"danger of pandemic is rising"??

[Cat]

New bird flu cases suggest the danger of pandemic is rising

 

Infections in Egypt raise scientists' fears that virus will be spread by humans

 

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor

Sunday, 12 April 2009

 

First the good news: bird flu is becoming less deadly. Now the bad: scientists fear that this is the very thing that could make the virus more able to cause a pandemic that would kill hundreds of millions of people.

 

This paradox – emerging from Egypt, the most recent epicentre of the disease – threatens to increase the disease's ability to spread from person to person by helping it achieve the crucial mutation in the virus which could turn it into the greatest plague to hit Britain since the Black Death. Last year the Government identified the bird-flu virus, codenamed H5N1, as the biggest threat facing the country – with the potential to kill up to 750,000 Britons.

 

The World Health Organisation is to back an investigation into a change in the pattern of the disease in Egypt, the most seriously affected country outside Asia. Although infections have been on the rise this year, with three more reported last week, they have almost all been in children under the age of three, while 12 months ago it was mainly adults and older children who were affected. And the infections have been much milder than usual; the disease normally kills more than half of those affected; all of the 11 Egyptians so far infected this year are still alive.

 

Experts say that these developments make it more likely that the virus will spread. Ironically, its very virulence has provided an important safeguard. It did not get much chance to infect other people when it killed its victims swiftly, but now it has much more of a chance to mutate and be passed on.

 

The WHO fears that this year's rise in infections among small children, without similar cases being seen in older people, raises questions about whether adults are being infected but not falling ill, so acting as symptomless carriers of the disease. Its investigation, due to start this summer, will see if this is happening by testing the blood of people who may have been in contact with infected birds, but who have not themselves become sick.

 

John Jabbour, who works with WHO in Cairo, told Reuters last week: "There is something strange happening in Egypt. Why in children now and not in adults? We need to see if there are sub-clinical cases in the community." He added that if the research did find such cases, they would be the first to be discovered anywhere in the world.

 

Though he stressed that there was still no evidence of the disease passing from person to person, other experts are also becoming alarmed. Professor Robert Webster, of St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee – who is the world's leading authority on the disease – told The Independent on Sunday that, while he himself had not seen firm data, the WHO in Egypt was raising "a very, very important issue" which should receive "maximum attention". He added: "I hope to hell they are wrong. If this d**m thing becomes less pathogenic, it will become more transmissible."

 

And Professor John Oxford, of Queen Mary, University of London, said that any evidence that H5N1 was becoming less deadly would be serious, as the greatest cause for concern was the disease's ability to spread.

 

Even a much less virulent strain of the virus could result in a devastating pandemic. Studies show that an outbreak that killed as few as 5 per cent of those it infected could still cause hundreds of millions of deaths around the world.

 

Bird Flu article

 

 

 

 

[Jori]

Just to piggy-back on the first article.

 

FRANKFORT, KY (AP) - State Veterinarian Robert Stout said an outbreak of bird flu on a western Kentucky chicken farm did not spread to nearby backyard poultry flocks.

 

Stout said animal health workers tested flocks within a two-mile radius of the Brownsville chicken farm for signs of the "non-pathogenic or low-pathogenic" strain of avian in fluenza.

 

He said Thursday no additional cases were found in initial tests, and additional tests are pending.

 

The state is developing plans to expand the testing radius for backyard flocks to more than six miles.

 

The Kentucky Department for Public Health said there is no evidence the disease has been transmitted from birds to humans.

 

The disease was detected after testing by Perdue Farms Inc. and state and national laboratories when a minor drop in egg production was noticed last month.

[ScrubbieLady]

If they think it might be spread by adults that are not getting sick, then why aren't they checking the relatives or caretakers of the children that are dying from it?

[Mother]

Jori, the United States has periodic outbreaks of bird flu but it's normally the milder bird form and not the one humans catch as a rule. There is always the chance it will mutate as well. The reason they are so careful is because it can spread to other flocks causing a mass kill off to contain it.

 

Another reason is that it's always possible that a bird/animal can have two forms of the avian flu and cause a mutation.

 

I have often wondered why there is such an uproar over this disease when it has taken such few lives over many years. I am not saying it is not serious. I firmly believe we should be ready for some form of pandemic but I can't help but believe that there is something else behind all this. Is it another smoke screen for something more sinister they aren't telling us? But then, I guess I have a penchant for tin foil hats.

 

This is definitely something to watch. Thanks for posting it Cat.

[Jori]

Jori, the United States has periodic outbreaks of bird flu but it's normally the milder bird form and not the one humans catch as a rule. There is always the chance it will mutate as well. The reason they are so careful is because it can spread to other flocks causing a mass kill off to contain it.

 

Another reason is that it's always possible that a bird/animal can have two forms of the avian flu and cause a mutation.

 

I have often wondered why there is such an uproar over this disease when it has taken such few lives over many years. I am not saying it is not serious. I firmly believe we should be ready for some form of pandemic but I can't help but believe that there is something else behind all this. Is it another smoke screen for something more sinister they aren't telling us? But then, I guess I have a penchant for tin foil hats.

 

This is definitely something to watch. Thanks for posting it Cat.

 

There is nothing wrong with tinfoil hats or conspiracy theories. I had one about the pirates keeping the captain alive before they demanded the ransom money because they were trying to do something else without drawing attention to it. I need a vacation or to go by tinfoil

[Homemaker]

Well, think about it,

What better way to seize power, and limit citizen's rights than to declare martial law because of a deadly outbreak?

Sounds like a great way to mobilize a military force to "protect the people."

 

Or, maybe I've been reading in too many forums.