June 28 Flu Update
More on leading scientists who say that bird flu is still a risk.
posted by Orange @ 8:30 AM
Sunday, June 29, 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
- June 27 Flu Update
- June 26 Flu Update
- June 25 Flu Update
- June 24th Flu Update
- June 23 Flu Update
- June 22 Flu Update
- June 21 Flu Update
- June 20 Flu Update
- No post,, on the road today
- June 18 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;
Bird flu news is slow during the months of June and July, however it should start picking up again briskly the remainder of the year due to the seasonal nature of the disease. The lone article you posted today is pretty interesting: I like to see a story where a person puts his money where his mouth is, in other words, many people flap their arms (and gums) about bird flu, but here’s a guy who actually participated in two clinical pre-pandemic experimental vaccine trials. That takes a lot of courage and faith.
Regarding the rest of the article – a few random thoughts come to mind - when the world’s top flu experts say to take action (and do it themselves), the rest of us need to take notice. The 1918-1919 Great Influenza had a mortality rate of between 2% and 5%. The present mortality rate of H5N1 is in the neighborhood of an astounding +60% on average, with not guarantee it will attenuate. This means that if H5N1 becomes “humanized”, that it would quickly become a world survival issue and a world-changing event. The worlds experts across the entire globe say it’s just a matter of time, and the clock is ticking. International air travel would assure that it would spread into critical regions around the world in a matter of days. The odds are lessening with each passing month.
Since the last flu pandemic in 1968, the world has changed significantly – forty years have passed. China’s population has doubled, and the worlds poultry population as increased by factors of 10 to 50X’s since then. The closer the contact between humans inflected with seasonal flu and birds infected with avian flu, the greater the chances are that genetic recombination will occur (yeah, I believe Niman is absolutely correct on this point) that will then produce a novel unknown pandemic strain.
A measly one percent death rate would equate to millions of deaths globally, especially in third world countries. However, a 60% death rate means global disaster, especially for the vulnerable populations of the globe, and there any billions of them at risk.
Does it really matter where a pandemic started ? Probably not. It would most assuredly spread like a California wildfire around the globe and quickly. There will be no time and no means to lay a Tamiflu blanket on a global scale, and very few nations will have pre-primed their populations with an advance experimental vaccine. This all adds up to more than a “major threat”. It translates into a potential global catastrophe, especially once the supply lines crumble and the hospitals are overwhelmed.
Wulfgang
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