Originally Posted by Sabinus Invictus

Gravest Danger of Flu Pandemic, Official Warns
By TINI TRAN, AP

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (Feb. 23) - World Health Organization officials urged governments on Wednesday to act swiftly to control the spread of the bird flu, warning that the world is in grave danger of a deadly pandemic triggered by the virus.

The bird flu has killed 45 people in Asia over the past year, in cases largely traced to contact with sick birds, and experts have warned the H5N1 virus could become far deadlier if it mutates into a form that can be easily transmitted among humans. A global pandemic could kill millions, they say.

"We at WHO believe that the world is now in the gravest possible danger of a pandemic,'' Dr. Shigeru Omi, the WHO's Western Pacific regional director, said Wednesday.

He said the world is "now overdue'' for an influenza pandemic, since mass epidemics have occurred every 20-30 years. It has been nearly 40 years since the last one.

Speaking at the opening of a three-day bird flu conference in Ho Chi Minh City, Omi said it is critical that the international community better coordinate its fight against the virus.

In recent outbreaks, bird flu has become more deadly than the strain found in 1997 in Hong Kong, making the situation more urgent, he said.

The mortality rate among identified patients who contract the disease from chickens and ducks is about 72 percent, Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Monday. She added that her agency was preparing for a possible pandemic next year.

"If the virus becomes highly contagious among humans, the health impact in terms of deaths and sickness will be enormous, and certainly much greater than SARS,'' Omi said, referring to severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed nearly 800 people in 2003.

"This is why we are urging all governments to work now on a pandemic preparedness plan - so that even in an emergency such as this they will be able to provide basic public services such as transport, sanitation and power,'' he said.

The disease, which devastated the region's poultry industry last year as it swept through nearly a dozen countries, has killed 32 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and one Cambodian over the past year.

Officials acknowledge that one of the biggest challenges in controlling avian flu is in altering traditional farming practices in Asia where animals live in close, often unsanitary quarters with people.

"There is an increasing risk of avian influenza spread that no poultry-keeping country can afford to ignore,'' said Dr. Samuel Jutzi, of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization in the conference's opening address.

Jutzi, director of the FAO's animal health and production division, said the avian flu virus will persist in Asia for years and coordinated efforts need to focus on controlling it at its source - in animals.

"This means addressing the transmission of the virus where the disease occurs, in poultry, specifically free-range chickens and wetland dwelling ducks, and thus curbing the disease occurrence in the region before it spreads to other parts of the world,'' he said.

The challenge for many countries affected by the virus is the lack of effective diagnostic tools and surveillance systems needed for early warning and timely response, he said.

The regional conference held in southern Ho Chi Minh City near the Mekong Delta where the latest outbreaks emerged this year has brought together scientists and representatives from more than two dozen countries.

Bird flu's reemergence in Vietnam, where 12 people have died this year alone, has shown the virus is now endemic in parts of the region.

"The longer the virus is circulating in animals, including chickens and ducks, the greater the risk of human cases - and consequently, the higher the risk of a pandemic virus emerging through genetic changes in the virus,'' Omi said.

The virus has proven to be "very versatile and very resilient,'' and has even been found in animals such as tigers and cats that weren't believed to be susceptible to influenza, he added.


02/23/05 05:12 EST

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

Well, at least we won't have a problem with overpopulation any more. Not if it kills nearly 3/4 of everyone who gets it. :shock:

As for humanity effectively 'dealing' with the threat, I'd put my money on the virus effectively dealing with us.

Hey, if it happens in ten years or so I can retire to one of those cute Craftsman bungalows in NE Portland (or Seattle, or Arlington...) that will suddenly be vacant, and available by the thousands at 1970s prices. :twisted:

If I survive, of course. As an asthmatic I'm historically susceptible to anything respiratory (courtesy of my chain-smoking Silent parents)... so I'm not inclined to bet on it :shock:

Originally Posted by Roadbldr'59

As an asthmatic I'm historically susceptible to anything respiratory (courtesy of my chain-smoking Silent parents)... so I'm not inclined to bet on it :shock:

You, too, huh? In my case we're talking one GI, one Silent, both chainsmokers. Otherwise, same boat, same likely outcome. Oh, well. :shock:

Could this be to the Modern Age what the Black Death was to the Middle Ages and the Plague of Justinian was to the ancient Classical world?

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

Could this be to the Modern Age what the Black Death was to the Middle Ages and the Plague of Justinian was to the ancient Classical world?

No. I doubt the developed world will succumb, simply due to our knowledge of pandemics. We will isolate ourselves, wash furiously and all wear masks of some sort. The CDC will finance a massive effort to find cures and preventives, which we will all be able to afford .. most of us at least.

The less developed world will not fare so well - if any of this occurs, of course.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

Could this be to the Modern Age what the Black Death was to the Middle Ages and the Plague of Justinian was to the ancient Classical world?

No. I doubt the developed world will succumb, simply due to our knowledge of pandemics. We will isolate ourselves, wash furiously and all wear masks of some sort. The CDC will finance a massive effort to find cures and preventives, which we will all be able to afford .. most of us at least.

The less developed world will not fare so well - if any of this occurs, of course.

Are you kidding? Not that I really believe it is likely, but if a disease suddenly emerged with the communicability of the common cold and a 90% death rate, you'd end up with 50 million people dead in the US alone. They haven't been able to cure the common cold, nor will they this. But you're right...the developing world will fare far, far worse...they'll probably lose 80% of their populations rather than 25-30%.

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Are you kidding? Not that I really believe it is likely, but if a disease suddenly emerged with the communicability of the common cold and a 90% death rate, you'd end up with 50 million people dead in the US alone. They haven't been able to cure the common cold, nor will they this. But you're right...the developing world will fare far, far worse...they'll probably lose 80% of their populations rather than 25-30%.

I projected roughly 25-40% death rates for the developed world, roughly 60-75% in the better off parts of the developing world, and upwards of 75-80% in the poorest regions, if such a global pandemic were to happen. Of course, those figures are pure guesstimates, and very likely to be way off.

ANOTHER one?

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/news...784bf5a535.htm

Marburg epidemic:
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic6734-0.html

Bird flu now only a matter of time:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=634680

Economic effexts of bird flu:
http://www.jsonline.com/bym/invest/may05/322853.asp

Bird flu closer yet to pandemic:
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/con...ay1805who.html

Good thread on the latest bird flu news:
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic8746.html

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

Economic effexts of bird flu:
http://www.jsonline.com/bym/invest/may05/322853.asp

Last week I re-read "The Stand" for maybe the third time. Why does it seem so much scarier and more plausible now than it did when I first read the book (and saw the miniseries) back in the mid 1990s? (The good news was that the affordable housing problem went away literally overnight :shock: )

Really read that thread I just posted. It is starting to get scary. I could be wrong about the catalyst being Peak Oil...THIS could upstage it.

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

Really read that thread I just posted. It is starting to get scary.

Tell me about it.

http://www.latimes.com/features/heal...,6995406.story

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Indonesian Is Positive for Bird Flu
From Associated Press

June 17, 2005

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia on Thursday became the latest Asian nation to record a human case of bird flu, adding to worries about the spread of a virus that the U.N. health agency fears could become a threat to people around the globe.

A poultry worker on the island of Sulawesi tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the virus, although he showed no signs of illness, said Hariadi Wibisono, who oversees the Health Ministry's efforts to eradicate diseases transmitted by animals.

Bird flu has swept through poultry populations in large swaths of East and Southeast Asia since 2003. Tens of millions of farm birds have either died or been slaughtered. The disease has killed a reported 38 people in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and four in Cambodia.

Experts say that all the deaths so far have resulted from an animal transmitting the virus to a human. But the World Health Organization warned in May that there are fears the virus will mutate to enable easy transmission between people, which could cause it to spread around the world within months.

Dr. Georg Petersen, WHO's representative in Indonesia, said the case was the first reported in this country.

A WHO technical officer, Steven Bjorge, said tests showed the man had a very low concentration of antibodies, meaning he no longer carried the virus.

"It appears he was exposed to the virus some time ago," he said.

Bjorge said that though most people who tested positive for bird flu showed symptoms of the disease, some did not. During a 1997 outbreak in Hong Kong, for example, about 10% of poultry workers tested positive for the virus but were not ill, he said.

Health experts warn that Indonesia could have trouble containing a major outbreak because it allocates only a small proportion of government funding to the health sector. The government already has reported bird flu infections in fowl at dozens of poultry farms.

Adding to the anxieties, a government scientist last month found H5N1 in pigs on the densely populated island of Java. Experts say pigs infected with both bird flu and a human variety could act as a "mixing bowl," producing a mutant virus that spreads easily from person to person.

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

Meanwhile in China . . .

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...9/ixworld.html

China ruins best chance of beating bird flu epidemic
By Peter Goff in Beijing
(Filed: 19/06/2005)

China has been trying to suppress a bird flu outbreak by feeding poultry a human antiviral drug, threatening public safety in the event of a global pandemic.

China first reported an avian flu outbreak in February last year. Yet for more than eight years, according to drug company officials in Beijing quoted in the US media, the agriculture ministry has been urging farmers to use the drug, amantadine, on infected birds, in breach of international guidelines.

It explains why scientists discovered late last year that the virus had grown resistant to amantadine, which cannot now be used to fight it in humans.

Over the past 18 months bird flu has spread across East Asia, infecting more than 100 people in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, killing at least 54 people and devastating poultry stocks.

Dick Thompson, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation in Geneva, said last night that the UN body had long suspected China of using amantadine on poultry.

"We will be asking the government in Beijing about it this week," he said.

Mr Thompson said that the drug, which is now ineffective against the H5N1 strain of the virus found in Asia, should have been a key part of the fight against a global outbreak.

"It would have been important in a pandemic and it is a disappointment that it may have been lost to us."

The first human cases of avian flu were recorded in Hong Kong in 1997, when the H5N1 variant mutated into a form lethal to humans, killing six people.

The WHO said the virus could easily mutate further, allowing it to jump from human to human in a lethal strain that could kill millions of people worldwide.

Amantadine is one of two drugs used to treat human influenza. The alternative, oseltamivir, is much more expensive to mass produce.

According to The Washington Post, animal health officials in China said that government bodies approved the production and sale of the drug for use in chickens, even though the practice is banned in many western countries because birds develop immunity.

Chinese farmers and officials from pharmaceutical companies confirmed that the drug had been used since the late 1990s to treat sickly chickens and prevent healthy birds from catching it.

"Amantadine is widely used in the entire country," Zhang Libin, from the Northeast General Pharmaceutical Factory, told the newspaper. "Many pharmaceutical factories around China produce amantadine, and farmers can buy it easily."

A farmer from Hebei province, near Beijing, confirmed that he had been giving his chickens the drug for several years. "Local government vets have always recommended it," he said.

Last week China confirmed an outbreak of bird flu in its northwestern Xinjiang province, where 460 geese died and more than 13,000 birds were slaughtered to try to control its spread.

The outbreak came only a few weeks after more than 1,000 migratory birds died of the virus in neighbouring Qinghai province, the first confirmed outbreak in China in almost 12 months.

Three years ago China was condemned internationally for trying to hide the extent of the SARS outbreak, which ultimately infected 8,000 people and killed about 800.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.

Bird flu going from Stage 5 to Stage 6 (pandemic)?
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/06..._Timeline.html
We should know in a matter of weeks...a few months at most!

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

Bird flu going from Stage 5 to Stage 6 (pandemic)?
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/06..._Timeline.html
We should know in a matter of weeks...a few months at most!

Oh great. Well, if the bird flu ends up doing a Steven King on us, I'm sure I'll come down with it. When anything respiratory comes my way that my corpus hasn't seen before, I always do.

Here are some excerpts from a bird flu article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs:

"What would happen . . . if several cities in Vietnam suffered from major outbreaks of H5N1 infection, with a five percent mortality rate? First, there would be an immediate effort to . . . determine which countries might have pandemic-related cases. Then, the decision would likely be made to close most international and even some state or provincial borders -- without any predetermined criteria for how or when those borders might be reopened . . . Even in unaffected countries, fear, panic, and chaos would spread as international media reported the daily advance of the disease around the world. In short order, the global economy would shut down."

For the entire article, see
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/200507...-pandemic.html

Interesting article about the AIDS epidemic in Islam, which is in denial.

In Islam there is no homosexulality, pre-marital sex, prostitution, or IV drug use.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

Interesting article about the AIDS epidemic in Islam, which is in denial.

In Islam there is no homosexulality, pre-marital sex, prostitution, or IV drug use.

Well, so much for the long term viability of any Islamic threat.

I think our 4T may have a significant biological component.

Imagine, for example, a flu epidemic breaking out in an area being ravaged by AIDS.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

I think our 4T may have a significant biological component.

Imagine, for example, a flu epidemic breaking out in an area being ravaged by AIDS.

That might be a good thing on balance, as epidemics go. AIDS suffererers would no doubt succumb easier and in greater numbers to the bird flu than healthy people. Imagine a "superflu"-llike scenario that wiped out 99.9% of people with HIV but only, say, 1 to 5% of HIV-negative people. That could well lead quickly to the end of AIDS.

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

That might be a good thing on balance, as epidemics go. AIDS suffererers would no doubt succumb easier and in greater numbers to the bird flu than healthy people. Imagine a "superflu"-llike scenario that wiped out 99.9% of people with HIV but only, say, 1 to 5% of HIV-negative people. That could well lead quickly to the end of AIDS.

Talk about your mixed blessings . . .

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

I think our 4T may have a significant biological component.

Imagine, for example, a flu epidemic breaking out in an area being ravaged by AIDS.

That might be a good thing on balance, as epidemics go. AIDS suffererers would no doubt succumb easier and in greater numbers to the bird flu than healthy people. Imagine a "superflu"-llike scenario that wiped out 99.9% of people with HIV but only, say, 1 to 5% of HIV-negative people. That could well lead quickly to the end of AIDS.

Except that the flu, at least pandemic strains, seem to kill by creating a cytokyn(sp?) storm, a sort of autoimmune response, that ravages the lungs. This explains why people in their 20's and 30's were killed at a higher rate than older and younger people in the 1918 pandemic. So, those with compromised immune systems may actually be less vulnerable to the bird flu.