How real is the threat from Bird Flu?

[ECH1969]

Health officials (in Iraq) said measures were being taken to prevent bird flu from entering Iraq from neighboring Turkey, where at least 15 people have been confirmed infected with the deadly H5N1 strain and two have died. Doctors, veterinarians and other health ministry officials met Sunday in northern Iraq's Kurdish enclave to discuss bird flu, the region's minister of agriculture said.

"A campaign will start on the borders of Turkey and Iran to prevent the importation of any kind of bird," Shamal Abid Waffal said. "No living birds are allowed to be sold in the markets. Even the frozen birds are not allowed to be taken from one city to another without medical tests."

"The situation is under control and even if any case of bird flu appears in Iraq, we can control it immediately,' said Qassem Yahya Allawi, a spokesman for the health ministry.

Capt. Peter Purrington, a surgeon with the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade, said the unit had the anti-viral drug Tamiflu available.

http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=4352348&nav=3YeX
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Iraq and nearby countries now regards the threat of Bird Flu as immenent, but is the threat real unless it somehow finds a way to move to humans?

[medeak]

1. what about cats?

if they catch and eat birds? Will your domesticated cat pass it on?

[shraby]

9. Large cats caught it last year

at the zoo. Can't remember the country though but I do remember reading it. I think it was a tiger.

[medeak]

11. family in Europe is quite alarmed

seeing posts here...they all think it's a joke.

[Tinksrival]

2. I don't know?

I'm still trying to recover from my mad cow! :crazy:

[DanCa]

3. It's a scam by the cattle industry

To take away profits from the poultry industry from the profits that the poultry industry makes through the holidays.

[tuvor]

4. Not as real a threat as malaria. A million dead per year.

Maybe there's no credible chance of malaria hitting North America, though.

[Tracyjo]

5. I thought Tamiflu didn't work on H5N1 anyway

What's the truth?

[DanCa]

6. Wasnt the US trying to pressure asia into buying beef?

[sleipnir]

7. NOVA mentioned the other day, it's a complete hoax.

Most likely, the odds are astronomical of it breaking out into a full epidemic.

The used the metaphor of the monkeys typing and eventually coming up with a exact replica of Hamlet. Yes, if we consider infinite time, it will happen. Then again, they mentioned that it happened in 1918, but then again public health was extremely poor and the disease transmission was not completely understood.

It's a hoax. It's a money making machine and it's doing a decent job right now! Keep up the fear and hype! It's for the good of American Pharmaceutical Business!

[rustydad]

14. No

What they said on Nova was that they do not know how much *code* in the virus needs to mutate in order to make the virus transmition mode by air. It could be a few changes in which case it is more lkely, or it could reqire a lot of code changes which would make it very unlikely. In any case the 1918 pandemic was caused by a mutation of a bird virus into a human virus and killed millions. The reason for the concern is that unlike say pig flu, a bird flu is hard to isolate as birds are by nature mobile. Be very, very scared IMO. bob

[CornField]

8. Since I've already posted on this subject...

and have already been accused of drinking some Kool-Aid, I'll post again.

I don't know if the next pandemic will come from this avian flu, but I do believe a flu pandemic is a real and unsettling possibility. So, my family has plans to be implemented just in case. I don't know when and if my home will catch on fire, but I've still installed smoke detectors and force the family to practice our evacuation plans. By that same token, our family also has plans in case of tornado. While some might argue that tornados and fires are a much higher probability than a pandemic, I still feel the plans we've made will benefit us in the event of any emergency situation.

That being said, the avian flu as it is now does not transmit from human to human. It does transmit from bird to bird and, at least sometimes, from bird to human. That's why the border is focusing on birds and not on humans at this point. (The thinking being that even if someone who caught the avian flu came into Iraq, that person wouldn't be able to further transmit the disease to other humans. It would be ideal if we could find a way to contain the birds. With migrating flocks and other issues, this would be highly improbable.

The best two things which could happen (at least according to my thinking):

1) All birds build up an immunity of this particular strain before it mutates
2) This strain doesn't mutate to a point that it can be tranferred from human to human

As it stands now, it is a guessing game when it comes to building a vaccine. As of this moment the scientists know the strain of the flu being passed from bird to bird. When and if the strain decides to jump from human to human, it could be completely different -- rendering any vaccination made from the current information useless.

Tamiflu isn't a cure but something taken to lessen the symptoms of the flu (any viral infection really). The idea behind Tamiflu is to help the sufferer feel better long enough to for the body to naturally fight off the viral infection.

[shraby]

10. There is one more problem in making a vaccine

for the bird flu. Vaccines are traditionally made using eggs. To make this vaccine, eggs can't be used because of the fact that it is a bird virus.

[CornField]

13. Does that mean that the vaccine will be made like some immunizations?

That is, will it have to be made using aborted fetal tissue? If that's the case, I doubt a vaccine will ever see the light of day in the US

[shraby]

19. I think the St. Jude Hospital was working on

genetic manipulation to develop a vaccine. That's what I read about vaccine development last year when the bird flu was rampant in Asia.

[SheilaT]

12. Well, it's not a hoax. Birds are getting

flue and a lot of them are dying from it. It seems to spread readily among birds of all kinds. Iraq can't prevent wild migratory birds from crossing its borders, and that's how the flu has spread to Europe so far.

There is, so far, zero evidence of human to human spread. One article I read yesterday in the Kansas City Star said health officials in Turkey were puzzled by (I hope I've got this straight) two boys who tested positive for the flu but weren't sick. The speculation was that it's not as virulent in people as previously thought, or that it's already mutating and becoming less deadly.

It's not a hoax because no one is making up the fact that this flu exists. What's false is that we're in imminent danger of this flue mutating so it will spread readily human to human and remain deadly in that mutation.

So many things are different from what they were in 1918 that it's shaky, at best, to start worrying that things could be as bad as then. To start with, sanitation is far, far better than it was then. People wash their hands (at least in first world countries) regularly, and hand-washing is the single most effective health measure out there. (Adequate sewers, followed by clean water are the next two and are closely intertwined.)

A thread a couple of days ago people reported family members treating Spanish flu victims who lived with them, and no one else in the family getting ill.

The nature of influenza means there is ALWAYS a risk that a particularly virulent strain will emerge in any given year and create an excess of illness and deaths. Why this particular flue is being heavily advertised as likely to do so puzzles me.

Notice we are having a milder flu season than usual. Much milder.

[triguy46]

15. Less real than methicillin resistant staph aureus.

Open weeping sores, untreatable pneumonias. Gross, and deadly and here right now. Just ask your local health officials.

[Avalux]

16. Not airborne though.

Yes, MRSA is a serious emerging infectious disease right now, but it could never reach pandemic status. We do have a couple of new antibiotics to fight it and there are more in development. MRSA and VRE.

[Avalux]

17. The infectious diseases community expects a pandemic to occur

However, when is the question. All indicators point towards progression of H5N1 to a form that can be easily transmitted from human to human. As of yet, this hasn't happened. The reports form Turkey and other countries are people who have contracted the virus directly from birds. It makes sense that as human cases increase though, the chances of the virus changing increase too. Historically, viruses follow a natural evoluationary path and there's no reason to think this virus will be any different.

The primary goals right now are to keep infected birds from traveling the globe and spreading it to other birds - and educating people in high risk areas about how to protect themselves from infected birds.

Tamiflu is an antiviral and works to inhibit the virus from infecting cells within the body. It can't kill the virus, and once the virus has replicated to an acute point, it is ineffective. The best time to take Tamiflu is the first day or two after exposure to the virus. There are questions about whether it will work against this particular virus. We just don't know. We also don't know mortality rate - chances are when the virus changes, it may lose virulence.

The most important point to remember is this - H5N1 (avian flu virus) has not gained the ability to be readily transmitted from human to human yet. Until we see definitive signs of this (infections outside of clusters), there's no need to be concerned about a pandemic.

[Ernesto]

18. Damn, I just got over a bad case of SARS!.... n-t

[bobbieinok]

20. 2 questions 1) who profits from a 'scare' ? 2) wasn't US very late

ordering tamiflu?

that's what I heard, anyway.......that US didn't order vaccine until after W made his speech about the possibility of a military-enforced quarrantine......that US order was after Britain's and many other countries