March 19 Flu Update
A genetic study says that China was the source of bird flu. Which historically, it has always been.Well, it was probably all a big mix up. A couple from Bangladesh got sick, in Toronto, and next thing you know there are media reports its bird flu.
Inaccurate reporting is blamed.
UK PM Gordon Brown says the biggest threat is bird flu, not terror.
Revere blogs the recent description of the bird flu in Indonesia as "critical."
So far this bird flu season is looking a lot like previous ones. That's bad because previous seasons all were freighted with the potential for disaster. So is this one.
CIDRAP reports poultry outbreaks in Laos and Turkey.
Here's the OIE report from Turkey.
ProMed on the coinfection.
Culls are ongoing in India.
Loans are sought for poultry farms in Bangladesh.
France is subsidizing the bird flu fight in Africa.
Bali is making "maximum" effort to fight bird flu.
CIDRAP on the HHS flu exercise and the fact that it included how the Internet would be used and whether it would hold up.
Tufts has a grant to study bird flu in Indonesia.
In Nigeria, officials are challenging each other on bird flu.
Wow: Australia is going to require risky travellers to take medication. Let me know how that goes.
Central Java also releases bird flu warnings.
Islamabad is having a bird flu seminar.
posted by Orange @ 10:47 PM
2 Comments:
Orange;
No surprises there in your first article, other than the fact that it mentions that in “2007, a team at the University of California Irvine reported that Guangdong appeared to be the source of renewed waves of the H5N1 strain”. This happens to be the same province where they just “discovered” several new outbreaks in poultryin the last two weeks (Guangzhou city,104 miles from Hong Kong, which is have a seasonal flu epidemic). What a coincidence don’t you think ? You have to wonder how many co-infected people are wondering around in Guangdong.
I did find your fourth article about PM Gordon Brown stating that “ the biggest threat facing Britain is neither a terror attack nor climate change, but a flu pandemic”, absolutely fascinating. I believe PM Brown and his folks really have finally discerned what the true international threat is to their nation. I especially like the British idea of bringing back the idea of a “new civil defense network” volunteer force, to improve local resilience against emergencies – I guess they saw the American version of a dysfunctional government behemoth called “FEMA”, and decided to go with the more efficient functional, practical and utilitarian approach which attracts experts and fosters community engagement. The most significant point of the article is that they are recognizing that a pandemic is now the “numero uno” threat their nation faces, not global terrorism or warming, floods or national disasters. If only we could get the US leaders and Congress on the same page, and everyone agree on a similar list of realistic prioritized “defined national risks”, and get off of the “war on global terrorism” and “war in Iraq” fixation, we might make some serious health infrastructure and pandemic preparation progress in this country.
Yes, indeed, it should be very interesting to see if the Australian legislature really passes the health law that travelers entering into that country be required to take medication and treatment for dangerous diseases, regardless of religious reasons. Assuming the overlying reason is a major public health threat, like H5N1, SARS, XRTB or some other nasty pathogen, it should be extremely interesting the first time they get some infected ultra-religious nut job or sniffling civil libertarian junkie with a high temperature stepping out of an airplane onto the tarmac (better have the cuffs, a muzzle and stun gun ready, I think).
Of course, when you stop and think about it a moment, what better way for a fascist bunch of bio-terrorists hell-bent on the destruction of a country, to start a deadly epidemic and/or kill innocent people, than to send in an artificially infected person with some deadly disease? (Don’t think that some of these screwballs haven’t considered it already).
Wulfgang
The people who may not know what
"Bird Flu" is--should type in on
their computor 'search-blank'--
"Spanish Flu, 1918" They can read
up on it & how deadly it is! "-When
the Mayflower Pilgrims arrived in
1620 at Plymouth Rock, we found
that they had chickens aboard, and
within 3 months time, 52 of the
104 passengers died of a vicious
sickness--(No Docs had ever heard
of Bird-Flu, so no one knew what
was killing the most healthy ones,
that had come on the ship-men died
with a 50% loss, the children only
had a 25% loss, and the married
adult-women hit the worse with 75%
deaths--only 4 of the 16 lived to
see summer...)
Post a Comment
<< Home