[Previous] Time running out to stop bird flu -experts...
[Next] UN: bird flu to take 10 years to eradicate...
Some related posts from Technorati and Google.
[Far East] Something To Fret Over: A leading scientist warned yesterday that the avian flu virus is on the point of mutating into a pandemic disease and says that current estimates that such a pandemic could cause 7.5m deaths may understate the threat.His warnings come as experts writing in today's edition of Nature voice concerns about the world's inability to manufacture sufficient vaccines for a pandemic and warn of the impact that the virus - H5N1 - could have on the global economy.
[Xiaodong People] Lack of Marburg Virus Survivors Creates Civil Unrest in Angola: . The outbreak originated in Uige, where there are the most cases and the largest number being monitored. However, the virus has radiated out from Uige, and there is little monitoring in the outlying regions. Thus, the monitoring is chasing the virus, which continues to transmit ahead of the monitoring. Warnings last week indicated Uige was the Marburg epicenter, and all cases originated in Uige. This week warnings have gone out to countries adjacent to Angola (Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, and Zambia), warning that Angola is the epicenter. There are already reports of suspect cases in South Africa, including one death. The above update indicates Marbug has now spread to Zaire.
[J's Philosophy blog] Looming pandemic which could kill 10s of millions causing sleepless nights: The "it" Osterholm refers to is a nasty strain of influenza A known as H5N1, so named because of the hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N) proteins on the virus's outer shell. Though flu is notoriously unpredictable, H5N1 is currently considered the leading candidate to spark the next pandemic.
[Effect Measure] How long can you hold your breath?: It is imperative that real-time surveillance information be shared freely, and that preventive measures be taken very early in a new pandemic. Therefore, while the relatively modest reproductive number estimated for 1918 pandemic influenza suggests the feasibility of controlling a similar future pandemic, significant planning and investment will be required to facilitate a rapid and effective response.
[The American Street] Waiting for a Protein to Shift: I wouldn’t be covering this story at all, like the rest of the American media, if I hadn’t become aware a few years back of the epidemiology behind flus and pandemics. Read Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague if you want to be radicalized about how poorly all of the world’s public health systems are faring and what we have in front of us from the world of microbes.
[Radio.weblogs.com] Kevin Schofield's Weblog: The current bird flu has approximately a 70% human mortality rate -- even in healthy adults -- though experts believe that in mutating to become human-to-human transmissable, it will become less deadly. Last week it was reported that Vietnam is seeing a lower mortality rate, 35%, which is good news in that fewer people are dying, but bad news that it may be the leading indicator that H5N1 is indeed mutating.
[Peakoil.com] Peak Oil News and Message Boards >> Forums >> Current Events ...: The Xinhuanet report goes on to say that the Institute of Tropical Diseases in Hanoi currently has in its care 23 local people with bird flu symptoms "of whom 11 have been confirmed to have contracted bird flu virus strain H5N1 by the hospital's official." It adds that since last week "six more have been found to have contracted the disease."
[Majikthise.typepad.com] Majikthise : "Three years of a given hell": flu pandemic looms: The highly unstable RNA viruses are constantly recombining (mutating) and reassorting (swapping genes with each other). The result: new forms of flu are always finding ways to slip past the immune system's sentries to pick the lock of the human respiratory tract.
Reflected tags on Technorati: Blog, H5n1, Bird Flu Monitor
