less so than some other countries like in Europe.
Would somebody please explain to me just how Europe is better prepared than us?  I mean, like 10,000 people died from a heat wave there a couple years back.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]stay home, get plenty of rest and drink lots of liquids

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Yeah...that does sound pretty good doesn't it? lol

There is a flu medication called Tamiflu which is pretty effective (so the reports said) against "normal" flu. Although they are not sure it would have ANY effect at all on H5-N1, they feel it MIGHT help some. They won't know until after the virus mutates and they can do tests on it. Apparently European countries have been ordering and stockpiling Tamiflu for a while now so they have a somewhat decent supply of it. That's what they meant by that comment. The US is only NOW ordering the medication and we are on backorder and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the list and even then we didn't order much of it. Seems its only ONE lab in Switzerland that makes Tamiflu so...you gotta get in line. European countries were concerned about this flu before the US woke up and realized what a disaster we might be facing so they have been preparing more than we have. But, all that said, supposedly this will be so bad that no country will be fully prepared or capable of handling this because of the massive numbers of people that will get sick.

They also said that laboratories don't like to make vaccines because it is time consuming and they make very little money off of it. So of course its better to let 50% of our country die off as long as they are making good profits on the other drugs they are willing to manufacture.

I wonder if the government needs to set up a NON-PROFIT lab that will manufacture vaccines in massive quantities. Wonder if they ever thought about that? Make medicine out of need, not greed.

I think I'm feeling a lil' feverish...maybe I need to go home...
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So this flu will affect healthy young people? Or is this only going to affect young babies/kids to old/senior adults? I take it there really isn't enough information on this yet. I wouldn't get so worried yet.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]I guess the only good news is health officials ARE taking this very seriously and are starting NOW to prepare although its not likely we will be anywhere close to prepared once it starts to spread to humans.

Well, that and improved traffic patterns! Might not curse so much on my way to work in the morning....
 
  • #10
As a microbiologist I have this to say

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Bear in mind where you are getting the majority of your information. The media. This is the same media that made SARS sound like it would be the next super plague. And West Nile (which, according to a number of reports, was not only supposed to be a major human problem but was supposed to wipe out more than half of the bird population in the US.) It is scaremongering and it is a great way to get people to watch the news and keep them around since they are bored to tears hearing about things in Iraq or Afganastan or where ever

H5N1 avian infuenza has actually been around for the last 6 or 7 years so it is not a "new" thing. Cases have been popping up in the Far east for some time. Pretty much every health organization in the world has been following it and it really is not the beast the media is making it out to be.

There has actually been no direct evidence that the people infected have aquired it from birds (circumstantial evidence in some cases has been that a sick or dead bird of some type might have been eaten. This is not direct evidence because there was nothing left of these eaten birds to test for the virus and hence Koch's postulate fails.) It has been a while since I read any primary literature on infuenza but when last I heard no one had actually proven that the strains that infect birds can infect humans (or vice versa) There has been a lot of hand waving and big talk but no real proof, i.e. isolating exactly the same strain from infected birds and infected people.

In fact no one has shown that birds are even a reservoir for influenza and until a few years ago it was thought that pigs were the ones we caught the disease from!!

Because of the loaction of the world where the outbreaks are occuring it has even been postulated, and it makes a bunch more sense to me, that mutant strains of the flu are occuring because of selective pressure in an over-populated community. And for those of you without immunology or epidemiology under your belts there is a huge correlation between highly populated areas and virulent disease occurance.

I'll also toss in some tidbits you won't heard much on the news.

-A detailed study was done (by NIH I think) and the outcome was that, while a pandemic might occur, the loss of life would more than likely not exceed 200 million world wide. Now 200 million is still a lot of people granted but remember that the world has 6.2 billion people in it.

-In epidemiology there are really interestnig models of disease progression vs. lethality. A fast and lethal disease is less likely to spread because it burns up all its hosts in one area before it can jump to a new one (Ebola.) The flip side is that a slow lethal virus is stopped by quarantine measures (Anthrax.) A government bio-defence study actually concluded that there is no naturally occuring disease or manufactured biological weapon that could spread fast enough with a high enough mortality that it posed any type of risk to the U.S. The same can be said for most industrial countries.

-There are anti-virals that work against influenza and there are large stocks of them available.

-There seems to be a modest innate immunity to H5N1 in the human body. In a number of the cases in East Asia the family's of victims are also tested and in all the cases everyone in the family tests positive but showed no signs or symptoms of the disease. So of the 60 deaths there have actually been something like 300 or so cases. I would be willing to bet that a random sampling of the population would turn up a much larger number of people testing positive to the H5N1 strain.

The long and short of it, at least for me is that I have never gotten a flu vaccine and I am not going to start now. And I am not going to worry about H5N1.
 
  • #11
im with Pyro on this one. its a slow news week, the hurricane issue is loosing steam so they are jumping on the flu issue like a pack of rabid dogs. look at West Nile Virus, it was also supposed to be one of those big bad bugs but it kind of fizzled out. turns out most who get infected dont get much more than a mild cold if that. there were very few cases in Montana this year and being that the whole state was wet all spring and the mosquitoes were so thick you darn near couldnt go outside we should have had a record number of cases. the average persons immune system is actually does what its supposed to do quite well. while i do believe "global epidemics" are possible and quite probable, they will never wipe out 1/2 the population.
 
  • #12
[b said:
Quote[/b] (dlybrand @ Oct. 05 2005,10:34)]You never know. Halving the world population might resolve a lot of issues. If everyone is dying, things like class distinction and other prejudices might just completely dissapate. Or the chaos might make them a lot worse.

-D. Lybrand
Easy enough to say unless it where to happen to you or a friend of your`s
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  • #13
Whew thats good to hear Pyro!

I just hope they don`t go nuts and start destroying healthy populations of chickens just because there is the "chance" that they may become infected and destroy our flock if it does go stateside. Else I may just go nuts on them:p
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  • #14
[b said:
Quote[/b] (pond boy @ Oct. 06 2005,4:16)]I just hope they don`t go nuts and start destroying healthy populations of chickens just because there is the "chance" that they may become infected and destroy our flock if it does go stateside. Else I may just go nuts on them:p
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You mean like they did a couple years ago when basically every game bird in China was slaughtered because of the panic?


And, taken from today's PubMed postings

- there are many different strains of H5N1. Most have low pathogenicity and are relatively harmless, and only some have proven to be deadly for birds and humans. Some species of waterfowl, like ducks and geese, are natural hosts of the H5N1 and do not fall ill from it. The virus has always been known to be virulent in commercial chickens, but they typically fall sick quickly and die within 24 hours of contracting it.

-The country [Indonesia] has come under fire for reluctance to carry out mass culling of chickens in infected areas, like those conducted in some other countries.
 
  • #15
My information came from a series of news reports on CNN over the past week or two.

So...if all this is such a hullaballoo and has no real merit, wouldn't it end up making the reporters (CNN) look like fools for having cried "wolf!" over something that is no big deal?  I mean they were interviewing all kinds of doctors, epidemiologists, CDC people, etc. and all agreed this was an impending serious health threat.  They did also say they didn't know EXACTLY the "when"...only that this H5N1 was looking very likely to be THE pandemic they've been expecting.

This particular strain has them worried because of the very close similarity to the Spanish flu strain.

I hope you're right and its much a-do about nothing.

hehe...I knew you'd have something to say about this...you microbiologist you.
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  • #16
Got a few things to say.

Be careful of what you hear from the media. That's all

Do be weary of this oncoming flu, as it will be pretty darn bad.

I don't advocate vaccines at all, as they often can do more harm than good in some cases. I deffinately wont be taking any faccines for this bird flue.

I had a resperitory infection last year. For over a month, I was sick on and off, really bad, and there was no end to it in sight. That kind of thing can be fatal. The doc gave me antibiotics, but I was allergic, and didn't have insurance, so I could really only rely on my own knowledge of the body and nutrition, and prayer of course. All I really did was drink a lot of the super health drinks they sell here on the west coast, called "Naked" . Theese drinks have 1,000% vitamin C in each serving, and 2 servings per bottle. Crazy antioxidant power. I drank a couple of those, along with other naked drinks, and I was cured within a couple days. It never came back! Got sick a month ago too, and before it even got bad, I drank more of theese high nutrient drinks, and I barely got sick at all.

You need to eat right, and have your body be clean from the inside out to avoid theese illnesses and diseases. It's the only way. Even says so in the bible. If the flu brakes out, all I'm gonna do is stock up on naked drinks, cacao beans, gojii berries, and avocados. Theese are some of the most nutitious foods in the world. Add strong prayer and meditation, and I have nothing to worry about.
 
  • #17
Eventually some strain of flu will experience the silver bullet mutation that leads to pandemic.  For H5N1 avian infuenza, that would be a mutation to enhance its transmission from human to human via the respiratory system.  Same for Ebola and any number of extremely lethal diseases that just don't spread efficiently from human to human.  The common cold, on the other hand, would need a mutation to make it more lethal.  Either way, we'd be in serious trouble.  The mutation would be too.  Killing the host is a poor evolutionary strategy.

Some diseases are as contagious if not even more contagious before someone shows any symptoms.  So the next isolated outbreak could be a global problem before anyone knows something's happening.  Given the amount of movement within and beyond local and national borders, I'm skeptical of a model that predicts significant containment.

Unfortunately, the US has crippled its public health system because, as with public transit, no one can make a big pot of money off of it.  Maybe we need Halliburton to enter the market - then we'd see some money spent on it.  No part of the US can cope with more than a slight increase in the flow of patients coming into emergency rooms or occupying hospital beds.  Here are some quotes lifted from a 5/1/2005 CT Post article about emergency room use:

"According to a 2004 report by the American Hospital Association, 48 percent of community hospitals said their emergency rooms were operating beyond capacity; it's 68 percent among urban hospitals ...."

"Starting in the late 1980s, hospitals started downsizing and consolidating as the rise of managed care — with its focus on efficiency — drove down the length of hospital stays and the need for inpatient beds."

"In 1975, there were 942,000 beds at U.S. community hospitals, according to the AHA. That fell to 813,000 as of 2003, the latest year for which data were available."

If we're visited by a disease as lethal as Ebola and as contagious as the common cold, no plausible number of hospital beds would be enough.  We're also not prepared for a hurricane with 400 mph winds or collision with a large comet.  But we should be prepared for reasonably expected threats and the preparation should be somewhat proportional to the risk.

I'm amazed that people can so cooly accept the potential for millions of casualties from disease.  Where was this resolve when our fear-mongering president was forcing the Patriot Act down our throats and getting us into Iraq to allegedly protect us from the occasional terrorist?  Too bad more Americans couldn't show some evidence of a spine then.
 
  • #18
Well then tell me, why in the hell are we not making a bomb out of this and dropping it in the hiding place of Osama and his pals?? They were so hot on how Allah was punishing the American swine during Katrina, how about they get a taste of this stuff, and we tell them that GOD is after them!!!! LOL!!!!!!!
 
  • #19
This strain has been warned abput since 2003 burt only recent;y is getting wideapread media attention.

If the threat were not real, the worlds countries would not bebgetting togeather to be on the same page to prevent aa  outbreak.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ] So of the 60 deaths there have actually been something like 300 or so cases. I would be willing to bet that a random sampling of the population would turn up a much larger number of people testing positive to the H5N1 strain

Pyro wher ea re you getting yous statistics from? the WHO (world health orginization)'s website has completle different statistics from what you have provided. Can you give me a link?

As for immunity. no, according the them. Human beings have never experence this type of virus before (similar to are the 1918) according to their health experts

So im interested to where your getting your info. not accusitory, a question. You could be right for all i know, wich is only as much as i see. I am often wrong. I REALLY hope you prove me wrong.

the flu of 1918 was really wprrieing because healthy young people were dropping dead in the street. this is related to the new virus... and it is... it would be very very similar at least, because we hand no immunity to it. This new strain can affrod to be so deadly because it developed in extremely crowded condidtions where it did not need to keep its hoast alive long or at all to spread. This is why it kills its chickens so quickly, because it can afford to becaus eit has no reason to keep them alive to spread. It is highly contagous to chickens and can be spreadmy migartory birds. Becaus eof its contagous nature, its a worry. As of the statistic 1/2 of the population, im very skeptacle that it will be anyware near that amount.  Migrating birds have the capacity to spread this virus far, but the deadly ones, only as far as they can get before they fall temenally ill. I undearstand ducks can carry the virus without showing symptoms.

Similarities to the flue of 1918 are that it spread amoung crowded battlefeild condidtions.
 
  • #20
CUmulative # of confirmed avian influenza, sep 29, 05 reported to WHO

These are the total number of confirmed cases reported to WHO of bird flu. The unreported cases are unknowable, of course, but these are the statistics we have as of now.

WHO only reports labritory-confirmed cases.

ABout the disease

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]     15 January 2004

Avian influenza

Avian influenza ("bird flu") and the significance of its transmission to humans

The disease in birds: impact and control measures

Avian influenza is an infectious disease of birds caused by type A strains of the influenza virus. The disease, which was first identified in Italy more than 100 years ago, occurs worldwide.

All birds are thought to be susceptible to infection with avian influenza, though some species are more resistant to infection than others. Infection causes a wide spectrum of symptoms in birds, ranging from mild illness to a highly contagious and rapidly fatal disease resulting in severe epidemics. The latter is known as “highly pathogenic avian influenza”. This form is characterized by sudden onset, severe illness, and rapid death, with a mortality that can approach 100%.

Related links

Avian influenza


Fifteen subtypes of influenza virus are known to infect birds, thus providing an extensive reservoir of influenza viruses potentially circulating in bird populations. To date, all outbreaks of the highly pathogenic form have been caused by influenza A viruses of subtypes H5 and H7.

Migratory waterfowl – most notably wild ducks – are the natural reservoir of avian influenza viruses, and these birds are also the most resistant to infection. Domestic poultry, including chickens and turkeys, are particularly susceptible to epidemics of rapidly fatal influenza.

Direct or indirect contact of domestic flocks with wild migratory waterfowl has been implicated as a frequent cause of epidemics. Live bird markets have also played an important role in the spread of epidemics.

Recent research has shown that viruses of low pathogenicity can, after circulation for sometimes short periods in a poultry population, mutate into highly pathogenic viruses. During a 1983–1984 epidemic in the United States of America, the H5N2 virus initially caused low mortality, but within six months became highly pathogenic, with a mortality approaching 90%. Control of the outbreak required destruction of more than 17 million birds at a cost of nearly US$ 65 million. During a 1999–2001 epidemic in Italy, the H7N1 virus, initially of low pathogenicity, mutated within 9 months to a highly pathogenic form. More than 13 million birds died or were destroyed.

The quarantining of infected farms and destruction of infected or potentially exposed flocks are standard control measures aimed at preventing spread to other farms and eventual establishment of the virus in a country’s poultry population. Apart from being highly contagious, avian influenza viruses are readily transmitted from farm to farm by mechanical means, such as by contaminated equipment, vehicles, feed, cages, or clothing. Highly pathogenic viruses can survive for long periods in the environment, especially when temperatures are low. Stringent sanitary measures on farms can, however, confer some degree of protection.

In the absence of prompt control measures backed by good surveillance, epidemics can last for years. For example, an epidemic of H5N2 avian influenza, which began in Mexico in 1992, started with low pathogenicity, evolved to the highly fatal form, and was not controlled until 1995.

A constantly mutating virus: two consequences

All type A influenza viruses, including those that regularly cause seasonal epidemics of influenza in humans, are genetically labile and well adapted to elude host defenses. Influenza viruses lack mechanisms for the “proofreading” and repair of errors that occur during replication. As a result of these uncorrected errors, the genetic composition of the viruses changes as they replicate in humans and animals, and the existing strain is replaced with a new antigenic variant. These constant, permanent and usually small changes in the antigenic composition of influenza A viruses are known as antigenic “drift”.

The tendency of influenza viruses to undergo frequent and permanent antigenic changes necessitates constant monitoring of the global influenza situation and annual adjustments in the composition of influenza vaccines. Both activities have been a cornerstone of the WHO Global Influenza Programme since its inception in 1947.

Influenza viruses have a second characteristic of great public health concern: influenza A viruses, including subtypes from different species, can swap or “reassort” genetic materials and merge. This reassortment process, known as antigenic “shift”, results in a novel subtype different from both parent viruses. As populations will have no immunity to the new subtype, and as no existing vaccines can confer protection, antigenic shift has historically resulted in highly lethal pandemics. For this to happen, the novel subtype needs to have genes from human influenza viruses that make it readily transmissible from person to person for a sustainable period.

Conditions favourable for the emergence of antigenic shift have long been thought to involve humans living in close proximity to domestic poultry and pigs. Because pigs are susceptible to infection with both avian and mammalian viruses, including human strains, they can serve as a “mixing vessel” for the scrambling of genetic material from human and avian viruses, resulting in the emergence of a novel subtype. Recent events, however, have identified a second possible mechanism. Evidence is mounting that, for at least some of the 15 avian influenza virus subtypes circulating in bird populations, humans themselves can serve as the “mixing vessel”.

Human infection with avian influenza viruses: a timeline

Avian influenza viruses do not normally infect species other than birds and pigs. The first documented infection of humans with an avian influenza virus occurred in Hong Kong in 1997, when the H5N1 strain caused severe respiratory disease in 18 humans, of whom 6 died. The infection of humans coincided with an epidemic of highly pathogenic avian influenza, caused by the same strain, in Hong Kong’s poultry population.

Extensive investigation of that outbreak determined that close contact with live infected poultry was the source of human infection. Studies at the genetic level further determined that the virus had jumped directly from birds to humans. Limited transmission to health care workers occurred, but did not cause severe disease.

Rapid destruction – within three days – of Hong Kong’s entire poultry population, estimated at around 1.5 million birds, reduced opportunities for further direct transmission to humans, and may have averted a pandemic.

That event alarmed public health authorities, as it marked the first time that an avian influenza virus was transmitted directly to humans and caused severe illness with high mortality. Alarm mounted again in February 2003, when an outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza in Hong Kong caused 2 cases and 1 death in members of a family who had recently travelled to southern China. Another child in the family died during that visit, but the cause of death is not known.

Two other avian influenza viruses have recently caused illness in humans. An outbreak of highly pathogenic H7N7 avian influenza, which began in the Netherlands in February 2003, caused the death of one veterinarian two months later, and mild illness in 83 other humans. Mild cases of avian influenza H9N2 in children occurred in Hong Kong in 1999 (two cases) and in mid-December 2003 (one case). H9N2 is not highly pathogenic in birds.

The most recent cause for alarm occurred in January 2004, when laboratory tests confirmed the presence of H5N1 avian influenza virus in human cases of severe respiratory disease in the northern part of Viet Nam.

Why H5N1 is of particular concern

Of the 15 avian influenza virus subtypes, H5N1 is of particular concern for several reasons. H5N1 mutates rapidly and has a documented propensity to acquire genes from viruses infecting other animal species. Its ability to cause severe disease in humans has now been documented on two occasions. In addition, laboratory studies have demonstrated that isolates from this virus have a high pathogenicity and can cause severe disease in humans. Birds that survive infection excrete virus for at least 10 days, orally and in faeces, thus facilitating further spread at live poultry markets and by migratory birds.

The epidemic of highly pathogenic avian influenza caused by H5N1, which began in mid-December 2003 in the Republic of Korea and is now being seen in other Asian countries, is therefore of particular public health concern. H5N1 variants demonstrated a capacity to directly infect humans in 1997, and have done so again in Viet Nam in January 2004. The spread of infection in birds increases the opportunities for direct infection of humans. If more humans become infected over time, the likelihood also increases that humans, if concurrently infected with human and avian influenza strains, could serve as the “mixing vessel” for the emergence of a novel subtype with sufficient human genes to be easily transmitted from person to person. Such an event would mark the start of an influenza pandemic.
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