The `bird flu`.

[pledm]

Hi all,any thoughts,the media seems to be foreshadowing something that `might` happen,a `Pandemic`, but with Turkey and now Romania getting it,it seems to be flowing through Europe and with migrating birds going everywere without a visa(ha ha).It seems to me the media is starting to scare us and it can be scary if you think of it,so many possibilities of this virus,anyways,,your thoughts.

[Summer]

I need to keep up with the news! I haven't even heard about this epidemic until now!

[johnanderton]

i'm not scared at all. the media thrives on making you frightened - and that irresponsible behaviour is the only thing that's "pandemic" as far as i can see. you want to be informed and have all the facts, but also not let the not so free and accurate "press" control your thinking, feeling and acting.

[pledm]

Hi all,just a update as of Feb 28 bird flu is in 35 countries.Its going through all of europe and hitting africa.news today in germany a dead cat found had it,its the 1st time this has happened,a mammal dying of this disease.This can be scary especially in africa where most people don`t have access to newspapers or TV telling them why they are killing the poultry.So far 93 people dead,173 human cases since 2003.Hopefully we can,slow down or stop what ever this is,,,take care. ,,

[Summer]

I have found through by doing a little researching over the net that it's impossible for doctors to tell if you really have bird flu, versus just having the flu. I have also found that far more number's of people have died from regular flu in the past 3 years than any one ever has of the bird flu. I think the media is really overreacting to this bird flu thing, and I can't believe that they are actually killing birds in countries where the people are starving over it! Unbelievable! And of course President Bush is all for making sure that there is pandemonium over this "bird flu". Hundreds of thousands of people are dieing of AIDS every year, and they want us to be scared of a little flu, because it's "bird flu"? What the hell is up with that?

[pledm]

Hi all,found a nice simple explanation of the `Bird Flu`,also another death from china,and poland has detected it now so far its 94 dead of mar 6.Bird flu has hit 14 newcountries over the last month.This is just a viewing of things for me that could get worse if stopped

People are rather confused over news that the bird flu virus has now mutated to a less lethal, but far more dangerous, form. It seems like a contradiction: If it's less lethal, shouldn't it be less dangerous?
No. The mainstream press isn't explaining this very well, so let me cover the basics. It has to do with evolutionary biology, or what you might call microbiological Darwinism, which basically involves how these viruses survive, thrive and get passed on from one person to the next.

If you're a really deadly virus -- like Ebola, which kills 90 percent of the people infected -- then you're actually not very good at spreading from one person to the next. Why? You kill your host too quickly. You're so deadly that your host dies before you get a chance to be infectious.

In order to be a pandemic, a virus must be highly infectious; it must be able to spread from one person to another in an undetectable way. When a virus becomes less-immediately lethal, it is able to survive in the host in an undetectable state, for a longer period of time. This is what makes viruses really, really dangerous: A dangerous virus is not lethal to one individual; rather, it can exist in a hidden state and be passed from one person to the next. It's the contagiousness of a virus that makes it dangerous.

Let's say you're a virus and you consider "success" to be wiping people out. Obviously, viruses don't have that sort of thought process, this is just a way to explain their strategies. If you're a virus and you're trying to infect and kill people, you're going to be far more "successful" if you have a low kill rate but infect a billion people, rather than having a very high kill rate and only infecting 10 or 20 people. If you are a very deadly virus in the Congo, for example, and you manage to wipe out a small village, even though you were rather horrifying to the village and fatal to those people, you as a virus haven't been very successful. Why? You wiped out the village; there's nobody left to spread it. Now, again, of course viruses don't think this way: They don't have plans, they don't have strategies -- this is just evolutionary biology in play.

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On the other hand, let's say you are a virus with a very small kill rate -- you only kill one or two percent of your hosts -- but you're highly infectious. You, as this type of virus, can easily spread from one person to the next. Since 98 or 99 percent of the people who are infected with you won't die from it, they can walk around cities, airports and football stadiums and spread you to all the other hosts out there. If you are that kind of virus, you're going to be a lot more "successful" in spreading.
In the history of infectious disease, the most deadly viruses, in terms of the total number of people killed worldwide, were highly infectious, not necessarily highly lethal. If you look at the 1918 so-called "Spanish" flu (which really wasn't from Spain, but that's another story), the virus did not have a kill rate anywhere near 90 percent, or even 70 percent. I believe it was well under 20 percent. But this virus was good at spreading from one host to another, which is what made it extremely dangerous.

[Bob]

Some info on the H5N1 avian influenza (bird flu)

The virus is called H5N1, similar to the H1N1 virus "Spanish flu" that killed between 25 and 50 million people between 1918 and 1919. H & N are the proteins hemaglutinin and neuraminidase. There are 16 types of hemaglutinin and 9 types of neuraminidase. The numbers tell us what "version" of the proteins that are in the virus.

The Hong Kong flu (H3N2) in 1968 was also related to this virus.

[Summer]

Wow! Now I can see what all of the hype is about! I had no idea the bird flu was so much like the viruses that killed so many people before. Thanks for the info, guys!

[ophie]

Easy for you guys to say that your not affraid. Like shees I live right next to it. A whole city got Quarantined, nobody could get in or out. Maybe you heard about the city, its called: Cernavoda, the place where in 198? exploded the nuclear plant. Very creapy stuff!

[pledm]

Hi Ophie,real wierd hearing the quarantined city next to you.This virus seems to begetting more news now without causing a major problem.For me it seems the media is flowing things slowly,waiting for the `if`.Hey who know`s,but the media is giving slight what to do`s.One of the 3morning shows in the USA,showed a survival kit of things you might need in a pandemic,found it interesting.Also,in the news they say because of the migration of birds,bird flu will probaly be here in North America within 6-10 months.The deaths are now over 100,right now its just a what if,,hopefully we can keep it this way.To all viewing this,please up date the news..

[pledm]

Hi,just alittle news report;
Go vegetarian to avoid bird flu, says rights group

BEIJING (Reuters) - Scared about getting bird flu? Then the only really safe way to protect yourself is to go vegetarian, an animal rights group said on Tuesday.

Headlining a new Chinese and English language Web site (www.avianflu.cn) "Avian flu: it's your fault," the Asia Pacific branch of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) says it is drawing attention to unsavory factory farming practices.

The cramming together of thousands of chickens in buildings where the birds are never allowed outside and live in their own filth was an ideal breeding ground for disease, the group said in a statement.

"Avian flu is just one symptom of a very sick and cruel industry," it quoted PETA Asia-Pacific director Jason Baker as saying.


"With diseases running rampant in crowded, filthy factory farms and the significant health risks posed by the 'backyard'-type farms common in Asia, the safest thing to do with chicken flesh is to avoid it like the plague," he said.


Bird flu has killed about 100 people in Asia and the Middle East since 2003, including 11 people in China, and experts fear the virus could mutate and spread easily from human to human.


They also say properly cooked poultry and eggs should pose no danger, though they warn people to stay well clear of birds which have died of sickness in case it be avian influenza.

Hi just a report from a newspaper,makes one think,I admire PETA when deep down if you look how we treat animals its real bad.I`m not preaching ok,just viewing many reports and I know bird flu isn`t a big thing right now but its slowly being traced,as of today a 30yr old egyptian woman died of H5N1 the 2nd one,total now 105.
Just found it interesting to finally put out a simple news report about food,how we get it/kill it,eat it.
Anyways,cheers

[Summer]

I have often thought about becoming a vegetarian. I have even tried, and then ended up not knowing how to cook without meat? I think I need a good vegetarian cook book.

[ophie]

The media here is more concentraited on the floods, the bird flue's just a past fad.

[pledm]

Just an update,


Bird flu virus mutating into human-unfriendly form By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The H5N1 bird flu virus has mutated to infect people more easily, although it still has not transformed into a pandemic strain, researchers said on Thursday.

The changes are worrying, said Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"We have identified a specific change that could make bird flu grow in the upper respiratory tract of humans," said Kawaoka, who led the study.

"The viruses that are circulating in Africa and Europe are the ones closest to becoming a human virus," Kawaoka said.

Recent samples of virus taken from birds in Africa and Europe all carry the mutation, Kawaoka and colleagues report in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Pathogens.

"I don't like to scare the public, because they cannot do very much. But at the same time it is important to the scientific community to understand what is happening," Kawaoka said in a telephone interview.

The H5N1 avian flu virus, which mostly infects birds, has since 2003 infected 329 people in 12 countries, killing 201 of them. It very rarely passes from one person to another, but if it acquires the ability to do so easily, it likely will cause a global epidemic.

All flu viruses evolve constantly and scientists have some ideas about what mutations are needed to change a virus from one that infects birds easily to one more comfortable in humans.

Birds usually have a body temperature of 106 degrees F, and humans are 98.6 degrees F usually. The human nose and throat, where flu viruses usually enter, is usually around 91.4 degrees F.

"So usually the bird flu doesn't grow well in the nose or throat of humans," Kawaoka said. This particular mutation allows H5N1 to live well in the cooler temperatures of the human upper respiratory tract.

H5N1 caused its first mass die-off among wild waterfowl in 2005 at Qinghai Lake in central China, where hundreds of thousands of migratory birds congregate.

That strain of the virus was carried across Asia to Africa and Europe by migrating birds. Its descendants carry the mutation, Kawaoka said.

"So the viruses circulating in Europe and Africa, they all have this mutation. So they are the ones that are closer to human-like flu," Kawaoka said.

Luckily, they do not carry other mutations, he said.

"Clearly there are more mutations that are needed. We don't know how many mutations are needed for them to become pandemic strains."

[pledm]

Just another update;

China says father of bird flu victim also infected
07 Dec 2007

BEIJING, Dec 7 (Reuters) - The father of a Chinese man who died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu last week has also been diagnosed with the disease, authorities said on Friday.

The National Disease Authority has confirmed that a 52-year-old man surnamed Lu from the Nanjing, capital of the eastern province Jiangsu, was feverish with the H5N1 strain on Thursday, the Ministry of Health reported on its Web site (www.moh.gov.cn).

This latest case raises troublesome questions about how the man was infected.

Humans can contract H5N1 from close contact with infected birds, but scientists fear the disease could mutate into a version that spreads from person-to-person, risking wider outbreaks or even a global pandemic.

Lu's son died on Sunday from the same disease, making the question of how these two infections occurred especially important.

The Xinhua news agency had earlier reported that the son had had no contact with dead poultry and there had been no reported poultry outbreak in the province.

The latest report did not say whether contact with infected poultry had been confirmed in either of the infections.

With the world's biggest poultry population and millions of backyard birds roaming free, China is at the centre of the fight against bird flu.

This latest case brings the number of confirmed human infections of bird flu in China to 27. The Ministry of Health said the World Health Organisation had been notified of this latest case.

WHO representatives in Beijing could not be contacted for comment late on Friday evening. (Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Just keeping an update to this.