October 8 Flu Update
The New York Times has the US draft flu plan, and its not good. Plan concedes that US is not ready, and lays out a worst (or very bad) scenario.As an example:
If such an outbreak occurred, hospitals would become overwhelmed, riots would engulf vaccination clinics, and even power and food would be in short supply, according to the plan, which was obtained by The New York Times.
The 381-page plan calls for quarantine and travel restrictions but concedes that such measures "are unlikely to delay introduction of pandemic disease into the U.S. by more than a month or two."
The first step is admitting you have a problem.
Forbes also has a synopsis of this report.
Effect Measure comments, primarily on the tardiness of the response.
Effect Measure also has an op-ed in the Boston Globe from George Annas, from Boston University. Primary concern in the piece is the quarantine part of the plan.
Yesterday it was Romania, today it is Turkey with its first case of wild bird flu.
Recombinomics on Turkey I.
Recombinomics on Turkey II, where he compares opacity in Europe with opacity in Asia, and asserts that the Turkey discoveries were found along a migratory bird route.
ProMed on Turkey. It turns out that 2,000 turkeys died in Turkey. Weird.
Recombinomics on Romania I.
Most importantly, he has this report that three HUMAN cases may have emerged in Romania, which, if true, are the first cases in Europe and would be big news.
He does note this:
There is also a possibility that the above cases are just a poor translation of the 3 dead ducks in Ceamurlia de Jos.ProMed on Romania.
The same report apparently mentions a human case in Hungary.
The Philippines say birds were killed by drugs, not flu. (This is your chicken on drugs...ah, never mind.)
Hey, Bulgaria is closely watching Romania. And who wouldn't?
Relatively pointless editorial from the New York Times.
Here's another story where a local paper is getting a local angle...as a Tennessee paper interviews a Vanderbilt professor on a potential pandemic.
Op-ed from India on bewaring the bird flu.
The good people of Quad Cities, Iowa, have determined that there's no problem with the bird flu there...yet.
WaPo says bird flu good for biotech stocks.
A Kansas City public health official says bird flu is not a risk, yet.
GSK press release on its meeting with President Bush Friday.
ProMed has a CDC update on bird flu.
H5N1 has a link to a CNN background story with an eyewitness to the 1918 pandemic.
H5N1 looks at a review of Monsters at the Gate by an author who says the jump to a human virus hasn't happened since the sixth Century--although now, he points out, the Taubenberger report has overtaken that idea.
H5n1 has a link to this ABC news profile of Taubenberger.
The Guardian in London isn't sure re-creating H1N1 is a good ideas. (via H5n1)
posted by Orange @ 12:59 PM
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