The H5N1 strain of influenza - often referred to as bird flu - is first known to have jumped from chickens to humans in 1997. Since 2004 it has ripped through poultry and wild bird populations across Eurasia, and had a 53% mortality rate in the first 147 people it is known to have infected. Health authorities fear this strain, or its descendent, could cause a lethal new flu pandemic in people with the potential to kill billions.
Flu has been a regular scourge of humanity for thousands of years. Flu viruses each possess a mere 10 genes encoded in RNA. All of the 16 known genetic subgroups originate in water birds, and especially in ducks.The virus is well adapted to their immune systems, and does not usually make them sick. This leaves the animals free to move around and spread the virus - just what it needs to persist.
But sometimes a bird flu virus jumps to an animal whose immune system it is not adapted to.
An Indonesian woman from the popular tourist resort of Bali has died of bird flu, a health ministry official said on Wednesday, the second confirmed death from the H5N1 virus on the island.
Joko Suyono of the ministry's bird flu centre in Jakarta said the woman, who died on Tuesday in a hospital in Bali's capital Denpasar, tested positive for H5N1 after a second test.
The woman, a 28-year-old poultry trader, had suffered from high fever and breathing problems before being hospitalised near her village of Tanah Lot on Saturday.
Tanah Lot on the south-western part of Bali is popular with tourists for its postcard sunset view and a temple that sits on an outcropping of rock in the ocean.
It also looks like there may be another older patient, that is suspected to have been infected but survived or at least is no longer on a vent. Then again at age 58, it may be some other problem as this is not a confirmed case yet.
The North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza was presented yesterday at the end of a meeting among leaders of the three countries in Montebello, Que., and was cited as a key accomplishment of the summit.
Rather than impose strict conditions to control a long-predicted global influenza - a disease that could have found its genesis in an avian flu already detected in Asia and Europe - the plan is subordinate to domestic preparations being made within each of the three countries.
Instead, it promotes communication between health authorities across North America, as well as a flexible framework to reduce the impact of the infection. It seems aimed at keeping economic engines running.
"All countries have the sovereign right to control the movement of people and goods across their borders," says the plan. "However, in the event of a widespread pandemic, highly restrictive measures to control the movement of people and goods might initially delay but would not stop the eventual spread of a novel strain of human influenza to North America and could have significant negative social, economic and foreign policy consequences."
Well, that's it then. They want you working. And furthermore, that is why they do not do more to tell the public about preparing for this even though they obviously are preparing for it.
Personally, I probably will be working but, anyone with children or who is pregnant, I sincerely hope that you will stay at home. Let us old foggies work for you. Stay home with the kids, please.
Here is a link to the that plan, and at a mere 44 pages it should help you sleep better at night if only because like
many govt documents it will put you to sleep. Actually, it can be fairly readable if you will take it a little at a time:
Some times the sheer numbers of birds infected or affected by this disease is overwhelming to think about. In the North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza, it says that over 240 million birds have either died or been culled since this all began.
This report is on infected poultry in Pakistan, but for this to happen, you must have either
a lot of illegal trade or many infected wild birds in the area. Probably both are occurring.
Pakistani authorities have detected an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu at a poultry farm in a northwestern town and have culled more than 35,000 birds, a government official said on Tuesday.
If 14,000 chickens died before samples were tested, it must have been in a very big farm indeed, and it must have happened very quickly.
We do not often think of diseases as having an effect on politics, but many do.
TB, AIDS, and now bird flu are all wrapped up in the politics of many nations.
Because disease does not stop at a country's boarders, decisions made by one country can have an impact on many other places.
Here is some commentary from crofsblogs on one aspect of bird flu as a political problem. But first I wanted to provide a link to the author of that blog, Crawford Kilian. I often use his information because I know that he has his facts straight, is very insightful and of course, he writes very well.
As always, any blogs or forums that are linked to in any of these pandemic flu threads, provide their source material. Using blogs or the flu forums ensures that should a link to, for example, a newspaper, be broken or lost, you at least have some of the original information stored on the blog. Forums will frequently have the entire article archived. Because we may be looking at the onfolding of a pandemic before it even occurs this is important for its historical value.
The Indonesian health ministry decided to withhold samples of the virus in December as it feared that any vaccine developed from its strains by pharmaceutical companies would be too costly for developing nations. The government said it wanted to retain control of the intellectual property rights connected with the virus's deadly strain and was angered on learning that an Australian drug manufacturer had developed a vaccine using the Indonesian H5N1 strain without permission.
The World Health Report 2007 - A safer future: global public health security in the 21st century marks a turning point in the history of public health, and signals what could be one of the biggest advances in health security in half a century. It shows how the world is at increasing risk of disease outbreaks, epidemics, industrial accidents, natural disasters and other health emergencies which can rapidly become threats to global public health security....
The regulations are needed because no single country, regardless of capability or wealth, can protect itself from outbreaks and other hazards without the cooperation of others.
Authorities suspect that chickens at Kibbutz Grofit in the Arava have been infected with bird flu.
The Agriculture Ministry's veterinary services stressed Thursday that at this stage authorities only suspect that the chickens were infected.
Some of the kibbutz's chickens were taken to a Beit Dagan veterinary laboratory for tests, the results of which will be available Friday...
Roughly six million chickens died or were put to death roughly a year and a half ago due to a bird flu outbreak in numerous communities in southern Israel...
An interesting aside on what happened in 2005 in Israel:
I came across this article from Dr. Woodson on another forum. It was written in
2006. We do not know if the information on what happened in China is true
or not. The Chinese have a history of hiding unpleasant information about
communicable diseases, i.e. SARS. Much of the info came from translations
of the underground press in China because there is no free press there, and there is no real way to verify it. Only the Chinese govt, and possibly the WHO will ever know the true story.
Of course, since these unvarifiable events have occurred, the job of Director General of the WHO was given to a Chinese citizen, Dr. Margaret Chan. Which reminds me, BTW, speaking of a lack of public health responsibility, the WHO has rewarded the Indonesia Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari, who said and continues to say that Indonesia won't share a single virus with the international community until it receives a "green light" from the WHO that Jakarta would retain commercial control of its samples, by electing her to the WHO Executive Board.
Politics as always coming before the health of the people of the planet... And, we are frequently in the dark when it comes to the truth about this disease, H5N1. So take it all with a grain of salt, get what you can out of it, and remember that you are on your own.
Berlin - Authorities have closed off a poultry farm in southern Germany after an outbreak of bird flu.
Local veterinary authorities said late on Friday checks at the farm in the Erlangen-Hoechstadt area in Bavaria had discovered birds infected with the H5N1 virus.
A spokesperson said samples would be examined to determine whether the birds were infected with the deadly strain of H5N1.
UPDATE
Sadly, but not surprisingly, this outbreak has been confirmed as highly pathogenic H5N1 (HPAI). They are going to cull thousands of ducks, and probably other birds. Translations are saying in that area already since spring 2006, there is an
order to keep poultry and cats inside because of birdflu-danger. Dogs must be leashed. They are serious about this.
All 160,000 birds in the farm in Wachenroth in the Erlangen-Hoechstadt area of Bavaria would be culled, the ministry spokeswoman said. The farm has been sealed off.
Now I am hearing that 400 birds had died! That was the big clue. Dead birds equals highly pathogenic (HPAI). Was
Vietnam is implementing two projects to combat bird flu at a cost of US$14 million, with funding from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Development Program, the World Health Organization, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It also plans a similar project with a loan of $16 million from the World Bank in eight provinces nationwide.
Another suspected bird flu patient, Ni Ketut Sariasih, died at Sanglah Public Hospital here on late Saturday, a local doctor said here on Sunday.
Sariasih, a 40-year old woman, was the third suspected bird flu patient who had died in Bali over the past few days, Dr Putu Andrika SpD, head of Sanglah Hospital's Bird Flu Control Team, said.
Sariasih started to get sick on Aug. 22. However, her relatives did not suspect that she might be infected with bird flu virus or H5N1 as there was no back-yard chicken or duck farming in the surrounding areas of her home.
An excellent essay from SophiaZoe's blog, looking back at how people at two different points in time and place, reacted to a very real plague epidemic occurrence. Perhaps reading this can help inform us, and hopefully will move some to understand the need to make a plan, and actually act on it.
The plague outbreak in Surat, India in September 1994 stirred a nationwide panic and a near international isolation of India. ...
In August 1994, a village in Maharashtra State experienced an outbreak of suspected bubonic plague, which was followed by an outbreak of suspected pneumonic plague in the city of Surat in Gujarat State in September 1994.
It has been estimated that India incurred a 3- to 4-billion dollar loss in the span of 2 to 3 weeks. In one night, an avoidable exodus of 600,000 people fled Surat by whatever means available, including horse carriage, ox car, or even on foot. Of course, no train tickets were available, so people just jumped on any train. Doctors fled the city saying, "this plague, nothing can be done."
London, 1664
A Journal of the Plague Year, first published in 1722, is none the less very approachable for the modern reader...
It is also interesting to note for the fact that even with advanced warning the officials and residents of London did nothing by way of actions ahead of the plague's arrival at the outskirts of the city that might have lessened the impact once it did take hold. Those that took action to protect themselves waited until the very last, and many of those too late.
...telling of when the plague arrives in London:
I lived without Aldgate, about midway between Aldgate Church and Whitechappel Bars, on the left hand or north side of the street; and as the distemper had not reached to that side of the city, our neighbourhood continued very easy. But at the other end of the town their consternation was very great: and the richer sort of people, especially the nobility and gentry from the west part of the city, thronged out of town with their families and servants in an unusual manner; and this was more particularly seen in Whitechappel; that is to say, the Broad Street where I lived; indeed, nothing was to be seen but wagons and carts, with goods, women, servants, children, &c.; coaches filled with people of the better sort and horsemen attending them, and all hurrying away...
...nothing was more fatal to the inhabitants of this city than the supine negligence of the people themselves, who, during the long notice or warning they had of the visitation, made no provision for it by laying in store of provisions, or of other necessaries, by which they might have lived retired and within their own houses, as I have observed others did, and who were in a great measure preserved by that caution....
... this necessity of going out of our houses to buy provisions was in a great measure the ruin of the whole city, for the people catched the distemper on these occasions one of another, and even the provisions themselves were often tainted; at least I have great reason to believe so...
What would 600,000 residents, laden with possessions, attempting to flee the city of New York all at once, as happened in Surat in 1994, look like? Or, 5% of the population of the greater metropolitan area of New York, a much more mind boggling, and infrastructure overwhelming, number of people? To be fair, this has actually been looked at, although no answer to the problems it would create currently exists.
And, what of those left behind, as Defoe put it:
...it filled me with very serious thoughts of the misery that was coming upon the city, and the unhappy condition of those that would be left in it.
indigo girl
5,173 Posts
Bali
Another avian flu death within the same week has occurred on the resort island of Bali, a favorite of many Australian vacationers.
http://www.curevents.com/
It also looks like there may be another older patient, that is suspected to have been infected but survived or at least is no longer on a vent. Then again at age 58, it may be some other problem as this is not a confirmed case yet.
http://www.curevents.com/vb/showpost.php?p=781263&postcount=28
UPDATE on the 58 year old, testing negative:
http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2007/08/balinese-man-te.html