Bird flu 'could take 142m lives'

[Michael]

As many as 142 million people around the world could die if bird flu turns into a "worst case" influenza pandemic, according to a sobering new study of its possible consequences.

And global economic losses could run to $4.4 trillion -- the equivalent of wiping out the Japanese economy's annual output.

The study, prepared for the Sydney, Australia-based Lowy Institute think tank, says there are "enormous uncertainties" about whether a flu pandemic might happen, and where and when it might happen first.

But it says even a mild pandemic could kill 1.4 million people and cost $330 billion.


Full story...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/conditions/02/15/birdflu.cost/index.html

[Brandon]

So far, all but a handful of cases of human sickness have been caused by direct contact with sick birds, suggesting the virus is unable to move easily among humans.

What is defined as "direct contact", I wonder? And how does the virus travel between humans? You'd think that the article might touch on those points...:shrug:

[dopedanny]

i thought once it was in humans it spreads like normal flu. I remember a news story a while ago saying all the first cases were from people who kept poultry, but it might have changed since then.

[butterfly_acid]

What is defined as "direct contact", I wonder? And how does the virus travel between humans? You'd think that the article might touch on those points...:shrug:


articles don't necessarily have to expand upon common sense or basic health definitions...they should, but do not have to base the article on a person knowing absolutely nothing about the human body...plus, if you learn about something while researching, you may forget that other people may be ignorant to the knowledge you've gained thus far, and only write/expound upon what you yourself consider "new" knowledge...

here's a link that explains everything about avian flu...hopefully this helps?

basic forms of contact that cause a person to contract a virus:
coughing/sneezing/other forms of cross-contamination from human-human
from animal to human would be to have on-hand contact, even just consuming food...in the wikipedia thing, it states that even well-cooked foods still have the virus active.

it would not move well person-person if it is not able to mutate to human-form to transfer between person-person, making the coughing/sneezing of minimal concern until it has turned human (once it turns into a human virus, be careful)...

Pigs harbor viruses well from any source, it's my belief....so if chickens and pigs are on a farm, you could easily get the avian flu from eating pig particles, just the same as chicken stuffs, if the pigs have become [unknowingly] affected...I believe that they would show symptoms, though...while the chickens remain asymptomatic.

If i have any info wrong, feel free to expand or correct (this goes for anyone)...I'm not a doctor, so I am misinformative, by nature!
:think: :wall:

link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_flu

[Magnus]

I think in order for it to become a pandemic the virus needs to mutate so that it is transmittable from human to human. Right now it can be transmitted from bird to human with enough contact, but it does not go from human to human. The human to human mutation (if this occurs) is where we can have problems.

[veganinohio]

Dude on Oprah the other day gave some of these terrifying numbers. It made for good, shocking tv, the kind that the news loves to repeat to sell papers and commercials. Then, in the last minute of the show, he admitted that it may never happen and that there is no real reason to believe that it will happen under current conditions.

Bogus.

[sorrowthepig]

for it to become a pandemic the virus needs to mutate so that it is transmittable from human to human.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[xx22]

the 'avian flu' lie is promulgated by Roche, whose American distribution
rights for its toxic 'vaccine' are owned by Rumsfeld

[IamJen]

uh..huh

[Vegmedic]

the 'avian flu' lie is promulgated by Roche, whose American distribution
rights for its toxic 'vaccine' are owned by Rumsfeld

I do know that Rumsfeld is a major investor in Gilead Sciences which was the developer of Tamiflu, but I don't know about Roche which I believe is the distributor of Tamiflu. Yes Rumsfeld is probably making a good chunk of money from the Avian Flu. But rich, well connected people make money from just about everything, whether it is good for society or not.

Regardless, I don't think that Avian flu is anymore of a lie than the Spanish Flu was (which was a swine flu) that killed millions of people. Will the avian flu mutate into a strain which is capable of spreading from human to human? Beats me. Would such a flu kill a whole lot of people? I don't know, but my guess is yes.

[Walter]

I'm not sure if I'm more disturbed about the possibility of a virus spreading around the world or that they've quantified that we're each worth $30,986 to the world economy ($4.4 trillian / 142 million.)

With the real possibility of a huge epidemic sweeping across the globe, I sure hope our politicians are thinking about more than their capital.

[veganinohio]

With the real possibility of a huge epidemic sweeping across the globe, I sure hope our politicians are thinking about more than their capital.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha etc.

[caldini]

Some more info on bird flu:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4721598.stm

(sorry, I know I should provide a bit of comment, but I generally think that these journalists are able to say it better than I possibly can!)

[Diana]

Caldini: I read that article yesterday. Very interesting outlook and not one which is mainstream at all. Here's a direct click-link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4721598.stm

I seriously doubt that the bird-flu could take so many human lives (birds are being culled by their tens of thousands unfortunately). If it mutates, we could be in for a bad time and it is very likely it will mutate. If not now, in a few years time. We're LONG overdue for a pandemic.

[Ludi]

Tamiflu won't do anything against Avian flu, sorry dooods.

[spud]

the tv says it's got to France now :(

[Kiz]

Panic! Panic! Run away! Run away! The sky is falling!

[spud]

Kind of lucky for me that all my hens died of old age a while ago, as I'm only 30 miles from France. I still have nightmares about the mishandling of the UK Foot and Mouth outbreak.

[Tova]

I think this should really be taken seriously especially if it's anything like the Spanish Flu of 1918, which they say it could be, if not worse.

Here's some interesting links about sambucol!

"Last week, Retroscreen Virology, a leading British medical research institute associated to Queen Mary College, University of London, announced that Sambucol was at least 99% effective against the avian flu virus, H5N1, and in cell cultures significantly neutralized the infectivity of the virus.

"I think that Sambucol has a great role to play - it really can save lives," Mumcuoglu told ISRAEL21c. "To my knowledge, it's the only product that can cut the flu in half, before complications have a chance of setting in. If we do have a cure for chicken flu, this is a really positive thing for Israel.

Mumcuoglu, who is president of Razei Bar, first tested her research on patients in the Southern Israel flu epidemic of 1992/3. The results were extremely encouraging. Within 24 hours, 20% of those patients taking Sambucol had dramatic improvements in symptoms like fever, muscle aches and pains and coughing. By the second day, 73% were improved and by day three, 90%. In the untreated group, only 16% felt better after two days. The majority of that group took almost a week to begin feeling better."


http://www.israel21c.com/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles%5El822&enSearchQueryID=5&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Health&

http://www.israel21c.com/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles%5El1209&enSearchQueryID=5&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Health&

[spud]

Dead cat on Baltic island had contracted bird flu

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article348463.ece

Europe's bird flu crisis took on a new and potentially alarming dimension yesterday after a domestic cat discovered dead on the German Baltic Island of Ruegen was confirmed to have caught the H5N1 virus.

German scientists said the body of the cat was found on the island at the weekend near a site where more than 100 dead birds infected with the virus have been recovered since last week. It was the first recorded case in the European Union of the virus spreading to mammals.

The cat was undergoing tests yesterday at Germany's Friederich Löffler Institute to establish whether the animal was infected with the highly contagious strain of the virus found in Asia and Turkey, which has led to humans contracting the disease.

[healthnut32]

They were saying the same thing a few years ago about SARS. And West Nile. The media likes to whip up a bunch of panic.

[spud]

French cat lovers panic after bird flu death
By Colin Randall http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/03/02/wflu02.xml


France's pet owners reacted with panic yesterday to the confirmation that a cat found dead in Germany was killed by bird flu.
Its animal protection society, the SPA, was bombarded with calls from people worried at their pet catching the disease's lethal H5N1 strain. Some abandoned their cats.

"We are getting calls from cat owners wanting to know if there are risks," said Serge Belais, the society's president. "People are panicking."

He had no numbers of abandoned cats but said: "The risk is that we'll see the deluge in the days or weeks to come."


The French government has already asked the food safety authority to study the level of risk to cats and the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, appealed to cat owners yesterday to stop pets straying into any area where bird flu is suspected or confirmed.

Mr Belais said the SPA was urging the government to stop French mayors over-reacting with "disproportionate and useless" operations to round up and destroy stray cats. The risk of infection was minimal but he advised owners to keep cats indoors.

Pets at risk as bird flu kills cat
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/03/01/nflu01.xml


Pet cats may have to be kept indoors once bird flu arrives in Britain, scientists have said after the death of a cat in Germany from the disease.

The case - the first of a mammal dying from bird flu in Europe - means that cats may be able to pass the H5N1 virus on to humans and that the disease may spread more easily than thought.

Even more worrying is the possibility that cats could help the virus to adapt so that it spreads more easily between mammal species, making a human pandemic more likely.

Prof David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser, said that it was inevitable that bird flu would arrive in Britain.

He told the BBC: "We also have to anticipate that it will be here for five years-plus. We are talking about the possibility of this disease being endemic here in the UK." .........
Dr Thijs Kuiken, the leading expert on the spread of bird flu to cats, said that keeping cats indoors should now be considered.

Dr Kuiken, a veterinary pathologist at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, said that a range of species had now been infected in the field with the virus, including cats, dogs, pigs, leopards and tigers as well as humans. "This virus has a very broad host range," he said.

Although cats have not appeared to play a significant role in outbreaks in the Far East, where birds play the dominant role in spreading the disease, they should be subject to control measures in affected areas, he said.

"It is good to use your common sense. If it is known that the virus is present in a given area, it is sensible to stop the cats getting into contact with infected birds. One possibility would be to keep the cats indoors."

Earlier this year, his team published the first evidence that H5N1 infection in cats "causes systemic disease with potential novel routes of virus spread within and between hosts", in The American Journal of Pathology.



His call was echoed by Prof John Oxford of Queen Mary's School of Medicine, who warned that those who believe that killing all birds in a quarantine zone would be enough to contain H5N1 "are in for a bit of a nasty surprise".

"There are plenty of cats around farms and they have big circles in which they move," he added.

"This carries a lot of warning signals," said Prof Oxford. "We know you can infect mice and ferrets with this virus in the lab. This virus could move into a wider range of mammals than the cat. That would be a bit of a problem." ....

....The spokesman added: "There is no need for cat owners to introduce precautionary measures at this stage."

[anthony11]

I was leafletting yesterday, and one umm "character" pointed to the peapod on the veg starter brochure and asserted that avian flu is found in *peas*.

[ve-day]

I'm absolutely amazed that we've only looked for a vaccination for ourselves and not nipping what is the problem in the bud...vaccinate or cure some birds, dammit. This isn't all about humans, people knew damn well birds were dying prior to the "important " deaths.

[anthony11]

I'm absolutely amazed that we've only looked for a vaccination for ourselves and not nipping what is the problem in the bud...vaccinate or cure some birds, dammit. This isn't all about humans, people knew damn well birds were dying prior to the "important " deaths.
Understood, but I'm not sure that vaccinating the wild bird population is feasible.