January 12 Flu Update
UK is afraid bird flu will hit their famous black swans.11 peacocks are dead in India, but they say there's no bird flu.
An Air Force base in Guam continues to work on bird flu containment.
posted by Orange @ 11:22 AM
Sunday, January 13, 2008
The Coming Influenza Pandemic?
Is a global influenza pandemic on the way that could kill millions of people? Are we going to relive the horror of 1918? If it happens, are we even remotely prepared to save ourselves? Scientists from around the world are concerned about bird flu...since 2004 our site has tracked news of H5N1 influenza from around the world.
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Previous Posts
- January 11 Flu Update
- January 10 Flu Update
- January 9 Flu Update
- January 8 Flu Update
- January 7 Flu Update
- January 6 Flu Update
- January 5 Flu Update
- January 4 Flu Update
- January 3 Flu Update
- January 2 Flu Update
Links
- FluWiki online.
- Wikipedia on Influenza
- CDC Flu Page
- WHO Flu Page
- CDC Avian Influenza
- New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell on the search for the flu in permafrost
- New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell on Flu as our most deadly contagion
- The Planning and Politics behind the flu from Greenhammer
- Preparing for the Next Pandemic
- Michael T. Osterholm, Ph.D., M.P.H.
- New England Journal of Medicine, May 5, 2005
- Is there anything we can do to avoid this course? The answer is a qualified yes that depends on how everyone, from world leaders to local elected officials, decides to respond. We need bold and timely leadership at the highest levels of the governments in the developed world; these governments must recognize the economic, security, and health threats posed by the next influenza pandemic and invest accordingly. The resources needed must be considered in the light of the eventual costs of failing to invest in such an effort. The loss of human life even in a mild pandemic will be devastating, and the cost of a world economy in shambles for several years can only be imagined.
- ABC Primetime, September 2005
- "Right now in human beings, it kills 55 percent of the people it infects," says Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow on global health policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. "That makes it the most lethal flu we know of that has ever been on planet Earth affecting human beings."
- Dr. Robert Webster
- Society just can't accept the idea that 50 percent of the population could die. And I think we have to face that possibility," Webster said. "I'm sorry if I'm making people a little frightened, but I feel it's my role.
- Dr. Robert Fedson
- "There is nothing in Darwinian evolution that says that our DNA has to survive compared to say the DNA of an earthworm. I mean Darwinian evolution is completely indifferent to which DNA happens to persist. We are not necessarily unique as a species as far as evolution is concerned and we can disappear like other species have already disappeared."
1 Comments:
Orange;
Judging from your two articles about Great Britain and India today, I believe we have two countries, unfortunately, who have very defective H5N1 surveillance programs. I definitely do not believe that GB’s veterinary oversight agency, DEFRA, is conducting as comprehensive and thorough testing as they should – a lot of H5N1 seems to be slipping below their radar on a regular basis.
As far as India, well, we have two significant outbreaks in their western and northern regions of their country – I guess India really isn’t aware of this yet, so I will inform them: in spite of their denials, the area in far West NW Bengal, north of Calcutta and right next to BANGLADESH (approx 100 kilometers west) , probably has H5N1 poultry infections spreading throughout their farms as I type this. The other infected area is in the northern part of India, just north of Delhi (near Punjab) – about 150 kilometers east of PAKISTAN. The proximities of these two outbreaks in India is no coincidence, both Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as most other countries in that regions are all significantly infected with H5N1.
Don’t tell any of this to Dr. Bernard Vallat of the OIE (the head of world animal health) though, he’s still stuck in his “the H5N1 has extremely stabilized and the risk of an avian pandemic is overblown” imaginary vision. He reminds me of the captain of the Titanic, kind of asleep in his cabin, right before the iceberg hit.
The other thing that I find quite interesting is your Guam, Andersen AFB, article concerning their announcement of a base-wide disease containment emergency exercise. Guam is located centrally, only about 1,000 nm from Indonesia, 1,300 nm from Japan, 1,500 nm from Taiwan, 1,500 nm from S Korea, and only 1,600 nm from Foochow, China.
I do not think for a moment that it is a coincidence that Guam and Hawaii have been conducting numerous pandemic disease outbreak exercises. The isolation of both islands, as well as their extreme military importance, and proximity to China and Asia (where H5N1 is endemic), place them both very high on the strategic national interest list.
It’s a good thing Colonel Walter Cayce, 36th Medical Group Commander, knows what he’s doing and is assessing and measuring the risk properly. We need about a couple thousand more of these type individuals, spread throughout North America.
Wulfgang
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