Warning: Avian Flu pandemic looming (US far behind in preparation)

A global wave of death and disease may be gathering in Asia, and America’s only defense is 2.3 million doses of anti-influenza medication.

Abram Katz, Register Science Editor
05/08/2005

Although a flu pandemic is impossible to predict, the avian influenza virus festering in several Asian countries shows ominous warning signs, doctors, epidemiologists and other experts warn.

"Many people are worried about a pandemic and we would not have immunity. This is one of those situations in which it’s better to be safe than sorry," said Dr. Michael H. Merson, professor of public health and former dean of epidemiology and public health at the Yale School of Medicine.

"The bird flu has all the potential of an epidemic," he said. The H5N1 avian strain has not been seen in 150 years, meaning no one has any residual resistance. And the virus kills seven out of 10 people who become infected.

Unlike the catastrophic "Spanish flu" that killed 20 million people worldwide in 1918-19, "we’re getting a warning with this one," Merson said. "We need to respond with all we have," he said. All the United States has is an experimental H5N1 vaccine that was scheduled to start clinical testing this month and 2 million doses of anti-viral drugs.
Britain, in contrast, has procured 15 million doses, enough to treat about a quarter of its population.

http://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14488831&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=517515&rfi=6

Governments around the world must stop burying their heads in the sand as the threat of a global avian flu outbreak grows, a doctor said today.

Earlier this year the UK government unveiled its plans to deal with a flu pandemic, including stockpiling millions of doses of anti-viral drugs.

But GP Nigel Higson, writing in the British Medical Journal, said more needed to be done to prepare for a possible pandemic, which could kill millions of people.

"The tsunami in Asia illustrated one acute natural trauma with thousands of deaths.

"That catastrophe pales into insignificance when compared with an influenza pandemic.

http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/men/news/s/157/157472_action_needed_over_avian_flu_threat.html
In the last 12 months, the world has moved closer to an influenza pandemic than it has been at any time since then. The crucial factors which might spark off a pandemic are a new virus subtype transmittable to humans, which has the ability to replicate in humans and cause disease, and be efficiently transmitted from human to human....

An expert from the World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that even in the best case scenario the global death toll could be between 2 and 7 million people.

The WHO were urging all governments in January this year to draw up and implement a national preparedness plan and to strengthen global influenza surveillance.
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=9680

Uh, Mr. President, could you guys break it up to maybe address this?

I'll ask my doctor about it. She uses conventional and alternative forms of healing. Her homeopathic remedy for flu was very successful by those who used it this past winter.

If there is a non-partisan issue this should be it!

So an epidemic would not be a problem for the Regime. It would just get rid of a lot of people they don't care about anyhow.

Or, it may just kill off the poor uninsured who managed to vote for Shrub "so them homo's can't merry," in which case they will lose a big part of their base!

If/when pandemic actuallybreaks out,the Tamiflu will be gone. Bu it online, demand it from your GP, do whatever it takes. An ounce of prevention...

Took your advice.

Sell stocks of vaccines and treatments that otherwise would go unsold.

Avian flu is not a new disease but an old one that has been historically very well controlled in the U.S. and not a threat to public health. It is a poultry health issue which has been handled quite well by the U.S.D.A.

But if people have money to spend on unnecessary prophylactics and remedies, then I suppose it's a grand old capitalistic tradition to separate the easily frightened from their cash.

My partner regularly visits chicken plants. No one is being advised to "stock up" on Tamiflu.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

I'm extremely interested in this, are the drug companies phonying up the reported cases in Asia now?

It's so they don't spark a run on the antivirals like Tamiflu. However, government ministries in Canada and the UK have done just this, creating a stockpile of the drug for those in the medical fields....

Expert: U.S. poorly prepared for flu pandemic

By MARIAN UHLMAN

Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA - (KRT) - Consider this scenario: A lethal new flu virus emerges to claim millions of lives and sicken millions more. Many patients can't get ventilators or drugs because of an international shortage.

Hospitals are so packed that schools turn gymnasiums into makeshift wards. Bodies pile up because people are dying faster than they can be buried. Food is scarce. The worldwide economy is paralyzed.

Sound far-fetched? It's all too plausible, says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

The United States is poorly prepared to confront a potential influenza pandemic that some experts believe could be brewing in Southeast Asia, Osterholm writes in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, which commissioned the piece.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/11572020.htm

I just think a little prevention is a good idea, like the New England Journal of Medicine does.

<snip>

Influenza A virus is a major public health threat, killing more than 30 000 per year in the USA alone, sickening millions and inflicting substantial economic costs. Novel influenza virus strains emerge periodically to which humans have little immunity, resulting in devastating pandemics. The 1918 pandemic killed nearly 700 000 Americans and 40 million people worldwide. Pandemics in 1957 and 1968, while much less devastating than 1918, also caused tens of thousands of deaths in the USA.

<snip>

Source:
http://www.socgenmicrobiol.org.uk/jgvdirect/19302/19302ft.htm

I've seen guesstimates as high as 100,000,000 for the 1918 pandemic, but we will nevah know.

Maybe she got a kickback from Roche Laboratories.

Or maybe there's something to her guesses, who knows.

I just know I'm tired of being afraid. We've been threatened with Captain Trips since Gerald Ford, ain't happened yet.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

It is now thought that Woodrow Wilson had the flu (which cooked his brain) rather than a stroke in 1919. He acquiesced to redrawing of the maps of the Middle East the way the Brits wanted it. And thus was born the Middle East as we know it today.

just askin'...