China faces 'grim' fight against deadly bird flu

China faces 'grim' fight against deadly bird flu

www.theaustralian.news.com.au

CHINA faces a "grim" situation in preventing and controlling human cases of bird flu, the health minister said, after announcing four human infections in the last two weeks and three deaths.

Health Minister Chen Zhu called for hospitals to spare more resources in diagnosing and treating bird flu and more cooperation between agriculture authorities and his ministry, Xinhua news agency said.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.recombinomics.com

It's baaaack!

I was thinking of posting this topic before from reading recombinomics, but now that the Chinese government have made a comment they obviously deem it serious enough.

There is however a glaring inconsistency. The health minister said that the cases are not related yet recombinics said:

However, another report indicates two other family members were hospitalized in Shanxi, signaling transmission of H5N1 from the daughter to the Shanxi relatives (see updated map).

Thus, although there is only one confirmed case and the WHO update indicates all contacts are “healthy”, media reports describe three additional family members infected in the H2H2H transmission chain.

I tend to believe recombinomics before Chinese government officials.



www.theaustralian.news.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

This is definitely a concern.

If Chinese officials are worried and actually talking about it, there must be good reason for the worry.

It seems that Two Indonesians die from bird flu as well. And even though it didn't make the news much Assam in India had a large outbreak too.

Anyhoo, an update on the Human to Human H5N1 Transmission in Hunan China, although thi is opinion based.

H5N1 infections of humans from poultry remain rare, so the likelihood that the mother and daughter were infected by poultry through independent events 5-10 days apart is remote. The likelihood that the mother infected her daughter however, is much higher, which has been supported by the large number of familial clusters linked to H5N1 which have 5-10 day gaps in disease onset dates.

and even more worryingly

These activities by official agencies have greatly reduced the number of confirmed clusters, which have been large and obvious since 2004.

The scientific analysis of the cluster in Hunan strongly suggests the index case infected her daughter, who was H5N1 confirmed. The status of two additional family members, who were reported to be hospitalized in Shanxi, remains unclear, but the H2H transmission in Hunan is not.

For China to speak publicly about this unprecedented event, we should be worried.

However, acting as the devil's advocate, the Communist Party is using H5N1 as fear to prevent any civil unrest during the economic crisis. The openness is welcomed and appreciated, but we have to question the motives behind this declaration.

reply to post by infinite


It's hard to imagine how such an announcement would help.

It certainly invites questions and investigation. Would they really want that?

Given past behavior, whatever they mention today is likely a drop in the bucket of what they should be announcing.

This is worrying indeed.

[edit on 21-1-2009 by loam]

When I read this article yesterday I thought the same thing the inifinite did, namely that if the health minister of China is coming out and saying this to the global media, you can bet things are a lot worse than what he is admitting. Their record is pretty consistent.

I am stunned that thread is not getting more traction. Have we all become complacent to this very real threat? And does it not seem that they are pretty clearly intimating that they are seeing person-to-person transmisson? And does this not indicate that we are talking about it now being airborn, or am I reading this incorrectly?

Traditionally China resents the WHO's interference in their internal affairs and as such they always keep health issues as secretive as possible. The fact they are talking about it means they are no longer able to keep a lid on it.

I shudder to think of the number of cases they have managed to keep quiet.

After reading several articles on these most recent examples, nothing jumps out at me.

Who knows what is really going on there?

I did run across the following, which completely surprised me:

&EN]Indonesia: Avian Flu Kills 115

Jakarta, Jan 21 (Prensa Latina) Indonesia confirmed another two dead people by the avian flu Wednesday, and the number of dead people by the lethal H5N1 virus went up to 115, according to a note issued by the Public Health Ministry.

The note said the victims were a 6-year-old girl and a young lady of 29 years old.

...

Indonesia is the main country affected by the H5N1 virus and stopped updating the dead people by the avian flu after they occurred.

In the beginning of 2008, Indonesia was the first country going over the 100 dead people by the avian flu, endemic in the island of Java, Sumatra, Bali and the Celebes.

I don't know much about how this is transmitted, so i'm hoping someone in the know can answer. With all this imported food coming from China now days, is there a risk from food stuffs carrying / transmitting this virus?

i wonder if this has anything to do with the FBI i think it was, forcing all foreigners to "register" some 70 hours before entry into USA? i saw a thread on it yesterday, and was wondering why they would do that all of a sudden. Makes sense if theres about to be some sort of outbreak, they wouldn't tell us straightforward, and it would take just one or two people infected to come over here and that would be all she wrote. Remember the movie/fauxumentary about it a few years ago, on network tv, Pandemic or something? One guy that went to China, caught something, brought it over here, and that was that.

But i might be wrong, John Titor never mentioned any global disease

Love and Peace

Bah!

The sun was shining, it was about 30F and I was just finishing my afternoon tea and then read this!

If it were any other country I wouldn't bat an eye but the simple fact that it's China; the selfsame country who claims one of their gems to be 'The Forbidden City' doing a worldwide press release...well that changes the tune. For them to admit to anything is a an act of God himself, hell they held the melamine problem for 3 months before anything was done and then it was only done because New Zealand said they were going public with the news.

With this news; I'm officially very alert of what is coming down the pipeline, It might be the time of Pestilence and China's population definitely made it the best petri dish to start it. Break out the Tinfoil hats and Penicillin it's going to be a rough ride from this point forward I believe.

S&F

[edit on 22-1-2009 by Riviera]

Now there are Five Critical Suspect H5N1 Cases in Nepal. The year has certainly started off with a flurry of cases.

Interesting -

I just cut and pasted this link into my ongoing daily epidemic/biological log

From Canada - from today - bird flu

visz.rsoe.hu...

Looks like China has had another fatality in Xinjiang province.

Fatal H5N1 Case in Xinjiang China Raises Clade 7 Concerns

It looks like aibg year for bird flu in China theyhave had nearly as many cases in teh first month as all of last year ( WHO cumulative cases ).

China reports 6th Case

Epidemiological tests show that the patient previously had exposure to live poultry markets," the ministry said in a brief statement. But nobody with whom he had been in close contact had shown signs of illness, it added.

Another one to watch, this one in province of Guizhou.


[edit on 26-1-2009 by TheWayISeeIt]