Good find murphs.

FYI - Some of the info in the article is not quite up to date:

* Vietnam has had outbreaks in 7 provinces, not 6.

* No one is talking much about the fact that Indonesia probably has another cluster, or about the other 3 teenagers suspected as infected with H5N1.

* H5N1 is endemic in Asia, and probably Africa - that's the real problem.

* Many birds - like domestic ducks - are carriers: they don't get sick, and they don't die from H5N1. FYI - asymptomatic birds do not get tested for H5N1, or any other disease for that matter.


So H5N1 is becoming an integral part of our natural world - it will continue to mutate and change, likely into strains that are NOT immediately fatal.

My reading - The WHO is underplaying the dangers, mainly because nobody wants to hear about bird flu any more, and also, because there are other diseases in the pike that already are pandemic and out of control.

...The time is past for bird flu prevention - the last chance was maybe last fall - when the international conference in Ottawa failed to gain support for adequate measures (and funding).

We really are into the plague time now. A series of pandemics will happen - probably a mix of several epidemic diseases resulting from cross-breeding during multiple infections in the same host.

The world's human population will NOT be wiped out, although many people will die. We all can certainly prepare by stockpiling, and by learning the basics of caring for the sick at home. ...Many people who die during a pandemic do NOT die from the pandemic disease, but from entirely preventable causes like dehydration and even starvation. Families and communities can work together to prevent such unnecessary death.

The world needs a plan too - not just for a pandemic, but for other "natural" crises we face, like climate change, fresh water depletion, and geophysical instability. All of these crises require cooperation between all the nations of the world - and the last thing we all need are more manufactured hostilities that camouflage the real issues.

IMO.

Originally posted by soficrow
Good find murphs.

FYI - Some of the info in the article is not quite up to date:

* Vietnam has had outbreaks in 7 provinces, not 6.

* No one is talking much about the fact that Indonesia probably has another cluster, or about the other 3 teenagers suspected as infected with H5N1.

* H5N1 is endemic in Asia, and probably Africa - that's the real problem.

* Many birds - like domestic ducks - are carriers: they don't get sick, and they don't die from H5N1. FYI - asymptomatic birds do not get tested for H5N1, or any other disease for that matter.


So H5N1 is becoming an integral part of our natural world - it will continue to mutate and change, likely into strains that are NOT immediately fatal.

My reading - The WHO is underplaying the dangers, mainly because nobody wants to hear about bird flu any more, and also, because there are other diseases in the pike that already are pandemic and out of control.

...The time is past for bird flu prevention - the last chance was maybe last fall - when the international conference in Ottawa failed to gain support for adequate measures (and funding).

We really are into the plague time now. A series of pandemics will happen - probably a mix of several epidemic diseases resulting from cross-breeding during multiple infections in the same host.

The world's human population will NOT be wiped out, although many people will die. We all can certainly prepare by stockpiling, and by learning the basics of caring for the sick at home. ...Many people who die during a pandemic do NOT die from the pandemic disease, but from entirely preventable causes like dehydration and even starvation. Families and communities can work together to prevent such unnecessary death.

The world needs a plan too - not just for a pandemic, but for other "natural" crises we face, like climate change, fresh water depletion, and geophysical instability. All of these crises require cooperation between all the nations of the world - and the last thing we all need are more manufactured hostilities that camouflage the real issues.

IMO.

Thanks Sofi.
Very few reports coming out now are truely accurate..I think what WHO are doing is covering there arses. 1st I have never heard them give specific warnings such as this one before but on reading it again, I can see they are downplaying the risk. They are issuing vague warnings but not enough to panic people or even really even alert them but if the # hits the fan the can say "here told you so." or I am too cynical?
As too other things you have said..I agree totally and have a few interesting articles. will post them next!

Got this in an e-mail yesterday, no link (I am good at that LOL) but the source is listed in the article..

The other qualification is that no one has any idea how many people have really been infected with the bird flu, so it is impossible to say what percentage of infections have resulted in death. Dr. Ahmet Faik Öner and many of his colleagues who cared for eight of the 12 confirmed Turkish bird flu cases at Yüzüncü Yıl Üniversitesi Hospital in Van, have just recently published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that concludes H5N1 “can be difficult to diagnose.” This simple statement has big implications: many more people in the world may have caught the bird flu without knowing it and therefore the survival rate may be much higher. The official global tally of 261 human infections since 2003 comprises only those confirmed by a small number of WHO appointed labs. Even though the WHO only confirmed eight cases of bird flu among patients at Yüzüncü Yıl Üniversitesi Hospital, today Dr. Öner believes he saw at least 20 cases in his wards.

The trouble is in the tests; they aren't really good enough to detect bird flu. When the Koçyiğit children arrived at Yüzüncü Yıl, Dr. Öner and his team immediately suspected it was bird flu; in many ways it was obvious -- there was an H5N1 outbreak among chickens in the region and the symptoms of Mehmet Ali, Fatma and Hülya were, according to Dr. Öner, of “a very different illness, very serious and not normal.”

But when they tested for bird flu, repeated tests came back negative. Their paper in the NEJM reads, “Before H5N1 was diagnosed in the eight patients, a total of 8 real-time PCR tests, 12 rapid influenza tests and 12 ELISA tests were negative.” Thirty-two tests failed to detect the bird flu before it was positively diagnosed. But the doctors persisted and eventually got the positive test. Had the doctors at Yüzüncü Yıl not persisted, history may not have recorded the Turkish outbreak as a bird flu outbreak; epidemiologists would have an even blurrier image of how the disease spreads.

In their NEJM paper, Dr. Öner and his colleagues suggested the type of test done is important. Dr. Öner says only a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) machine can give conclusive results. But these machines are expensive ($3000) and take about six hours per test, and not one of these machines was in Van during the outbreak. Also, it matters where samples are taken from. Samples from the noses of bird flu patients, for example, didn't test positive for the disease.

The work by the Yüzüncü Yıl asked: How many cases of bird flu around the world have been ruled out by tests prone to giving “false negatives” or from inadequate sampling? How many national health authorities have been given false comfort by repeated negative tests? Have false negative tests comforted those who would turn a blind eye?

Yes. I'm from Bulgaria btw. LOL, just thought I'd point that out.

accorfing to the numbers given, they are already half way to pandemic proportions and only one week into the outbreak....where is this headed and How fast?
Anyone got the skinny one the virulence and fatality % OF THIS TWO FLUS?