Bird flu could become a global threat to humans...Chicago Tribune

[RedEarth]

Bird flu could become a global threat to humans
Experimental vaccine ordered in U.S., and disease researchers warn of potential for catastrophe after avian virus returns

By Jeremy Manier, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporters Andrew Martin and Rudolph Bush contributed to this report
Published March 9, 2005


Compared with other major diseases that menace humanity, bird flu can seem out of place: Only 60 known human cases have appeared in the last year. Yet public health officials now say the disease is a global threat. That conclusion is based on a new understanding of influenza's unprecedented attack on birds in Asia over the last year, and the lethal risk that will pose to humans for years to come.

In just three months in early 2004, 120 million chickens and ducks in Southeast Asia died from the strain of flu or were destroyed to stop its spread. That's more than avian flu outbreaks had killed in the last four decades combined, according to a January report by the World Health Organization. Even after widespread culling meant to stamp out the outbreak, avian flu has returned in force to Asian flocks this year, officials say. Many experts believe the disease is now endemic in the region.

That raises the risk to humans, who have no natural immunity to the bird flu strain. More than 70 percent of people infected with the virus have died. The longer the virus circulates, the greater the chances it will mutate into a form that can spread widely among people all around the world.

"We have more avian virus sitting in poultry in Asia than we could have ever imagined possible," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We have to be prepared for the possibility that somewhere along that line we're going to see strains emerge that could be more infectious for people."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0503090319mar09,1,6115497.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. What are we doing in the US to protect our poultry industry?

[depakid]

19. Plenty

Some of it "good" (though not for the flocks potentially infected). Mid-Atlantic states have culled poutry stocks to the tune of tens of milions to protect growers in other regions....

These outbreaks have occurred from time to time for many years- and are caused by a different variant from H5N1- meaning that they haven't jumped the species barrier into people.

[pandemic_1918]

27. Its a People Problem - Dual Infections in Thai Binh in 2004

WHO accidentally released data showing dual infections in Thai Binh in early 2004. This is very bad news and helps explain why H5N1 is now being called "complex" and there are so many human to human transmissions

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=nn&ie=UTF-8&q=bird+flu+thai+binh+clusters&btnG=Search+News

[pandemic_1918]

29. Second Health Care Worker in Thai Binh Hospitalized

The situation in Thai Binh continues to worsen. Now a second health care worker treating the same H5N1 patient has been hospitalized with symptom

http://news.google.com/news?q=h5n1+nurse+thai+binh&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=nn&oi=newsr

Human to human transmission getting more efficient.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

2. However the good news is

Even though this has the potential to wipe out millions in America we can all take comfort in know that our demise will not come about by the evil actions of terrorists.

Another checkmark for the Bush success colume.

[pandemic_1918]

26. Secondary Cases are Predominantly Female

Speaking of wiping out millions, the secondary cases in Vietnam and SE Asia are predominantly female. This is because the primary caregivers in the family are female, and they get infected when caring for their husbands, siblings, or children.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=bird+flu+thai+binh+bimodal

It's not common sources because real men kill ducks and eat ducks and blood pudding.

[RedEarth]

3. Concern at Vietnam bird flu cases ....BBC article

Two elderly Vietnamese people who are related to victims of bird flu have themselves contracted the disease, according to local health officials. The new cases, neither of which had shown any symptoms, will add to concerns the disease may be spreading more readily between humans.

Experts are worried the virus could eventually combine with human flu and risk a deadly pandemic. Bird flu has killed at least 46 people in South East Asia since December 2003.

One of the new cases, a 61-year-old woman whose husband died of bird flu, had no other known contact with the disease. "She said she ate only pork and all four chickens raised in her house tested negative for bird flu," an official at the health clinic in her village in Thai Binh province told Reuters.

.............

The fact that the widow and the grandfather are apparently healthy, despite testing positive for the disease, suggests that there could be more bird flu cases than previously thought. This concern was also raised on Tuesday, when the WHO announced that seven Vietnamese who initially tested negative for bird flu had now been found to have carried the virus.

"There's no doubt. The WHO accepts that we are missing cases. It's quite possible that some people are falling sick and their symptoms are very light and they don't end up in hospital," said WHO regional spokesman Peter Cordingley.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4332187.stm

[CindyDale]

5. That is interesting

Thanks for posting it.

If the mortality rate is lower than originally stated (70%), that might be good in some ways but bad in others. If people can become hosts and carry the infection without symptoms, this disease has a greater chance of spreading.

I wonder if it is significant that these victims were elderly. Could elderly be more immune for some reason?

We need to pay the closest attention to this.

We also need to get a better grip on human influenza to keep the viruses from combining if that is possible.

[Frederik]

20. That was the case

with the 1918 pandemic. 20-40 year olds were hit the hardest.

[CindyDale]

4. Good to see some in the media looking out for the people

While so many just looking out for themselves. This is a problem about which the media should be educating America so we will not be blindsided.

[Moderator]

6. kick to combine

[CoffeeCat]

7. Vietnamese Have Bird Flu, 0 Symptoms (Reuters) + ChicagoTrib article

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=7849203

HANOI (Reuters) - Two elderly Vietnamese relatives of people who died of bird flu have tested positive for the deadly virus despite showing no symptoms, health officials said Wednesday.

Both lived in the northern province of Thai Binh, where a cluster of cases is causing great concern about the possibility of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus, which experts fear could mutate into a form which could cause a pandemic.

"We are aware of these cases and we are investigating this further," a World Health Organization spokeswoman said.

For one of the symptom-free carriers of the virus, a 61-year-old woman, the only link established to the disease was her husband, who died of bird flu on Feb. 24.

On edit: Here's another bird flu article from the Chicago Tribune
----
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0503090319mar09,1,6115497.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=2&cset=true

Compared with other major diseases that menace humanity, bird flu can seem out of place: Only 60 known human cases have appeared in the last year. Yet public health officials now say the disease is a global threat.

That conclusion is based on a new understanding of influenza's unprecedented attack on birds in Asia over the last year, and the lethal risk that will pose to humans for years to come.

In just three months in early 2004, 120 million chickens and ducks in Southeast Asia died from the strain of flu or were destroyed to stop its spread. That's more than avian flu outbreaks had killed in the last four decades combined, according to a January report by the World Health Organization.

Even after widespread culling meant to stamp out the outbreak, avian flu has returned in force to Asian flocks this year, officials say. Many experts believe the disease is now endemic in the region.

[MuseRider]

8. Could this not also

be a tiny bit encouraging? The mortality rate should be lower if they are finding people who do not get sick from it, correct?

[ClarkUSA]

9. It means these people will be jabbed to create vaccines

as they obviously have the first known immunity to this flu.

[MuseRider]

11. Yup

that is what I was thinking, that and the mortality thing.

[knitter4democracy]

10. Great. Just what we needed--carriers.

It would be like Typhoid Mary--never sick but getting everyone around you sick. Crap.

[pandemic_1918]

24. H5N1 Spread by Asymptomatic Carriers

The jury is still out on asymptomatic human cases of H5N1, but the asymptomatic ducks are one of the major causes of problems in the spread of H5N1

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/01140505/H5N1_More_Asymptomatic_Ducks.html

[Amfortas]

12. Scary

:scared:

[BigBearJohn]

13. It dumbfounds me that this gets so little press. The Plague? nothing new

[RedEarth]

14. Bird flu shares many traits of devastating 1918 pandemic....CanWest News

GENEVA -- There are frightening similarities between the bird flu virus raging in Southeast Asia that threatens to spark a global human influenza pandemic and the devastating "Spanish flu" outbreak that killed tens of millions of people in 1918.

That warning comes from the World Health Organization and top virologists who are nervously watching the situation unfold in Thailand and Vietnam, where this week the first possible human-to-human transmission between unrelated people emerged, raising the spectre the lethal virus is changing to become more easily spread among humans.

No one wants to outright predict that the flu virus -- known as H5N1 -- currently causing so much concern will ultimately mutate into a strain as virulent as the one that swept through the world 87 years ago.

Indeed, public health experts at the WHO stress they still don't know how dangerous the next pandemic will be. But they add ominously that while it could be a mild virus that kills as few as two million people, the scenario could be much worse, with fatalities of more than 50 million worldwide.
.......

"We're not scare-mongering here," said Frank Plummer, scientific director of the Winnipeg-based national microbiology lab, part of the Public Health Agency of Canada. "We're not crying wolf. There is a wolf. We just don't know when it's coming."

http://www.canada.com/fortstjohn/story.html?id=d13c0062-4047-471b-86d1-f81ea8ffcd3d

[pie]

15. How interesting that we can follow this live on the Internet

[leesa]

16. Ah...more fear-mongering...why do Americans fall for this shit EVERY YEAR?

[justsomegirl]

17. Because some of us read history.

If you read up on the 1918 pandemic, maybe you would realize that pandemics do happen in cycles and we're way overdue for one.

[Lilyhoney]

25. Has anybody else noticed that ...

The 1918 pandemic was also at a time of war?? Maby it is just a fluke.

[RedEarth]

21. I would suggest you read several posts by "pandemic_1918"....

he seems rather informed on this subject.....below is some information about him and a link to his web site....

http://www.recombinomics.com/

......

He took a postdoctoral position at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation where he developed monoclonal antibody technology. He fused monoclonal antibody and synthetic peptide technologies and accepted a staff position at Scripps.

In 1982, he developed the flu monoclonal antibody, which is widely used throughout the pharmaceutical, biotech, and research industries in epitope tagging techniques. He also produced a broad panel of monoclonal antibodies against synthetic peptides of oncogenes and growth factors. These monoclonal antibodies were distributed worldwide to researchers by the National Cancer Institute. The antibodies identified novel related proteins which correlated with clinical parameters.

This technology was used to form ProgenX, a cancer diagnostic company that became Ligand Pharmaceuticals. He subsequently identified protein expression patterns at the University of Pittsburgh. More recently, he became interested in infectious diseases while at Harvard Medical School. He then founded Recombinomics and discovered how viruses rapidly evolve. These latest findings are the subject of recent patent filings.

[pandemic_1918]

23. Vietnam Cover-up

The cover-up in Vietnam, as reported by WSJ today, could be a major problem. Cases and deaths are being withheld and WHO has no idea where H5N1 is and isn't

http://news.google.com/news?q=bird+flu+cases+death&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=nn&oi=newsr

[Amfortas]

18. kick

[Silverhair]

22. BTW - Bird Flu topics are a banned posting at FR.

That's right. Post there about bird flu and you are instantly banned. The only ones that reply to the posting are those that ridicule the idea that there is any threat.

Not that it has any real bearing on this thread. I just find it to be curious.

[pandemic_1918]

30. Movement of this thread

DU simply moves bird flu threaads to obscure areas.

[Ernesto]

28. Are we sure "Chicken Little" isn't behind this?

Gangs, Killer bees, SARS, West Nile virus, last years flu warnings, Y2K, terrorists....... Stay ascared 'merica!.......... What do ya expect from MSM? This is how they make their living, after all.