Bird flu: we're all going to die

[FG Lurker]

Bird flu: we're all going to die
The Register, June 2, 2005

You might well be one of those millions who die in such a pandemic. If you travel to work on public transport; if colleagues in your company travel by air to Asia; if you're travelling abroad through a busy airport. You'll probably touch someone or share air with someone who's infected. The premise of Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys will become reality.

You may think this is overblown. But discussion of the possibility of a flu pandemic has fallen out of the news. And as the security consultant Bruce Schneier says: "One of the things I routinely tell people is that if it's in the news, don't worry about it. By definition, 'news' means that it hardly ever happens. If a risk is in the news, then it's probably not worth worrying about. When something is no longer reported - automobile deaths, domestic violence - when it's so common that it's not news, then you should start worrying."

[...]

Time to worry. And the scientists are. In fact, they're edgier than I've seen them since the BSE outbreak was in its earliest days and people were wondering if it might pass to humans. Quite a few scientists stopped eating beef at that point. Oh, you didn't know?

[...]

...as Canada's deputy chief public health officer, Dr Paul Gully, put it to the Toronto Star: "Frankly the crisis could for all we know have started last night in some village in Southeast Asia. We don't have any time to waste and even if we did have some time, the kinds of things we need to do will take years. Right now, the best we can do is try to survive it. We need a Manhattan Project yesterday."

(Full Story)

Not specifically Japan related, but certainly something that affects us all. The article is very interesting and sprinkled with good sources and links. Bit of a depressing read but important IMO.

Hopefully we won't see a repeat of the 1918 disaster. So many millions of people died then that no one can really agree on just what the number was.

[Kuang_Grade]

Nice to see China adding to the future body count
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/17/AR2005061701214.html

Bird Flu Drug Rendered Useless
Chinese Chickens Given Medication Made for Humans
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, June 18, 2005; Page A01

HONG KONG -- Chinese farmers, acting with the approval and encouragement of government officials, have tried to suppress major bird flu outbreaks among chickens with an antiviral drug meant for humans, animal health experts said. International researchers now conclude that this is why the drug will no longer protect people in case of a worldwide bird flu epidemic.

China's use of the drug amantadine, which violated international livestock guidelines, was widespread years before China acknowledged any infection of its poultry, according to pharmaceutical company executives and veterinarians.
....
Amantadine is one of two types of medication for treating human influenza. But researchers determined last year that the H5N1 bird flu strain circulating in Vietnam and Thailand, the two countries hardest hit by the virus, had become resistant, leaving only an alternative drug that is difficult to produce in large amounts and much less affordable, especially for developing countries in Southeast Asia.

"It's definitely an issue if there's a pandemic. Amantadine is off the table," said Richard Webby, an influenza expert at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis.

[Taro Toporific]

Girl Has Drug-Resistant Case of Bird Flu
Oct 14, 3:00 PM (ET)
NEW YORK (AP) -The bird flu virus that infected a Vietnamese girl was resistant to the main drug that's being stockpiled in case of a pandemic, a sign that it's important to keep a second drug on hand as well, a researcher said Friday.
He said the finding was no reason to panic.:roll:
The drug in question, Tamiflu, still attacks "the vast majority of the viruses out there," said Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Tokyo ...more...

[Greji]

Girl Has Drug-Resistant Case of Bird Flu
Oct 14, 3:00 PM (ET)
NEW YORK (AP) -The bird flu virus that infected a Vietnamese girl was resistant to the main drug that's being stockpiled in case of a pandemic, a sign that it's important to keep a second drug on hand as well, a researcher said Friday.
He said the finding was no reason to panic.:roll:
The drug in question, Tamiflu, still attacks "the vast majority of the viruses out there," said Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Tokyo ...more...

Damn, BSE almost ruined the yakiniku business, what's this going to do to prices at my local Yakitori joint?