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SidDithers

(44,228 posts)
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 09:59 PM Apr 2013

The New Bird Flu, and How to Read the News About It

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/04/new-flu-news/

By now you’ve no doubt heard that international health authorities are deeply concerned about a new flu strain that has surfaced in China: H7N9, which so far has sickened at least 16 people and killed six of them. The outbreak has a number of features that are troubling. It emerged rapidly; the first cases were announced five days ago, and the first death apparently occurred on Feb. 27. It is widely distributed: Confirmed cases have been found in three adjoining provinces that wrap around Shanghai, and also in Shanghai municipality itself. And it is novel: H7N9 has never been recorded in humans before.

For infectious-disease geeks, it’s that last aspect that raises a particular nervous thrill. Most of the time, most people take flu for granted, to the point of not bothering to be vaccinated against it because they assume it will not make them very sick. But every once in a while, flu defies expectations, and roars up into a pandemic: worldwide spread, high numbers of cases, high rates of death. When a pandemic occurs, almost definitionally, it is because of a new strain to which humans have no prior immunity. In human terms, H7N9 is a new strain.

snip

My first caution is: Remember that much of the news published in China is still reviewed by censors before being published. The Chinese government has shown encouraging transparency this week: for instance, it reported the pigeon to the OIE, the usually used French acronym for the World Organization for Animal Health, and its internal CDC quickly popped up a FAQ on this flu. Historically, those are truly unusual steps. Nevertheless, anything that comes out of mainstream media is likely to be conservative.

Second: China has a Twitter equivalent, Sina Weibo. It too, is censored, almost in real time. To avoid censorship, messages on important subjects are often written in a kind of allusive code. Machine translation does not pick this up; relying on machine translation for any Chinese reports (as most of the people you will hear talking about H7N9 in North America and Europe will be doing) is simply an invitation to error.

Third: Twitter. (Ah, Twitter.) There is going to be a lot of good on Twitter — astonishingly, the WHO said this morning that they will publish case updates to Twitter first — but there is already a huge froth of speculation and error. (One example that just flitted past me: “H7N9 hits Hong Kong!” Hong Kong has one suspected case, based on a travel history to Shanghai. Also: It’s flu season in Hong Kong.)


Interesting read.

Sid
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The New Bird Flu, and How to Read the News About It (Original Post) SidDithers Apr 2013 OP
yep... FirstLight Apr 2013 #1
They claim the pig deaths are related to flooding and "ordinary" swine diseases. winter is coming Apr 2013 #2
+1000!! FirstLight Apr 2013 #3
A story that needs watching. Warren DeMontague Apr 2013 #4

FirstLight

(13,352 posts)
1. yep...
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 10:06 PM
Apr 2013

conservative news from censored sources...indeed.

...wonder if there is any connection to this and the pigs and dead birds in the drinking water. if so...this should be really narly...

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