August 30 Flu Update
Bird flu in Bavaria. Promed reports, role of straw to be investigated further.More than 100 ducks and chickens have died in Thailand.
The Chinese are told not to bring "mooncakes" to Australia due to bird flu fears.
Spead of bird flu by air travel is examined in Hong Kong.
CIDRAP has the story of $75M on pandemic prep.
There's confusion in India about whether people can or can't buy poultry from the area of the recent outbreak.
Revere blogs a Letter to Editor in Jakarta detailing the difficulty of getting bird flu info in the most afflicted country on earth.
The Red Cross says bird flu is still a threat.
The Kansas Dept of Wildlife will be asking hunters to help with surveillance.
Hawaii has received a pandemic flu grant.
The pandemic flu committee in Carthage, MO is going to begin working again, after taking the summer off.
posted by Orange @ 10:28 PM
1 Comments:
Orange;
I notice in your Thailand article that two female refugees are sick, in addition to the “mysterious” duck and chicken deaths. Could be nothing, but then, it sounds pretty suspicious and worth keeping tabs on. Maybe the refugees are from Bali ?
Did you notice in your Promed article, that there is evidence of several H5N1 strains/sequences circulating in Germany (and probably else where in Europe also) ? Makes a person wonder: if they can’t spot different HPAI H5 sequences, how in the world are they going to spot H7 or other strains ? It really is beginning to look like most of Europe is “asleep at the wheel” when it comes to surveillance. I don’t buy the explanation either that contaminated poultry manure is the source of the outbreak – that’s only a copout answer, and analogous to me saying that “my automobile is the primary cause of my speeding tickets and accidents”.
I really got a laugh out of the Hong Kong article. Attempting to curtail or regulate air travel by regulations and procedures, to forestall a pandemic, is much like trying to install a screen door on a nuclear submarine. It simply won’t work.
Revere’s article, which clearly illustrates the Indonesian government’s negligence, corruption and incompetence, when it comes to bird flu (mis) management, is the “tip of the Titanic”. All Madame Supari has accomplished so far is to rearrange her deck chairs, while the ship takes on more water. I hope the historians really tell the story accurately of her refusal to cooperate with world health authorities, someday. It would be a crying shame if the history books neglected to fully describe her contributions towards the worlds deadliest pandemic. (I have always believed that credit is due, where it rightfully belongs).
Having trudged through your Indian article twice, which describes quite a number of unanswered questions about their recent bird flu outbreak, I decided the author really knows what he/she is talking about. It actually is a very comprehensive and well written article. Sounds like the Indian bureaucracy just simply didn’t follow up on much.
And finally… the Chinese moon cake article. Admittedly, I have never heard of these rare delicacies.
I do have a vast amount of experience with Sun-flower seeds, Mars Bars, Star Bursts and Moon Pies, though. And of course, my favorite – Twinkies.
Wulfgang
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