February 11 Flu Update
Most of the districts in Bangladesh are not impacted by bird flu.Awareness is cited as important in Bangladesh.
Not sure if this is a best practice, but Bangladesh is setting up drums for people to throw dead birds into at the market.
India is now using plays to educate on the bird flu.
55 local areas in Nigeria have bird flu.
13 companies in Pakistan are going to make Tamiflu.
Effect Measure has an interesting article. This hits on one of my pet peeves...reporters who reproduce what people say, without challenging to verifying claims. A person of authority cannot be allowed to make facts up....isn't that what papers are for?
Ireland says bird flu would have a 2Bn Euro economic impact.
H5 found in Hong Kong.
Australian professor says bird flu still a threat.
Letter To the Editor blames government officials for bird flu in Indonesia.
CIDRAP blogs on the USDA report about tightening pandemic planning.
Needless vaccine funded by NIH.
Low dose vaccine success is reported.
CIDRAP's best practices looks at faith based prep.
posted by Orange @ 8:55 AM
1 Comments:
Orange;
You seem have hit a double header today with your two CIDRAP articles – both of them are very revealing.
As a long time government person, I have had to deal with GAO, Inspector General (IG) audits, as well as other watch dog government oversight agencies. I can instantly tell from your first CIDRAP article that the USDA definitely, without question, has not taken the subject of avian pandemic planning seriously. The 33-page report of findings that the GAO is generally not prepared to lead the veterinary response to an H5N1 threat is quite honestly atrocious, especially in light of the current infestation events happening in the Indo-China- Asia – Middle East. Unless the USDA gets into hyper-drive with their operational, test and communications initiatives, they will fare no better than DEFRA – they will give the appearance of a stogy bureaucratic agency unable to detect or control any avian virus in its midst.
The second CIDRAP article which summarizes the community toolkit that the Saint-Paul-Ramsey County Department of Public Health produced is in my view an outstanding “best practices” example of what a small local organization can accomplish, without being hampered by government red tape and restrictions. The USDA folks need to get out of the Bush-eaucracy mode, talk with this small Public Heath Department, and get their act together.
I find your EM Revere article a little perplexing, mainly from the standpoint of the message. Usually Reveres articles are extremely lucid in their message, but this time I struggled to determine whether he: (a) genuinely expects journalists and reporters to challenge inaccuracies whenever their governments sources are in obvious error (as allowable in the west); or (b)
whether he truly believes that all news reports should meet some sort of ethical, honest and accuracy standard.
You read a lot of MSM reports about bird flu, Orange. Do you find all of them accurate, credible and reliable ? I don’t. I guess it all depends of the source these days and does the information pass the “reasonableness” test. In countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Turkey, the “Fifth Estate” amounts to little more than desperately impoverished people wondering where there next meal is going to come from.
Wulfgang
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