avian flu, Exaggeration or reality?

H

HK2001

Joined
May 3, 2005
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I've been following the Avian flu for a while now, and recently there's been more and more worry about it mutating into something that can travel quickly through humans.

President Bush has just requested the use of Military to act as Law enforcement should "regions" of th country have to be quarantined.

In case you don't know, some info I've collected over the last few weeks:
The virus speads easily through birds, making it next to impossible to Quarantine.. As I said, they're fearing it will mutate into something that will spread through the human population much more quickly.

It's present in 4 countries now, all in asia
According to the W.H.O. it has a 50% fataility rate.
There is no cure, and while they're working on a vaccine, but it's going to be a while.
The paticular strain they're concerned about (H5N1, i believe) mutates rapidly, often taking on properties of other viruses in the host animal (Avian flu/SARS cocktail, anyone?)


I know this Virus has been around for years.. It's been infecting people in Asia for at least 3 years now.

But as the WHO.int website says, in the last 9 months, it's infected/killed 2x more people then in the previous 2 years. Actually, here's the Who Factsheet .
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SO what do you think? Is it over hyped? or is there a serious risk here?

The government just spent $4b on antivirals to help those infected (if it reaches US soil) and they're drafting plans to dump another $6b into preparing for this.

It also poses the question, given a state of total martial law, in a major US city, how the hell would you survive? If the dude next to you, and the guy down the road have it, and the birds have it, how do you go about surviving?

Edit: I just watched a video on CNN where someone from WHO stated if it mutates to something that transmits through people faster we could be looking at up to 150,000+ dead in the US.
 
looks like the answer to the social security problem to me, as many of the dead would be over the age of 65 and under the age of 12 or so.

the mortality rate as far as we know is 50%, but no one knows really as there are many isolated villages that may have more than 50 % survivors. there is a lot of fear that the mutated viruses may not be susseptable to the known antiviral medications. so there are a lot of folks in medicine who are more than a little bit nervous about this. as far as quarentine, what about air travel, you could be in cal. one day and new york the next. pretty hard to control the spread with that kind of mobility.

alex
 
part of a letter to my conressman on the subject:
Sir,
I am writing in regard to President Bush's recent suggestion to use the U.S. military to enforce quarantines in areas with outbreaks of bird flu. I have severe problems with this on a number of levels, but the bottom line is that we are not in the midst of a flu pandemic yet. While a bird flu pandemic may happen, so far there have been only 60 deaths and those individuals were predominantly in the poultry industry in direct contact with the live birds.

While President Bush has done little to nothing toward controlling the movement of illegal aliens across our border with Mexico (and Canada), he now envisions using the U.S. military to control the movement of U.S. citizens within the United States. This is simply unacceptable.
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We're certainly overdue for a pandemic, and it does look like the avian flu--should it hybridize with pork and become "human friendly"--could result in an enormous amount of deaths.

But a couple of points: the WHO has a bit of a history as an alarmist organization. They've frequently been right, but have also been frequently wrong. If I had a choice between the WHO and the CDC here in the States, I'd lean toward the CDC, who have been fairly quiet on the issue.

Also, a lot of the deaths have come from terribly under-served localities, in terms of health care. Vietnam, Thailand, etc., lack good basic healthcare in the rural areas where avian flu spread. The amount of deaths in Hong Kong though is a bit of a surprise. So I wouldn't dismiss it entirely.

As it stands now, if you play the odds, it's better to worry about getting killed in a traffic accident, or suffering an undetected heart ailment, or dying from a carcinogenic exposure than avian flu....

As for the President's comments on the military, I... uh... well, I'm not sure what spooked him there. I guess he felt he had to say something. The alarmist comment may have raised more pulse rates than it was probably meant to settle.
 
Common sense stuff like limiting public contact, protection via mask and gloves when in public places, not allowing anyone in your home, drink bottled water only, wash often and thouroughly, don't buy anything online, have supplies enough on hand to live on until the danger passes and many other safety measures would go a long way to reducing contact and infection.

As far as using military to control citizens; if it is allowed, it would be very easy to take complete control and eliminate our freedoms. Something tells me too that all of the antivirals they've paid for are going to government, healthcare, first responders and miliary. Not the general public.
 
It is scarey no question.

The really scary part is it can and will mutate again making all stockpiled treatments useless.

The bright side is that we have evolved and know much more about treatment and infection that the last pandemic. With good isolation and common sense the dead should only be single digit millions and even less in educated countries. :rolleyes:

More research money needs to be spent (instead of learning how stress and hair loss is linked :rolleyes: . ) to the role of infection and mutation and vaccines and our abuse of anitbioitcs.

Utill then I will be headed into the woods long term where its actually clean when and if.

Skam
 
Skam,

Don't eat any geese, duck, or water fowl in the woods... aquatic avians are the carriers of most killer flus.

You can't catch airborne flus from them, but eating the meat of the birds could always be an exception if not thoroughly cleaned and cooked.

Always looking out for ya.
 
Watchful said:
Skam,

Don't eat any geese, duck, or water fowl in the woods... aquatic avians are the carriers of most killer flus.

You can't catch airborne flus from them, but eating the meat of the birds could always be an exception if not thoroughly cleaned and cooked.

Always looking out for ya.
Click to expand...


Foul are a source for this stuff for sure. I think it will hit more domestic livestock in horrid living conditions than free wild game in most parts of the world.

I have been eating wild game before I could walk so I trust that meat protein source more than any other on this planet.

Your point is vaid though nothing is safe.

Skam
 
I too thought about the social security problem would be solved in one foul (no pun intended) swoop. The problem with this strain and its brethen is that they kill people readily with good immune systems. Normally when I get sick, which is rare I ride it out with Iboprufen and coffee for a day and am usually over it the next day.
Living in Hong Kong though about 10 years ago (about 25yrs old) I caught something, I dont know what it was but I still say to my wife (who was my girlfriend then) if you wern't there I would probably have died. This was some serious kick-ass bug. With the population density here in Asia and the ignorance in general I see the WHO's estimates not too far off the mark.

Isolation is obviously the key, but for those in cities this can be hard to do. Rural folks in general will probably survive unscathed. As callous as this seems, this is the breather the world needs, the loss of a hundred or so million would certainly take a lot of pressure of a lot of resources.
 
Something tells me too that all of the antivirals they've paid for are going to government, healthcare, first responders and miliary. Not the general public
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Actually, it's specifically set for the general public. As congress stated when they approved the money (more or less, I forget the exact wording) " With this money, blah blah blah, we'll be able to treat half of the American population"

But I agree, when SHTF I know where it's going.
 
any idea what the primary vector is? Is it just birds?
 
Temper said:
I too thought about the social security problem would be solved in one foul (no pun intended) swoop. The problem with this strain and its brethen is that they kill people readily with good immune systems. Normally when I get sick, which is rare I ride it out with Iboprufen and coffee for a day and am usually over it the next day.
With the population density here in Asia and the ignorance in general I see the WHO's estimates not too far off the mark.

Isolation is obviously the key, but for those in cities this can be hard to do. Rural folks in general will probably survive unscathed. As callous as this seems, this is the breather the world needs, the loss of a hundred or so million would certainly take a lot of pressure of a lot of resources.
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Agreed, and the first thing that will and should be done i the grounding of all flights from the far east and no visas for any reason granted. Its that ignorance stuffed 10 billion times into a tuna can that is the cause in the first place.

I don't think "IBUPROFEN" :rolleyes: and coffee will save the masses however.

With any luck the disease will thin out the herd in the diseased overpopulated parts. Mother nature is a real b itch.

SARS had the potential and it got squashed with common sense and good quarantine protocols.

Scary all the same.

Skam
 
commandojoe said:
any idea what the primary vector is? Is it just birds?
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Yeah, it's just birds. There are no intermediary vectors. The virus is transmitted to other birds when they come in contact with the secretions/excretions of infected birds (e.g. saliva and feces). Humans can contract the virus the same way...like playing in dirt contaminated with bird feces and then sticking your hands in your mouth, rubbing your eye, or not washing your hands before you eat. Unsafe handling of poultry during cooking may also lead to infection in humans. There have also been some cases of human to human transmission already. But, according to the CDC, these were isolated cases that did not continue spreading from human to human (i.e. one person passed it on to another person and then that person didn't pass it on to anyone else).

I'm a lot less worried about this influenza strain (or a mutated version) causing major damage in the U.S. than it could in Asia for a few reasons:

1. This particular strain of Bird Flu hasn't been seen in the U.S. yet, not in birds and not in humans...it seems to be purely an Asian thing. I would be concerned if I lived in Asia though.
2. Though this strain is resistant to 2 of the main antiviral drugs used to treat people with flu, there are 2 more drugs that may work, but haven't been tested yet, or they haven't confirmed that they work for sure yet.
3. The WHO and CDC are watching this with great interest and concern and are doing everything they can prevent a pandemic, and deal with it if it occurs. If a pandemic does occur, at least it will not be some strange new virus that no one has ever heard of, where scientists and doctors are struggling to gain insight on the virus and learn what the hell it is (of course that could still happen too). This virus has been known and researched for years now so that we can be quick to recognize it and deal with it early in the event of a U.S. outbreak.
4. A vaccine is being tested and developed as we speak. It's possible that this flu strain may mutate around the vaccine that is being developed, but I think there is great hope here. I just hope they get the vaccine developed and ready for use before the virus mutates into a strain that is easily transmissible between humans.


The info above was paraphrased from the CDC fact sheet on Bird Flu. It can be found here if you would like to further educate yourself on this virus.

--AaronA
 
Maybe the reason the President wants to impose martial law is that he hasn't prepared at all for the pandemic.
According to researchers, there isn't enough hospital beds, vaccines, antibiotics, or anything to take care of the sick should the flu reach our shores.
Also, I don't think that we are stronger then we were 100 years ago. For the most part we are fat, have bad diets and ruin our immune systems with anti-microbial soaps and antibiotic abuse.

Chad
 
Temper said:
As callous as this seems, this is the breather the world needs, the loss of a hundred or so million would certainly take a lot of pressure of a lot of resources.
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I dont know about that. Current world population is approx 6 billion. 100 million is about 1.7 percent of that. Not that large a relative change on a global scale.
 
Temper said:
I too thought about the social security problem would be solved in one foul (no pun intended) swoop.
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If you were tying to point out a spelling error, it is bad manners to correct in a pubilc forum.

If that was not the case my appologies.

Skam
 
Nathan S said:
I read today that the 1918 Spanish flu started as as an avian flu. Scary ....
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Correct--in fact, virtually *all* flus started as an avian flu. Ducks and geese are the worst carriers of the worst diseases.

As AA89GTA wrote, there's no direct transmission: there needs to be an intermediary, as birds can't directly infect humans. One way is through cross-contamination (feces, unwashed hands, etc.). Another way is through swine. Birds can directly infect swine, and swine can (usually) directly infect humans.

And while, per my earlier post, the CDC is being pretty laid back about it, I spoke to a guy today who says the NIH is freaking out about this. So that raises my personal risk assessment a bit.
 
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