(HLTH) Bird Flu May Be Jumping From Person To Person Now

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/03070503/Thai_Binh_H2HCW_Dates.html


This is an article I found on Google. The only reason I am posting it is so we have a heads up if it is anything to be concerned about.

There is quite a bit of discussion at www.curevents.com

Canada Sue is not yet certain this is something to worry about but is investigating.

Vietnamese nurse tests positive for bird flu

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/136014/1/.html

HANOI: A 26-year old Vietnamese nurse who cared for a patient with bird flu in northern Vietnam has contracted the deadly virus, a doctor said on Monday.

It was still unclear whether the man contracted the virus from the patient or through contact with sick poultry, the doctor said, adding that further investigations would be carried out.

"He is the nurse who took care of a patient confirmed positive to H5N1," a doctor from Hanoi's Institute of Tropical disease told AFP.

The patient, 21, from northern Thai Binh province, has been in critical condition for the last 10 days.

A 69-year-old man from the same province of Thai Binh, 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Hanoi, died of bird flu on February 23.

Four people are now hospitalized in Hanoi, three of whom are said to be in stable condition.

Some experts believe the disease could trigger a devastating pandemic if the H5N1 virus mutates to a form easily transmissible among humans.

Earlier this year, US researchers said they had the first scientific evidence to confirm worries the avian virus could be transmitted from one human to another.

According to researchers from the Thai public health ministry and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an 11-year-old child who died in a Thai village last year after contracting the flu from a chicken probably transmitted the virus to her mother and her aunt.

The scientists established that the 26-year-old mother and 32-year-old aunt were exposed to the illness while caring for the girl. But the two women had not come into contact with infected birds.

Some 34 people have died in Vietnam since late 2003 in several outbreaks of the disease, including one Cambodian national. Another 12 have died in Thailand.

Thirty-five of Vietnam's 64 provinces and cities have been hit by bird flu this year and more than 1.5 million poultry have been destroyed in a bid to control the disease.

According to a daily report by the Ministry of Agriculture, the bird flu situation in Vietnam has abated with 17 out of 35 hit provinces reporting no new outbreaks for at least 21 days.

Last week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Hanoi said the current outbreak was probably waning, adding the latest reports of human cases in the country were not necessarily alarming.

In February, WHO's regional director Shigeru Omi warned at an international conference on bird flu in Ho Chi Minh City last month of "the gravest possible danger of a pandemic."

During the meeting, Vietnam vowed to implement a nationwide overhaul of the poultry industry as part of efforts to stamp out bird flu. - AFP

As Doug Adams, says DON'T PANIC

The hype over pandemics and bird flu really piss me off. All it does is scare the daylights out of people

The flu is the flu. The flu does not kill.....secondary infections do.

Flu strains that jump from people to animals and then back to people tend to mutate into really nasty bugs, but you can still survive them. Most flu strains DO have non-human strains in their composition....the 1968 Hong Kong flu had three bird strains in it.

People point to mutated flu strains and immediately begin screaming about the 1918 flu epidemic. To hear them talk, that was the most horrible epidemic ever to happen to the human race and everybody who got that flu dropped dead on the spot.

People could and did survive that flu epidemic. The talk about people with lung hemorrhages overlooks the fact that not everybody who got that flu had that complication, which leads me to believe it was a nasty secondary infection. (All seventeen children in my great-grandfather's family had it, and everybody survived.) Add to the fact that today's antibiotics such as penicillin weren't available, and of course you have a large death toll.

Facts about ancient flu, including the 1918 Horrible Awful Very Bad Epidemic:

1. Not EVERYBODY died.

2. Antibiotics were not available to treat secondary infections. The flu itself does not kill. Secondary infections do.

3. modern fever-reducing drugs were not available.

4. Lots of people who died from flu in those days already had tuberculosis or other diseases, and often lived in filthy, close living conditions.

Don't panic over flu. Panic over the possibility of Ebola.

Good and bad info here:

The hype over pandemics and bird flu really piss me off. All it does is scare the daylights out of people

The flu is the flu. The flu does not kill.....secondary infections do.

Click to expand...

This is incorrect. see below.

Flu strains that jump from people to animals and then back to people tend to mutate into really nasty bugs, but you can still survive them. Most flu strains DO have non-human strains in their composition....the 1968 Hong Kong flu had three bird strains in it.

People point to mutated flu strains and immediately begin screaming about the 1918 flu epidemic. To hear them talk, that was the most horrible epidemic ever to happen to the human race and everybody who got that flu dropped dead on the spot.

People could and did survive that flu epidemic. The talk about people with lung hemorrhages overlooks the fact that not everybody who got that flu had that complication, which leads me to believe it was a nasty secondary infection. (All seventeen children in my great-grandfather's family had it, and everybody survived.) Add to the fact that today's antibiotics such as penicillin weren't available, and of course you have a large death toll.

Facts about ancient flu, including the 1918 Horrible Awful Very Bad Epidemic:

1. Not EVERYBODY died.

Click to expand...

Correct. We only had a death rate of roughly 5%. Std flu death rates in years immediately prior and post was .2%. In other words the death rate was about 25 times greater.

We had an ESTIMATED attack rate in the 30-50% range with more in some ethnic areas. A MUCh greater attack rate than previous or immediately post.

2. Antibiotics were not available to treat secondary infections. The flu itself does not kill. Secondary infections do.

Click to expand...

Flu DOES INDEED kill. The reports ref 1918 include MANY well documented cases of soldiers reporting for sick call with snifles and dieing within 2 days, with appearances of something very different from bacterial infections (lungs full of blood, etc etc etc)

3. modern fever-reducing drugs were not available.

4. Lots of people who died from flu in those days already had tuberculosis or other diseases, and often lived in filthy, close living conditions.

Don't panic over flu. Panic over the possibility of Ebola.

Click to expand...

#4 is a true statement. True but not exactly relevant.

1918 atacked the healthy mid-range ages. Check the demographics and epidemiology.


Now, you ARE correct that we oughtn't PANIC over this, at least not yet.

c

To Suspicious ???

SOOO much hype about this Flu.
Makes me a tad suspicious
I suspect will only get serious if it is man made.
To many people not enough oil.
To many people not enough of anything.

What is the correct oil to human ratio ???? that will buy us some time to develope an alternative.

Keep Safe

When you have 12 out of 17 people whom MODERN medicine CANNOT save after they seek medical care, that is almost a 71% fatality rate of the people sick enough to seek medical care then you DO indeed need to be afraid. That makes it one of the MOST LETHAL BUGS TO EVER HIT MAN.

This disease doesn't matter or care what you call it to convince yourself and others you can ignore or scoff at warnings. At this stage of the game, if you do get sick enough with it to need a doctor, YOU WILL MOST LIKELY DIE OF IT, NOW, IN 2005, IN SPITE OF "MODERN MEDICINE" .

That article is actually taken from THE BLOOMBERG BUSINESS NEWS, so if the wealthiest, most powerful businessmen are spreading the word among themselves BUT THE SAME LEVEL OF WARNING IS NOT BEING CIRCULATED AMONG THE GENERAL PUBLIC YOU BETTER PAY ATTENTION. Those who are sounding the alarm are NOT incompetant, nor misinformed, nor unaware of the resources available to fight it. If THEY are afraid, you'd better be.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080&sid=aNT_TJqEqHj0&refer=asia#

Wish I were in a position to 'investigate'

With the dates available now, it's unlikely to be Tet - always thought that reason was pretty bogus as this one seems to have a far shorter incubation period than that - more along the lines of flu strains we're used to. The nurse lives & works in an area where an outbreak is going on. However as a nurse who's surely seen other cases, you'd think he'd know about avoiding environmental risks, eh?

I'd really love to know what personal protection these nurses & other staff are being provided when they care for those with suspected/confirmed H5N1? We already know family members do much of the physical care - here, check this out:

http://www.salemstate.edu/imc/vietnam/medical_surgical.html

The different sections on that site are a real eye opener. I can't imagine family members are provided with barrier equipment when caring for those with H5N1. I see that as both good & bad news. Good because if this were easily transmitting between humans, anyone who's cared for a family member with H5N1 would have a roughly 1 in 6 to 1 in 4 chance of having contracted it themselves & that hasn't happened so frequently - yet. Bad news in that the more people are exposed to high viral loads, especially those caring for the sick, the sooner it might make that jump.

I'm going to be seeing if OTHER staff members fall ill. That may be telling.


Anyone talking of most people dropping dead of flu in 1918 isn't doing the reading. The vast majority DID survive. My concerns revolve around 2 issues - how many of the deaths were due to primary flu illness? Many who died simply became too ill too fast & died too quickly for bacterial or even viral secondaries - except maybe some of those who picked up bacterial meningitis. Some autopsies reported massive areas of necrosis within a few short days of primary infection & no identified secondary infections - not to say there weren't any but certainly there are some large gaps.

I think a pandemic strain along the lines of 1918 would bite hard because it would hit so many areas so fast - a matter of weeks rather than months. People were used to more 'obedience' when it came to movement restrictions, etc. There was a war on. When quarantine orders were issued, they were obeyed. I don't think they would be so readily today. I don't think any western government has the cojones to issue such an order.

I think in spite of antibiotics, secondaries might be harder to deal with. We have a lot of immune suppressed people & a lot of resistent bacteria. Do we have enough antibiotics? We MIGHT squeak through in the west but I don't know who's got what stockpiled & what the manufacturing capacoty is to ramp up anything.

We also have little or no surge capactiy & societies unused to home care of any serious illness & that's what it would come down to for most. We also don't have full pantries anymore.

I don't sweat Ebola here. The virus is a wuss in our environment & barrier care prevents transmission. We might see a couple of secondary cases & that would be it. Of course I'm talking natural strains. All bets are off with GE strains.

If you're going to GE a population reducing virus, avoid flu. It's too inherently unstable & any trait you GE in may not 'last' more than a few generations of transmission. And the overall death rate is WAY too low to have a significant impact on population totals. During 1918 & 1919, overall world population still INCREASED.

Even with a relatively low death rate compared to some other really horrendous infectious illness, this is certainly a potential to fear. Let's not kid ourselves, we won't be able to stop transmission. It's airborne, contact & you can transmit it 24 hours before knowing you're sick. I'm convinced, (no proof either way), the given death rate is way too high but no testing has been done on non-sick folks in areas where it's in poultry. We don't know how many may have been exposed & developed antibodies without illness or with mild illness. Even so, it would have a tremendous impact on the world & there's every reason to fear its arrival.