Close down Turkey

Human bird flu spreads in Turkey

14 case and 48 suspected cases of the H5N1, bird flu in Turkey,
am i being to OTT here but when will they shut down turkey's borders
and start treating this as a real threat of a pandemic?
Experts at WHO and elsewhere believe that the world is now closer to another influenza pandemic than at any time since 1968, when the last of the previous century's three pandemics occurred.
Iran, which shares a border with eastern Turkey, has closed one of its border crossings,

dont you think its time to take more drastic action and stop ppl coming and going from Turkey, officials told Turkey's Anatolia state news agency.
According to the statistics the State Statistics Institute (DIE) announced (December 20) the number of tourists who visited Turkey in the first 11 months of 2005 exceeded 20 million,

i suspect tourism will come first before any threat of a pandemic,
but at what time do we make these desisions? before this virus spreads all over europe.

all the best

I don't think they will and unfortunately it is is breaking in one of the worst countries to have it break out in.From there it could spread across europe and eventually into the U.S.

Yes i know ARNOMANNN, it is starting to become very worrying,
i've tryed to keep this topic to the back of my mind but when is it
the time to start taking serious precautions? i'm not an expert in this
field at all, but shouldn't our government be doing more? we need some advise or something, i dont know maybe i'm being a little bit to neurotic
but i just dont like this, not one bit.

are we doing all that we can?
what can we do to stop the spread of H5N1?
should we stop ppl traverling abroad?
is it safe to eat bird meat?
should we stop the importing and exporting of bird meat?

It's hard to ignore this, for the first tme i have started thinking about this as it is a real threat. I work on a poultry farm in the uk and havn't see a big threat untill now

are we doing all that we can?
what can we do to stop the spread of H5N1?
should we stop ppl traverling abroad?
is it safe to eat bird meat?
should we stop the importing and exporting of bird meat?

I'm not sure we are doing all we can to stop this, but i dont think we can stop it so i dont see a point. Stopping peopel traveling abroad is not the way to a health economy, nor is their any evedance it would actualy stop a pandemic spreading.

ALL the information i have seen is that it is safe to eat WELL COOKED bird meat, and i believe that the exports of birds/fethers have stopped from turkey and all other infected countries.

You know, this may sound awful, but when I heard the bird flu spread to turkey, I thought, "well, duh!" and cracked up.

Does that make me a bad person?

Manta, you say that stopping people from traveling isn't a way to stimulate a healthy economy...Is a world plague going to be better or worse for the economy?

That is my biggest worry, they have to be sure for economic reasons,
not untill they know for a fact that Humans can spread this disease
will Turkey close down there borders, its a bit like once the horse as
bolted scenario for me,
what a world we live in, i may be worrying to much but morals dont seem right anymore.

[edit on 1/10/2006 by iamian]

I dont feel that Turkey will be closed. A lot of people visit, and it would not do any good for the tourism industry, and the last thing governments want to do is create a panic among its people, and anyway, generally most people, if told that there are lots of cases of bird flu appearing in a place, they will not go, an instant reaction, we dont need the government to tell us that.

If the situation does get anyworse, i can see major air lines stopping their flights to Turkey, and some governments issuing warnings saying not to go, or "it is advised" to avoid the area. And if cases world wide become of a greater frequency, i can see checks being mad on people at air ports as they come in, to help prevent the spread of the virus.

Will it get to that stage? Well we cannot be sure as yet, from history it appears that the safest bet is to keep an open mind, the SARS virus was played up just the same as Bird Flu, but it never reached pandemic level, who knows...

OK i made the point about the ecomomy i shall explain.

If we imposed ultra strict rules on who could move where. Then not only would it be exptreamly complex and involve alot of manpower, but it would damage the economy to a massive extent.

For example: (ultra ultra strict controll on all movements [the only way i can see this being stoped])

1. We only let essential personell work (who exactly is essential)
2. All people must stay inside their homes at all times

These pose obvious challanges. How exactly do u decide who is essential. Are the government capable of providing supplies to everyone who are stuck in their houses?

i could go on spouting random thoughts that come into my head in a random manner or i could stop. which i will

What about, and I know this is a dirty word, but quarantining people with the disease and symptoms of the disease? Granted, we think the practice is barbaric here in America where we are more concerned with AIDS patient's rights than paramedics, doctors and people who can get the fatal disease because of the AIDS patient's HIPPA rights, but it is a very effective means of disease control. It's really the only reason ancient civilizations survived.

but that doesn't stop them spreading it before they are put into quarintine.

Everything they have touched is contaminated

People won't take too kindly to people being *imprisoned*

If we simply say "you will stay in your house once it is clear you are infected" people will simply ignore it, or go out because they will not do what they are told.

I'm not talking about voluntary quarantine. I'm talking about quarantine by force, if necessary. If only some countries have outbreaks, the rest of the world could effectively isolate them by refusing entrance into their borders. It's not nice, it's not friendly, and it's not very compassionate towards the people who suffer from the disease...But it could save the world, as we know it. A global plague today could cripple the entire planet. Imagine the Black Death striking the entire world today, wiping out 2 billion people over a couple of years. Imagine all the disease that would result because we wouldn't be able to dispose of the bodies quickly enough.

As to catching it in time, does anyone know the incubation time and the period in which it is most contagious?

Adults can be infectious from the day before symptoms begin through approximately 5 days after illness onset. Children can be infectious for > 10 days, and young children can shed virus for several days before their illness onset. Severely immunocompromised persons can shed virus for weeks or months.

source

Since it would combine from human flu i would say that this would be an accurate guide.

As for the enforced quarintine, its ok for individual countries doing this, but u can bet their would be countries not doing it, and it spoils it for everyone else. i dont think this think would be slowed at all by entire countries shutting their borders. just too many variables to controll.

The lagistics are impossible, to close down all the worlds borders, quorantine all the known affected area's, can you imagine?
the worst case scenario will be a race to get the vaccine,