Incubation for bird flu set at 3 days for humans

[Occulus]

http://www.iht.com/articles/129501.html

Incubation for bird flu set at 3 days for humans

The Associated Press
Friday, February 13, 2004

BANGKOK- People infected with bird flu get sick about three days after exposure to the virus, suffering fevers and coughing, the World Health Organization says, citing the first clinical data from patients with the current strain.

-snip-

The 10 cases studied were farmers and children in Vietnam, with most believed to have had contact with sick chicken and ducks at their farms. In one case, a sickened boy had frequently held roosters at cock fights and typically walked through a poultry market on his way to school.

WHO notes on its Web site that the mortality rate was very high - eight of the 10 patients died - but warns that the cases are too few "to be representative of the full range of the illness."

(more)

Trickle, trickle. Well, that's at least one question answered, and the death toll is catastrophically high. I really, really hope it doesn't spread.

[Mrs. Overall]

1. What are your thoughts

on the recent bird flu cases in DE, NJ, and PA? We've been told this strain does not jump to humans.
In your opinion, are we being told everything?

(I have read some previous posts by you and so I have been especially watching your time-table and predictions as news is coming out about this....)

[Occulus]

2. I would say,

a) things are being stated in the media much slower than I anticipated and b) I doubt we would be told how bad it truly is until it's obvious there's a serious problem. I think it's a little too convienient that there is humn bird flu halfway around the world, and now POOF, we have one not harmful to humans here.

There's a line in the PNAC document titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" that speaks of biological agents and racially-targeted diseases moving from the realm of terrorism into becoming a "politically useful tool". I once went to the PNAC homepage after reading that line quite some time ago, and when I downloaded the "new" .pdf, that section had been redacted.

I'm just idly connecting a few dots here. I guess the underlying question becomes, can we be too cautious regarding this flu? This many dead from that many cases is definitely Not A Good Thing for everyonne.

[amazona]

3. my contacts in the poultry industry

are in the deep south, not in Delmarva, but they are not in the least concerned about human transmission.

The concern is the economic impact on the industry of being hit in a short period of time with flu strains, Newcastle's (with most of the commercial poultry in Southern California being depopulated), avian encephalitis. Extra vaccine/medicated feed is expensive and then consumers complain when chicken is over-exposed to medication. Seems like you can't win.

But it's a financial issue of how much will be passed on to the consumer and how much the industry will have to eat.

Not a Captain Trips scenario. I wouldn't head for the hills just yet.

[Pathwalker]

4. Is chicken safe to eat at this time?

I would really like an answer, as chicken is one of the few meats I eat. Does this virus survive cooking?? PLEASE, someone answer this - please!

[amazona]

7. yes, properly cooked chicken is safe

It is never safe to eat raw chickens and it hasn't been advisable to eat raw eggs for many years because salmonella is endemic. You cannot get bird flu from eating chicken. But properly prepared chicken is perfectly safe.

[Snow]

8. Ooops, right, my mistake. I was joking a bit in my post below

when I said even raw chicken isprobably safe. It is with respect to the flu virus, but, as this psoter pointed out, not with regard to salmonella and other such gut nasties.

[Occulus]

5. Not just yet,

but I think I can safely say that it needs to e paid close attention to.

What I'm really afraid of is the human strain getting over here. With the incubation period and the death rate, having that flu in the US would be a serious situation. What I'm speculating on is whether any of us "little people" would even be informed until it was too late.

As I believe I've mentioned in other threads, I'm a postal worker in a distribution center, and having to handle mail from all over the world is more than a little scary right now.

Who knows what's on that envelope?

[Snow]

6. Relax a bit....

the WHO site
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2004_02_12a/en/
does a nice job of outlining the outbreak.
- snip -
One month into the outbreak

Laboratory results confirming the first 3 human cases of H5N1 infection were announced on 12 January. Today, one month into the outbreak, WHO is issuing a chronology of key events in both the human and poultry outbreaks, which are intricately interrelated.

WHO is also stressing the need to maintain vigilance for suspected cases and to report suspected disease, in humans and animals, promptly and transparently. The disease in poultry is still spreading in several areas. In others, progress in controlling the avian outbreak does not mean that the risk to human health has been eliminated.

Several countries with outbreaks in poultry have weak health infrastructures, with weak capacity for the detection of cases, particularly in rural areas where the majority of domestic birds are raised. Capacity to diagnose a difficult disease such as H5N1 is also weak. Moreover, as the clinical material published today and tomorrow indicates, the full clinical spectrum of H5N1 illness is unknown. Milder cases of illness could be occurring, yet fail to reach the attention of health care staff.

As today’s report from Viet Nam states, “These (10) cases were identified by alert clinicians in tertiary care hospitals and cannot be taken to be representative of the full range of illness that H5N1 may cause.”

For all these reasons, the current small number of laboratory-confirmed cases cannot be taken as an accurate indication of the magnitude of the present or potential threat to human health.

- snip -

Two things bear repeating:
- They cannot possibly find all the cases.
- The cases they are finding are in tertiary care hospitals; very sick people - that's why the high fatality rate. The second point is a bit subtle; it's a denominator problem really. If you don't understand it, tell me & we can discuss it.

And to the person who asked - eating cooked chicken is safe - i suspect even eating raw chicken is safe. I wouldn't go walking into a poultry shed in an epidemic area, though - then you'd get chickens sneezing on you, and you might get the flu. Doubt very seriously it'd do you much harm, though.

[Snow]

9. Let's keep this kicked for a bit

:kick: because there has been some concern - maybe even a bit too much concern? kgfnally, I'd be interested to see what numbers your high source based his huge worry upon.....

[Snow]

10. Kick for the evening crowd and kgfnally

to get a chance to respond
:kick: