"Bird" Flu

om3ga

om3ga

It's good to be the king...
'Three bird flu cases' in Ankara

Two children and an adult have tested positive for the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain in Turkey's capital Ankara, the city's governor Kemal Onal has said.

Meanwhile, Russia's Interfax news agency reported on Sunday that the country's chief epidemiologist has told his countrymen not to travel to Turkey - a popular vacation destination for Russians - because of the bird flu outbreak.

"I earnestly advise Russian citizens to refrain from travelling to Turkey, especially to the eastern province of Agri and the city of Dogubeyazit... where the situation is particularly alarming," Interfax quoted Gennady Onishchenko as saying.
 
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juballs

juballs

no need to worry guys...

i can a feeling that no pandemic will occur..

call it a hunch
 
KittyKat

KittyKat

5 new human cases of Bird Flu in Turkey, but so far no signs of human to human contact. Lets hope it stays that way.
 
epic

epic

that's because most of the east side of turkey is undereducated and careless to this kind of situations.. i believe and hope that the situation will be under control before it leads to a serious outbreak..
 
Incentive

Incentive

Incentive said:
Good Info. I dont think those crazy russians will listen though
Click to expand...

Some people arent happy with my words, so i will rephrase it. I dont mean they are "crazy russians" I just mean that they do whatever they want to
 
om3ga

om3ga

It's good to be the king...
BTW, the BBC just announced it's possible that the lethal Bird Flu strain may have mutated to a human variant.......

(why do I keep thinking of Captain Trips?)
 
Ludovico

Ludovico

Well looks like the black death part 2. That came from Asia via Turkey as well. So, my words of advice to you all is "the chickens are coming, be very afraid". :rofl:
 
om3ga

om3ga

It's good to be the king...
At present (according to the BBC):

The UK has banned imports of live chickens from Croatia, Turkey, Romania, Russia, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Laos, Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Malaysia, South Africa, and North Korea, where bird flu outbreaks have occurred.

The European Union has temporarily banned imports of captive birds from outside the union and all imports of poultry products and eggs from Thailand.

The importation of various birds and bird products from South Africa is also banned.
 
om3ga

om3ga

It's good to be the king...
om3ga said:
BTW, the BBC just announced it's possible that the lethal Bird Flu strain may have mutated to a human variant.......

(why do I keep thinking of Captain Trips?)
Click to expand...

update - this mutation cannot be transferred via human-to-human, according to the World Health Organisation:

http://www.who.int/csr/don/2006_01_12/en/index.html
 
om3ga

om3ga

It's good to be the king...
robertodiaz123 said:
I recomend you this article form Sicentific American

Preparing for a Pandemic
One day a highly contagious and lethal strain of influenza will sweep across all humanity, claiming millions of lives. It may arrive in months or not for years--but the next pandemic is inevitable. Are we ready?
By W. Wayt Gibbs and Christine Soares

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000DCB5A-9CC7-134E-9CC783414B7F0000&sc=I100322
Click to expand...

Which is why bird flu is being watched so closely. Recently scientists examined recreated samples of the 1918 "Spanish Flu" virus and claimed that virus originated from birds. The Spanish Flu bug was caused by the H1N1 type of influenza virus (which is similar to today's bird flu viruses).

PS: The Spanish Flu Pandemic killed between 50 million to 100 million people worldwide during 1918 and 1919
 
D

D-rock

An astounding number of diseases in history have been species jumpers. I think most of them started somewhere else and moved to us. They started out in pigs, birds, or cows then jumped. That is why some of them killed so many people when the new world was discovered. The natives of this side of the world never lived around the same animals as Europeans did, so they didn't have the chance to build up the same level of immunity over time as the Europeans did and a lot of them died. Every so often it is inevitable that a strain will jump where our systems are just not prepared for it. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. Although now we know more about it and can defend against it easier. Lets just hope that some day one doesn't come along that does something like wipe out all the chickens in the world, (let alone us) because then we're screwed.
 
4

4G63

Closed Account
juballs said:
no need to worry guys...

i can a feeling that no pandemic will occur..

call it a hunch
Click to expand...

That's a bold statement Juballs. You can tempt the fates all you want, but pandemics have happened before, and being aloof won't help when a new black plague hits the human race.

Airborne HIV or another Ebola outbreak are just around the corner, That's my hunch.
 
SeraphiM

SeraphiM

Retired Moderator
I'm glad the world health agency is taking things seriously. I would rather over react that under react. If this flu spreads it has the potential of killing a lot of people.

Viruses mutate regularly and it is only a matter of time before some of the really nasty buggers become airborne.
 
om3ga

om3ga

It's good to be the king...
LONDON (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline is to start final clinical trials in a bid to find a vaccine against pandemic flu, which experts fear may be triggered by bird flu, its chief executive Jean-Pierre Garnier said.

In an interview to be broadcast on the News24 channel of the BBC later on Wednesday, Garnier said the company hoped to be able to produce the new vaccine by the end of this year.

"We are announcing that we are starting the final clinical trials in a few weeks so that by Christmas we might be in a position to produce large quantities of this pandemic vaccine," Garnier is quoted as saying in a transcript of the interview.

However, Garnier said it was difficult to say how effective the new vaccine would be given that it was as yet unclear how the H5N1 virus would develop.

"It's all a question of mutation," Garnier said.

"If the mutation is a slight variation on H5N1 the vaccine is likely to be effective ... But if it's a wide mutation, where the new virus is systematically different from H5N1 then ... the vaccine is not going to be effective," Garnier was quoted as saying.

On January 6, Glaxo said it had submitted a dossier to European healthcare regulators seeking outline approval to market a vaccine against pandemic flu, the first vaccine manufacturer to do so under new European rules designed to fast-track potential pandemic flu shots.

Glaxo is one several companies working to develop a vaccine against the H5N1 strain of virus.
 
om3ga

om3ga

It's good to be the king...
D

dragonturtle

Roche already has a vaccine against H5N1 called Tamiflu that is considered the best vaccine available today. Last year they came under fire for waving their patent around and preventing other makers around the world from producing it. The problem? Manufacturing costs are high, resulting in expensive treatments, and they didn't have anywhere near the production capacity to fulfill orders coming from around the world.

Recently, they've begun licensing other companies (ones in Vietnam and India come to mind) to make the vaccine, spinning it as being for the good of public health, of course.

Google search for Tamiflu patent

But not everyone wants the red tape. Taiwan is ignoring the patent to produce their own version, and rightfully so, IMO. Patents be damned, I think poorer countries shouldn't have to uphold a patent for a potential disaster, or at the very least wealthy countries should foot the bill. Edit: er... not that Taiwan is poor.

Spanish Flu killed over 20 million after WW1, but H5N1 has thus far had a higher death rate. It may not be transmissable human-to-human, but the reason flu has not been eradicated like smallpox is because it mutates far too quickly. In other words, it is very possible that it will become transmissable between humans.
 
om3ga

om3ga

It's good to be the king...
Two swans found dead in northern Germany have the virulent H5N1 bird flu virus, officials say, marking the first such cases in the country.
The birds were found on the island of Ruegen in the Baltic Sea, off Germany.

Hours earlier, Austrian officials confirmed their first cases of bird flu, also in a pair of dead swans.

The H5N1 strain of the virus, which can kill humans through contact with infected animals, has been found in Italy, Greece and Bulgaria recently.

Details:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4714574.stm
 
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