December 18 Flu Update
Whatever the reason, there are increasing reports of cases in Pakistan. CIDRAP here..... (Note, we could easily be seeing panic cases, not real cases).Vigilance engendered by the possible family cluster of H5N1 avian influenza cases in Pakistan has led to many more reports of potential cases there, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said today.
ProMed also has the Pakistan story, with an interesting comment from the Mod CP, who is normally a skeptic, but notes that under some reports, conditions from Pakistan do roughly correspond to what you would expect to see from H2H transmission.
This is a really interesting story. A man on Long Island was quarantined for three days because he was feeling ill and had just gotten back from Pakistan. Furthermore....
CDC spokesman Dave Daigle said the man may have ties to people in Pakistan who have been infected with bird flu, but he was unable to elaborate.
Indonesia says it is investigating several cases where bird flu patients died, despite having no obvious exposure path.
ProMed has this as well, noting that 20% of cases did not have any obvious route of exposure.
ProMed on poultry supply fears sparked by Polish bird flu outbreaks.
Some officials in Pakistan have canceled holiday leave due to the bird flu.
Bird flu confirmed in Benin.
Halifax paper says that if you think the bird flu was gone, think again.
Computerworld runs down the blogs which are covering the bird flu, including this one:
A carefully selected headline roundup.
The Poultry industry says it expects to recover from the avian flu "disruption" and resume steady growth.
The Trust for American Health reports that budget cuts are threatening catastrophe prep.
A study in Britain says people in the country fared better than those in the city during the 1918 pandemic.
When Revere hears there is nothing to fear, he gets nervous.
Culling has brought the price of turkey way up in Britain.
Sweden has joined Denmark in raising its alert level with more bird flu in Germany.
Qatar wants Indonesia to step up its bird flu fight.
Australian group recommends 3 months supplies for a pandemic.
A nurse speaks to a Lions Club in Alabama about pandemic flu.
ProMed has an OIE report from Germany. Note the mod comment on the risk profile for backyard flocks.
Every outbreak presents the opportunity for either an formal or informal assessment of risk. Informally, in my opinion, backyard poultry present a mixed risk profile. It is good that such backyard flocks are not in the middle of a large, vertically integrated poultry company which then puts extremely large numbers of birds and
potentially employees throughout the company at some level of risk. On the other hand, backyard poultry outbreaks pose a highly variable risk depending on the knowledge of the backyard farmers, physical facilities, management techniques and many other factors that cover a wide range of risk possibilities.
There are numerous local stories that follow up on the US report on state preparation for pandemics and catastrophes. Below are some examples:
New Jersey/Good
Mississippi/Bad
Rhode Island and Massachusetts/Bad-bad
South Carolina/Mostly bad
Indiana/Good
Iowa/Bad
posted by Orange @ 10:40 PM
2 Comments:
Orange;
Golleeee, I had to set up an Excel spreadsheet to track, prioritize and analyze your basketful of articles today. So much news, so little time. But here goes…. the way the simple mind of the Wulf-ster sees things –
I really wondered after reading both your first CIDRAP article and Reveres commentary: does the WHO H5N1 mouth piece in Geneva, Gregory Hartl, have a three months supply of grub stashed in his cupboards, like the Australian Medical journal recommends, and does he have his own little secret supply of Tamiflu ? Does it really take an independent smart source like Revere to point out that we have about 1/3 of the African countries infected with H5N1, and when officials say “nothing to fear” and “no problem” with the recent bird flu developments, then you know what’s coming down the pike next: one of the three biggest lies in the world – “yeah, baby, I’ll love you in the morning”.
Indonesia paints somewhat of a distorted picture when it compares its 2006 statistics to 2007: officially in 2006, they reported 55 cases and 45 deaths, and in 2007 they have reported only 40 cases and 35 deaths, due to bird flu. ‘Tis very misleading, because of their gaping surveillance and reporting problem, which like our friends in China, they are not admitting to. I suspect their 2007 cases are much higher and, yes, they should “intensify their investigations”, if that is even possible at this late stage. What an Indonesian 2006 CFR of 81.8% and 2007 CFR of 87.5%, tells us, is that if H5N1 breaks out into a pandemic tomorrow, you might as well start buying the nails now to put into your coffin, if you get infected with the disease. No way could the hospitals handle the overwhelm numbers of people associated with that kind of illness.
So, like our mysterious friend Revere says, it’s time to start worrying when the officials say, “don’t worry, nothing to fear, no problem, nothing warrants us raising our threat level”. All this means is Margie’s troops are afraid to endorse their name on any official position yet to raise the threat level, until it is evident to even the slowest of the mentally slow and retarded, that increased clusters and alarming mutations which make the virus more transmissible, are occurring.
I think in view of what is building up throughout the world, the next annual European Avec Report 2008 and 2009 should be pretty interesting. I really wouldn’t recommend investing any money in KFC, nor would I expect a decline in the shares of beef, sheep and other meat, or expect poultry sales to increase.
My very best advice to people is to start investing in them selves. You can’t beat that Return-On-Investment (ROI) for being well prepared these days.
Wulfgang
There won't be any coffins for you to put those nails in wulfgang
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