Who Would Take the Biggest Hit With A Human Contagious H5N1 Virus?

I'm not going to pay attention to predicted numbers prior to a human to human H5N1 outbreak. However, I will speculate who I think will be hit the hardest.

China is on my list of being hit the hardest. Here are a few reasons:

1. China's population is over 1.26 billion people.
2. China isn't prepared for a deadly viral outbreak.
3. Conditions in China are conducive to spreading deadly viruses.
4. Avian Influenza originated in Asia.

I have to agree... they are currently trying their hardest to vaccinate.. but come on... its just not possible for that many people... three new cases reported today, two dead... not a good thing... fatality rate is abnormaly high

Originally posted by Rickey Gerard Perez

4. Avian Influenza originated in Asia.

No. It did not.

This claim has been debunked over and over again here - and in international news reports.

FYI - poor, uninsured, and under-insured middle class in the USA are gonna take it right up the wazoo.

And the REAL problem is NOT the expected fatality rate - it is the downtime, sick time, and chronic disease that will follow.

Can you spell bankruptcy? Oh yeah. Can't be done. The bankruptcy law just got changed.


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Yeah I think about the people per square mile and I'm thinking an epidemic would rage out of control fairly quickly for our asian friends.

If you're (author) suggesting that USA looks at it like this...

China is getting to big, too arrogant and they're becoming a threat, so we make something which will wipe out a fair bit of their population, and put them in place.

Then I think it's possible.
But I also think that if that's true, they're a bunch of fools, as this will hit USA just as hard.

I believe the third world countries will, mainly Africa, I'm Aure asia will be severe but Africa would probably be the most severe hit if a human to human strain were ever able to hit Africa. If you think about it Africa has the highest aids and famine rate, or so i heard. If so, wouldn't the flu be a a knockout blow for many african, and cause hundreds of millions of death alone? I'm sure Asian countries have these problem but right aren't wealther country working with some asian country to find a way to contain and prevent this virus and possibly find a cure?

And wasn't the first reported case of the bird influenza documented in Scotland? Then it just hid for like 40 or so years?

[edit on 17-11-2005 by skyblueff0]

China has one advantage over say the US in regards to an all out outbreak. No pesky civil rights to get in the way of martial law and ruthless measures to cull sick populations.

That being said not surprisingly I disagree with Soficrow on the US middle class. The US as most developed countries will fare well unless the strain becomes so virulent that it takes out the medical community at that point then all bets are off. I deal with uninsured patients ona daily basis and they get the same care as everybody else. I would say 50% of the children I transport are un-insured. You just need to make sure a social worker gets on the case quickly.

The countries that are going to be hit hard are the 3rd world countires with little or no medical infrastructure. Even those with some will be quickly overrun. Those countries will get hard.

Eveyone is at risk. Thousands of international flights a day, compounded with triple the population we had in 1918, compounded with the fact that people travel more now than they did in 1918 means that, in my opinion, the flu will have little problem spreading.

In the case of the 1918 strain, the virus was actually most virulent in healthy adults ages 19-34, which is odd because the greatest targets for most conventional flu starins are the young and elderly.

H5N1 is dangerous because of the fact that humans have no resistance to avian strains. The only people who will have any real defense against it are those who survived the 1918 strain and have built immunity to it.

Sanitation and cleanliness will help, but only to a point.

Indigenous cultures, tribal dwellers, poor villagers and poor city folk will be hit hardest I think...........

in some tribal and indigenous areas the outbreak may not be known about for weeks or months due to remoteness involved.







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Also, all HIV patients currently taking anti-retorviral drugs will be immune from the Avian Flu...so it should be interesting to see millions and millions of heterosexual "breeders" of the world dropping dead like flies from this thing...

I wonder what Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson would say about THAT? That God hates Heterosexuals without AIDS?

Originally posted by NEOAMADEUS

all HIV patients currently taking anti-retorviral drugs will be immune from the Avian Flu

Do you have a source for this assertion NEOAMADEUS - or is it just a logical assumption on your part?

BTW - it is pretty funny, in a black way.

It's debatable whether we could arrive at a reliable criteria to predict who would be hit hardest.

The most notable epidemics in history such as the black death were remaked upon not only for their virulence and high mortality but because they were as lethal to the more affluent as to the poor, the poor being traditionally the ones who suffered more during epidemics due to malnutrition etc.

When you think that this is a disease that actively co-opts a persons immune system in it's attack, perhaps it may be the sick and undernourished who may have the advantage.

Originally posted by ubermunche

When you think that this is a disease that actively co-opts a persons immune system in it's attack, perhaps it may be the sick and undernourished who may have the advantage.

Excellent point ubermunche. I've been saying something similar - but I never looked at it quite that way before. Wow. I think you're onto somtheing there.