H 5 N 1

[nike]

How serious is this?

It seems like the topic is starting to pick up momentum in the media recently.

If the virus does become transferrable from human to human in large numbers like the experts seem to think is inevitable, the mortality rates they are talking about are going to be big. Real big.

Aviation is going to be hit hard. Alot harder than SARs.

Have a quick read of this article:
www.commondreams.org/views04/0930-16.htm (http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0930-16.htm)

The interesting thing is that that particular article was written over a year ago. So why are the stories starting to appear on page one now?

Bush talking about using the military to quarantine whole neighbourhoods and even cities, Aussie closing its borders, countries stock piling TamiFlu.

How serious this is?

[Sunfish]

If you are a bird, it's very serious indeed. So far only bird to human transmission has been demonstrated, not human to human transmission.

The question is, would there be enough time to establish quarantine before the disease got into Australia via an airline traveller?

[Chimbu chuckles]

This seems to be just the SARS panic revisited...36000 people a year die from garden variety flew in the US...thats every year, year after year, and yet some moron labels a flu strain something catchy and the world freaks out over 100 people dieing.

The media has a LOT to answer for.

[otto the grot]

Chimbu.

I think you'll find that the 36000 in the US that you refer to would mostly be the old and those with weakened immune systems.

All reports i've read so far suggest that this virus won't discriminate.

[esreverlluf]

Let's not get too carried away with the hype just yet.

We have been overdue for a human influenza pandemic for some time now, however the media do have a habit of trying to outdo each other for a headline!

Even though the much vaunted H5N1 strain is not as universally fatal as the media would seem to have us believe, human deaths from this strain occurred as long ago as 1997 in Hong Kong - mostly amongst individuals with a high-level viral exposure working closely with poultry infected with the disease. Rarely, there have also been cases of human infection associated with prolonged close contact with very sick people with high viral loads.

Importantly, efficient human to human transmission has yet to occur. The virus may mutate in such a way as that this becomes possible, but not necessarily.

So, unless you are planning to spend a lot of time around sick chooks, sick pigs or infectious disease wards of hospitals during your SE Asian and Eastern European slips, I wouldn't lose too much sleep about it just yet.

Of course, while the avian influenza viruses in their various guises are being monitored closely, it may be that something else charges out of left field again in the way that the SARS virus did a few years ago. There's a cheery thought for the paranoid!

See links for more authoritative information;

www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/

www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/en/

[Buster Hyman]

:uhoh: ... I'll have the beef thanks!