Feeling Flu-ish?
Sep 23rd, 2005 at 5:32 am by Susie
From my buddy Dave over at Seeing the Forest, lots of avian flu stuff to make you nervous:
This might be a false alarm. There are some signs that human-to-human bird flu might be breaking out in Indonesia. I hope Katrina woke the Bush administration up. They should be turning back all flights from Indonesia, and working to get Indonesia to close its airports and other ports of exit and entry.
Bird flu deaths force Indonesia to declare epidemic
Bird Flu Outbreak Fears Hit IndonesiaIndonesia Warns of Possible Bird Flu EpidemicBird flu epidemic call alerts world
Indonesia battles bird flu spread
WHO tries to dial back concern over possible avian flu cases in IndonesiaPlaces to get info:
Flu Wiki
CDC Avian Flu
WHO Avian Flu and here
Avian Flu - What we need to know
The new National Geo has an absolutely scary article on this. It also talks a lot about the flu pandemic of 1918, and it’s connection to this current situation.
Ever read Stephen King’s The Stand? I’m going to my doc tomorrow and asking for tamiflu (if I can get it) and his recommendations on masks, gloves, etc. I’ve taken so many antibiotics in my life that none work for me any more, and I’m not counting on my government to help. PS. Suze, sorry about the ear. Get that looked at right away! smooches.
Pandemic Flu Awareness Week. Come aboard, Suze?
Ahh good something to get my mind of hurricans and earthquakes.
notes on bird flu:
1)that family of viruses, like cold viruses, mutates very rapidly. It will mutate to a human-to-human transmissible form sooner or later, and it will do so many times. It probably already has done so several times. There are cases of probable human-to-human transmission in, for instance, Vietnam and Thailand, that didn’t go further because they were caught quickly. One of these days (Indonesia?) it won’t get caught quickly enough.
2) Quarantining Indonesia doesn’t change the virus. It will continue mutating in other places, become catching between humans, and have the same epidemic potential.
3) Quarantining Indonesia is impossible. Have you ever been to Indonesia? Believe me, it would NOT work. All it would do is make people avoid doctors, clinics, and officials and *really* make the disease spread.
So what’s the soluton? One thing that would help is making sure that regulatory processes allow vaccine makers to use the new DNA-based methods. These allow vaccines to be made in weeks instead of many months. Vaccines could be made tailored to the actual problem virus, instead of last year’s virus plus the scientists’ best guess of what’s coming. And then a really good, really effective, *global* distribution system to get people vaccinated.
(Quit laughing hysterically. I know just as well as you do that it’s not going to happen. Not with the current crop of cretins in power.)