December 11 Flu Update
Farms in BC have been shown to be bird flu free.India continues to work for a Tamiflu build up.
Thailand is having budget problems, and some say that the proposed 3B Baht cut in health services would hurt flu fight.
In contrast, Australia is pumping its dollars into fighting the bird flu.
A poll shows that 70% of Koreans fear bird flu--some are eating less chicken.
This article says that the bird flu has changed the way of life in Vietnam.
Dr./Senator Frist urges Congress to pass the $7.1B bill to fund a flu pandemic.
"It had better pass" before Congress adjourns for the year, said Frist, R-Tenn. "We need to be prepared. I'm very hopeful that we will invest $7.1 billion to look at prevention, to look at care, to look at treatment."
The New Britain Herald (CT) has a nice article reminding people to look to the past for clues in fighting the bird flu--especially now, because our understanding of the 1918 flu is higher than it ever has been. 25% of this town was sick, with 19 to 25 deaths.
According to the April 1919 Connecticut Health Bulletin, 100 nurses and 48 doctors went to areas in the state that were most severely hit. Also, the state’s health department set up or helped supervise 35 hospitals.Here an ethics advice column in the New York Times, in which one of the questions is from a Doc inundated with requests for Tamiflu.
The bulletin charts the influenza and pneumonia deaths in the state by age with the hardest hit being those between 30 and 39 years old. More than 2,200 in that age range lost their lives between Sept. 1 and Dec. 28, 1918. About 1,600 people between 25 and 29 years old died. Less than 200 over the age of 70 lost their lives, and approximately 800 young children aged 1 to 4 years old died. More than 400 teenagers died as well.
"Its sinister characteristic was that it took the strong and the able," the bulletin says. "It took the potential fathers and mothers. Passing lightly the very young and almost ignoring the old, it aimed straight at the very flower of the flock, selecting the ones on whom the race depends for its present economic strength and its future replacement."
In Hong Kong, they aren't putting all their eggs in one basket--herbalists are taking a more natural and traditional approach.
He sells a blend of some classic Chinese fever-fighting remedies: squiggly yellowish buds of honeysuckle flowers, brown seed shells from the weeping forsythia, crumpled black Dyers Woad leaves and dried chips of Isatis root.Crofsblog adds some comments to the use of herbs in treating disease.
ProMed looks at Romania--including a couple of recent confirmations of disease in birds.
posted by Orange @ 10:09 PM
2 Comments:
Hi, it's Crawford...and you've posted tonight's comments as November 11, not December.
Cheers and keep up the good work!
CK
Whoops! Thanks Crawford, got it fixed.
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