November 28 Flu Update
Sorry for yesterday...needed rest more! Back at it...A 35 year old woman in Indonesia died of bird flu today. CIDRAP reports. She was reported sick three weeks ago, and died despite receiving treatment for that amount of time.
ProMed is skeptical of this report, citing the lack of details.
CIDRAP also reports that bird flu has hit a second area in South Korea.
ProMed on South Korea--note mod comment lauding quick action by South Korean officials.
OIE report from South Korea provides official confirmation, via ProMed.
Today's news is about money--how much would it cost to fight the bird flu? The UN says it needs $1.3B more than what was pledged last January.
Would a cheap bird flu test help? Vietnam and Hong Kong are testing.
In Alberta, the nine health regions are getting $30 million to prepare for the bird flu.
The Philippines are preparing for major losses in the poultry industry if the flu comes.
Kaduna, a state in Nigeria, is preparing for the bird flu.
India is afraid the bird flu crisis in South Korea might cut down on Korean imports of Indian oilmeal.
Roche says that there is no evidence the flu is becoming resistant to Tamiflu.
Surveillance in South Dakota yields no birds with H5N1.
Companies in Hong Kong are no different than anywhere else--they are not ready for a pandemic.
posted by Orange @ 8:02 PM
1 Comments:
Orange;
Actually I have two comments this evening, so two for the price of one. What a deal.
The ProMed article reminds me of a meeting on pandemic planning I attended in April. When the discussion evolved to H5N1 infection of poultry, the scientists, phyicians, and planners present did not get too excited, since the solution I heard discussed pretty much followed what is described in the article about the S. Korean approach - cordon off and quarrantine the area, use PPE and destroy the infected subjects, safely dispose of the contaminated materials, and conduct disinfectant procedures. Each outbreak would be contained this way. Unless one is a card carrying PETA memeber, this is what is necessary.
When it comes to established known human-to-human outbreak situation, it was said that if quarrantine procedures were not established immediately within a 15 mile radius, then there is no known means to stop the pandemic from spreading. Since then, this viewpoint has not changed. We flood the suspected geographical area with Tamiflu as a precaution, to stop any potential H2H spread.
Second comment. I have no concrete evidence, but I suspect that the 75% number of Hong Kong business firms that are unprepared for a pandemic, also applies to both the US and Canada. Most business firms are very small and simply do not have the resources or planning where-with-all, to adequately prepare. This is sad, because they will have the most to lose if normal business operations are interrupted. Good bye mom and pop, the Fortune 500's get bigger.
But hey, this is a Democracy, and free enterprise prevails, and it is survival of the fittest in the market place. Shakespeare said, "Yesterday the bird of night did sit, even at noon-day, upon the market-place, hooting and shrieking" (Julius Ceasar). Pretty smart guy.
Wulfgang
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