Avian ''Flu...is a Pandemic Coming?

[AGBF]

After World War I there was a pandemic that killed a huge number of people. One of my grandmothers lost two children to it. Apparently avian 'flu, although currently transmitted only from birds to people, looks ready to mutate so that a new strain of the virus will be communicable between people. As this article states, some wealthier countries are starting to take steps to avert a worst case scenario. Whether these steps will be efficacious is another matter!

Avian 'Flu

Deborah

 

[FireGoddess]

This particular issue worries me and infuriates me at the same time. As stated in the article, it WORRIES ME because, "We know we're overdue for an influenza pandemic strain, and we know it will occur, but we don't know when or even exactly what virus will cause it." It INFURIATES ME because, "flu viruses are prone to mutation and exchanging genetic material when they infect an animal together." If I hear about ONE MORE G*ddamn market in China where they've cooped up chickens and pigs and basically made a festering hovel for influenza virus reassortment/recombination, I will scream. Why don't we just call the damn markets what they are? THE PRIME source of the next flu pandemic. Is ANYTHING being done about this, nationally (rigorous monitoring and closure) OR internationally (sanctions or some economic incentive to stop an imminent worldwide pandemic)?

I was visiting some friends in Montana and we were discussing this very issue. The second problem, which stems back to the first, is MONEY. Is anyone going to kill off an entire chicken farm because one of the birds is sick? Or have them tested for flu? No. They kill the bird (or not) and quietly continue selling the rest at market, next to the pigs, who may or may not sporadically also be infected. Why? Because it's their livelihood. Just like the cattle farmer who may see a cow acting "funny" and maybe kill it but not report that it could have 'mad cow' disease and should be tested. Why? Because he doesn't want to lose his entire herd and face financial riun or something equally as bad when the government orders destruction of the herd to contain the 'infection.'

Basically, the only way you're going to get a pandemic flu is through genetic reassortment/recombination, likely between strains from different hosts. So...what is being done to stop this from happening where we KNOW it's happening?????

 

[kaylagee]

is anyone watching this Oprah on bird flu too?

http://www2.oprah.com/index.jhtml

 

[FireGoddess]

I''m sure my TiVo is recording it at this very moment.

 

[moon river]

Date: 1/24/2006 7:38:50 PM
Author: kaylagee
is anyone watching this Oprah on bird flu too?

http://www2.oprah.com/index.jhtml

I saw that! Do we need to start building panic rooms?

 

[kaylagee]

So, from what i''ve read and seen... we''re basically done for? i wish i could tell how much of this is hype and how much is serious...

 

[AGBF]

Here is another informative article on the spread of 'flu. Here is an excerpt. A link to the article is below.

"If the avian flu goes pandemic while Tamiflu and vaccines are still in short supply, experts say, the only protection most Americans will have is 'social distancing,' which is the new politically correct way of saying 'quarantine'.

But distancing also encompasses less drastic measures, like wearing face masks, staying out of elevators — and the bump. Such stratagems, those experts say, will rewrite the ways we interact, at least during the weeks when the waves of influenza are washing over us.

It has happened before, and not just in medieval Europe, where plague killed a third of the continent's serfs, creating labor shortages that shook the social order. In the United States, the norms of casual sex, which loosened considerably in the 1960's with penicillin and the pill, tightened up again in the 1980's after AIDS raised the penalty.

But influenza is more easily transmitted than AIDS, SARS or even bubonic plague, so the social revolution is likely to focus on the most basic goal of all: keeping other people's cooties at arm's length. The bump, a simple touching of elbows, is a substitute for the filthy practice of shaking hands, in which a person who has politely sneezed into a palm then passes a virus to other hands, whose owners then put a finger in an eye or a pen in a mouth. The bump breaks that chain. Only a contortionist can sneeze on his elbow."


article

 

[pinkflamingo]

If I hear about ONE MORE G*ddamn market in China where they''ve cooped up chickens and pigs and basically made a festering hovel for influenza virus reassortment/recombination, I will scream. Why don''t we just call the damn markets what they are? THE PRIME source of the next flu pandemic.

This is kind of untrue, the migratory wild birds are what are spreading it- ducks, geese, waterfowl. These birds migrate to Africa which is where it gets really scary- many countries are battling with Aids, and a flu pandemic would devestate those that have Aids (Very weak immune systems).

I''m not trying to diminish the Asian bird market problems, but the avian flu is being dispersed through the continents by waterfowl.

 

[strmrdr]

Date: 2/7/2006 2:18:55 PM
Author: kaylagee
So, from what i''ve read and seen... we''re basically done for? i wish i could tell how much of this is hype and how much is serious...

99% hype 1% reality in my opinion.

The odds of it happening anytime soon are pretty slim.
This is about the 1000th one they have been crying wolf over and the human race is still here.

Drug-resistant staph is a much much more likely problem.
but the real threat is:


http://www.fda.gov/Fdac/features/2002/402_bugs.html

I know that one way too well.
My mom died of an anti-biotic resistant infection she picked up in the hospital.
She might not have made it but the infection ended the fight. :{
Id rather not talk about my fight with a respiratory infection I picked up in the hospital at the same time that took almost 8 months to clear up and left one lung partial blocked with scar tissue.
The use of anti-biotics in livestock and the abuse of them all over the world is a much more real and likely problem than the bird flu.
It is here today and killing people and there is no way to stop it right now.

 

[strmrdr]

http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1998/698_bugs.html

 

[bookworm21]

I both agree and don''t agree with Strm. While the media may be hyping up the actual dangers of the virus crossing the species line, it may actually happen during our lifetime. So far, it''s only the people who have had close contact with the infected fowl who wound up sick. But then again, the risk of the virus crossing the species line gets higher each time another person gets sick from the virus.

I do think, however, that the "superbugs" are more of a threat at this point than the avian flu. What scares me even more about these superbugs is that not many people know about it. Doctors are supposed to play a role in prescribing the best medications for sick patients, and more often than not, a cold virus should be left alone for the body''s immune system to fight. Many doctors cave in to patient demands for anti-biotics when those patients are sick with a cold. Colds are caused by viruses, and many don''t seem to understand that antibiotics will NOT cure a cold. Then there are other patients who don''t finish their prescribed antibiotic regimens.

For example, let''s say a patient gets strep throat. So he goes to the doctor, who prescribes two weeks worth of antibiotics. The patient starts feeling better after the first week, so he decides that he''s not going to finish the medication because it makes him feel like crap, and who wants to deal with sensitivity to sunlight? Well, by tossing the second week''s medication, he has only killed the weaker strep throat bacteria that had taken over his body, leaving the stronger bacteria to rebound and develop resistance to the particular antibiotic he was prescribed. The same thing happens when a patient demands an antibiotic when he has a cold. Although he does not have a bacterial infection, the antibiotic will cause whatever dangerous bacteria he may be unknowingly incubating in his body to develop a resistance to drugs.

More and more bacterial infections are developing resistance to even the strongest antibiotics. Many times, penicillin isn''t even effective for the same kind of infections that it could have cured 10 years ago.

So why is it that the media is concentrating so much on the avian flu when drug resistant "superbugs" present just as much of a threat?

 

[strmrdr]

Cinderella,
Well said and I dont disagree but...
All the publicity for the bird flu isnt going to help where if an equal amount of publicity were given to the bug issue it would actualy do some good.

It is being covered up in the hospitals and not being listed as the cause of death.
Whatever the person came into the hospital for is listed instead.

 

[bookworm21]

Strm, I don''t think I made it clear in my post, but I agree with you that the superbugs should be given an equal amount, if not more, importance by the media and the health community in general.

But then, the media is the media, and they don''t always have their priorities straight. It''s all about hype and which stories would bring in the most revenue. Sadly, this is at a cost the society as a whole.

 

[FireGoddess]

Date: 2/24/2006 11:23:10 PM
Author: pinkflamingo

If I hear about ONE MORE G*ddamn market in China where they've cooped up chickens and pigs and basically made a festering hovel for influenza virus reassortment/recombination, I will scream. Why don't we just call the damn markets what they are? THE PRIME source of the next flu pandemic.

This is kind of untrue, the migratory wild birds are what are spreading it- ducks, geese, waterfowl. These birds migrate to Africa which is where it gets really scary- many countries are battling with Aids, and a flu pandemic would devestate those that have Aids (Very weak immune systems).

I'm not trying to diminish the Asian bird market problems, but the avian flu is being dispersed through the continents by waterfowl.

I'm not talking about dispersal pinkflamingo, I'm talking about the origin of the recombination/reassortment to begin with.
I'm a virologist...so y'know, I'm a little familiar with the topic.

 

[FireGoddess]

Date: 2/25/2006 3:51:05 PM
Author: Cinderella
More and more bacterial infections are developing resistance to even the strongest antibiotics. Many times, penicillin isn''t even effective for the same kind of infections that it could have cured 10 years ago.

So why is it that the media is concentrating so much on the avian flu when drug resistant ''superbugs'' present just as much of a threat?

Probably because bird flu is "sexier" and they can play off the "catastrophic devastation" angle, both of which make for more viewers watching their special report on the nightly news. Are you right? Absolutely. But the media has never completely been about what''s right moreso than what will scare people into watching their segment.

People just seem to think that there''s an endless supply of antibiotics because people ''just don''t die from bacterial infections anymore.'' But they hear people dying of Ebola and AIDS and other viral infections all the time. Top that with the fact that there''s no good immunization for flu (that''s more than an educated guess, and that is actually long lasting)...and you''ve got all the ingredients for public mania. Oprah''s show on the flu was interesting but at the same time whipped people up into more of a frenzy...talking about how borders will be shut down, global economy devastated, people holed up in their houses for months....think anyone believes that would happen if there was a strep epidemic? Also, it really is harder to pass on certain bacterial infections than viral ones...one good sneeze and thousands of droplets carrying virus are everywhere...

So, it''s easier to freak people out about a global pandemic that may or may not happen. They tend to discount the superbug thing because it''s just not in their faces all the time. I do make it a point to well, frankly, scare everyone I know into finishing their antibiotics...my BIL was one of those people who used to never finish the prescription - he dares not do that now. All you can do is spread the word.

I don''t even bother to go to the doctor unless I''ve been sick at least a week, my phlegm is a certain color, etc, because I know that if it''s viral, there''s nothing they can do. And whenever I hear a doctor say to someone "I''ll just give you antibiotics in case" I actually YELL at them. I find there are less and less doctors doing that, but they''re out there. I think I''m rambling now. But anyway, you are correct that superbugs are a problem...

 

[AGBF]

The radio news says that the illness of an entire family in Sumatra may be the first case of human-to-human transmission of the avian 'flu. It also said that the stock of two companies (one working on a vaccine against and the other working on a cure for the avian 'flu) went up in response. A typically American news story if I ever heard one!

 

[CJS924]

“[An influenza pandemic would be] three years of a given hell.... I can’t think of any other risk, terrorism or Mother Nature included, that could potentially pose any greater risk to society than this.... This to me is akin to living in Iowa ... and seeing the tornado 35 miles away coming. And it’s coming. And it’s coming. And it’s coming. And it keeps coming.... You just see it. And we’re largely ignoring it.”

- Michael Osterholm, Director of the University of Minnesota Center for
Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), to the Canadian Press, November 17, 2004


I recently wrote a huge paper on influenza...it's quite an intriguing virus. What I think? Influenza is a sinister disease that has continually flown under the radar, but suddenly the world is buzzing with news of bird viruses now having the ability to infect humans (antigenic shift). The question du jour is not if a pandemic will happen, but when will it happen.

A pandemic is an epidemic that occurs over an extensive geographical area within which exceptionally high rates of disease strike simultaneously, and as serious as such an event is, much of the public appears to be unconcerned or blissfully unaware of an impending influenza pandemic. However, there must be some degree of urgency to prepare for such an event as previous Prime Minister, Paul Martin, made an announcement last year that a $62-million dollar Level 3 research facility, the International Vaccine Centre, or InterVac, will be built on the University of Saskatchewan campus and will focus on emerging diseases such as the avian flu, West Nile virus and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Once completed in 2009, InterVac will be one of the largest vaccine research laboratories in North America.

People don't pay enough credit to how serious and devastating an influenza pandemic would be.

Oy. Superbugs. That's a whole other dilemma of massive proportions. Also a topic of great intrigue for me and one that I know well! Many years of antibiotic overuse and abuse...and here we are today living (and unfortunately, dying) with the fact that we have been grossly disrespectful and ignorant.

*sigh*

 

[Mr Majestyk]

As usual the gov''t will ignore it until it is too late. I think it is starting to get worse, with cases emerging all too often.

 

[FireGoddess]

This is why I get so mad when the NIH budget/basic research budgets get cut. There''s just no foresight. RNA viruses have always had the propensity to do this (drift and shift), but it is us and our lifestyles that are hastening the conditions for it to happen. When I was a grad student, I did my thesis on an RNA virus called coronavirus. Nobody gave a hoot and it was quite hard to get funding. You may now be more familiar with a new strain of it known as SARS.

It seems we''re mostly a day late and a dollar short these days...and we don''t need to be.

 

[movie zombie]

it is my understanding that NIH 30 years ago used to be the primier vaccine source......before outsourcing became popular. now we are dependent upon the private sector to manufacure and warehouse vaccines for the public. however, privatizing our vaccines has made them subject to profitablility and therefore private businesses do not manufacture or store enough for the population. nor should they: they are in business to make $$$$. it is, imo, a prime example as to why things necessary for the common good of the public should not be privatized.

movie zombie