Sunday, February 24, 2008

February 24 Flu Update

A migrant worker in China who ate sick chickens has died.

An additional province in Vietnam has been impacted.

ProMed rounds up WHO confirmations of recent human cases.

This is hilarious. If you have read Gina Kolata's book about the flu, you know about Kirsty Duncan, the hyperactive, self-aggrandizing, drama queen who made a reality show out of trying to find flu virus in the permafrost. Well, she's running for the Canadian Parliament. No, really. Be here all week.

1 Comments:

At 6:42 PM, Blogger Wulfgang said...

Orange;

Looking at your news out of China, I think the key questions are: where did the 44 year old migrant worker woman’s poultry come from originally and how extensive is the poultry outbreak in Guangdong, Hunan an Jiangsu ? What other provinces are infected – me being the suspicious person that I am, suspect they are vastly understating the few facts they have released – otherwise, Hong Kong wouldn’t be as worried as they are. For example, what about Tibet (which borders Bangladesh, India and Nepal), and the neighboring provinces of Yunnan, Guangxi, Fujian, Sichuan and Qinghai ?

And knowing that China probably has a suspected bird flu problem in its own poultry (which have probably been vaccinated to some extent), one has to wonder how effective the 250 million doses of Chinese poultry vaccine that Vietnam has ordered, will really be? Hasn't worked too awful well so far.

There are truly the most “unknowns” or bird flu reporting “gaps” of information occurring in China, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan at the present time, than I can recall in a long time.

Finally, I must admit that I really didn’t know the complete biographical background of Kirsty Duncan before you posted your news article today, announcing her bid for the Canadian Parliament. After a little research, I would say that you have characterized her well and Gina Kolata captured her past failed exploit (the Norwegian expedition to exhume the miner’s bodies) and persona quite accurately. The part I like about her best is that she’s an “adjunct professor at the University of Toronto”, and overall self-appointed expert and self promoter and control freak. What a package.

Otherwise, she ain’t a bad looking chick from her pictures. But then, so is Hilary….

Wulfgang

 

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