What's the Deal With Avian Flu?

[Guest guest]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/18/104340/331

 

(From the diaries -- Plutonium Page.)

 

As many of you know, I've been writing about The Coming Pandemic since November.

Hopefully, I've been doing it in a balanced way, trying to mix facts and calls

for vigilance without undue hype and panic-mongering.

 

Trying to discuss bird flu is like talking about hurricanes. In advance of one,

it may seem like hype, but after one hits, you can understand the concern. In

fact, one can't predict when and where something like that will hit, just that

it will eventually come. People on the Gulf Cost understand that now. Some (but

not enough) people in government and academia understand that as well.

 

It is for that reason, in order to help folks with risk communication and

personal preparedness, we helped start the Flu Wiki. It can act as a go-to

resource for facts and informed opinion, not hype.

 

 

Flu Wiki tip of the day: watch this on PBS Tuesday.

http://www.fluwikie.com/

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http://www.abcnews.go.com/Primetime/Investigation/story?id=1130392 & page=2

 

<bits n pieces>

From ABC News:

It could kill a billion people worldwide, make ghost towns out of parts of major

cities, and there is not enough medicine to fight it. It is called the avian

flu....

 

According to Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster

Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, Bush's

call to remain on the offensive has come too late.

 

" If we had a significant worldwide epidemic of this particular avian flu, the

H5N1 virus, and it hit the United States and the world, because it would be

everywhere at once, I think we would see outcomes that would be virtually

impossible to imagine, " he warns.

 

Already, officials in London are quietly looking for extra morgue space to house

the victims of the H5N1 virus, a never-before-seen strain of flu. Scientists say

this virus could pose a far greater threat than smallpox, AIDS or anthrax.

 

" Right now in human beings, it kills 55 percent of the people it infects, " says

Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow on global health policy at the Council on

Foreign Relations. " That makes it the most lethal flu we know of that has ever

been on planet Earth affecting human beings. " ....

 

" Each year different flus come, but your immune system says, 'Ah, I've seen that

guy before. No problem. Crank out some antibodies, and I might not feel great

for a couple of days, but I'll recover,' " Garrett says. " Now what's scaring us

is that this constellation of H number 5 and N number 1, to our knowledge, has

never in history been in our species. So absolutely nobody watching this has any

natural immunity to this form of flu. " ....

 

Redlener, who is stationed at Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia

University, has been working with New York City officials to get ready for the

deadly epidemic.

 

" The city would look like a science fiction movie, " according to him. " It's

extremely possible we'd have to quarantine hospitals. We'd have to quarantine

sections of the city. " ....

 

As for the hospitals, there would be scenes like the ones this past month in the

stadiums of New Orleans and Houston after Hurricane Katrina.

 

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" When the power of love becomes stronger than the love of power, we will have

peace. "

Jimi Hendrix