Posted on 11/29/2004 4:45:28 AM PST by pandemic_1918
Up to 100 million people may die within weeks if a bird flu pandemic breaks out, a senior World Health Organisation (WHO) official warned on Monday as he urged nations to make urgent preparations to mitigate its spread.
A global outbreak is almost certain and even widescale vaccination programmes will not be enough to halt its inexorable advance, the WHO director for the Western Pacific, Shigeru Omi, said in Hong Kong.
"The most conservative estimate is that seven to 10 million people would die, but the maximum range will be more -- 50 million or even in the worst case 100 million people," Omi said in his starkest warning yet of the potential peril from a mutation of avian flu to a form that may be transmitted by humans.
"It will come," he said during a flying visit to the city where the H5N1 flu strain first mutated into a strain lethal to humans.
Omi said it was impossible to predict when a pandemic will happen but said it would not take long to reach all corners of the globe.
"Before it would have taken a year to spread around the world but thanks to globalisation it will take just weeks. If we are not prepared the consequences will be serious."
(Excerpt) Read more at mg.co.za ...
The H5N1 virus has a 70% case fatality rate
http://www.recombinomics.com/H5N1_case_mortality_rate.html
and WHO has predicted 1/3 to 1/4 of the world's population could be infected, which means the number dead could top 1 Billion
http://www.recombinomics.com/H5N1_reassort_recombine.html
About 3 years ago 3-4 “different” people signed onto Free Republic and immediately started the biggest chicken little panic fest I’ve ever seen about the “worst flu epidemic in history” poised to kill tens of millions in the US. There must have been 100 threads in 6 weeks on the subject
Now this newbie’s doing the same thing. Get lost.
He must own stock in a flu vaccine manufacturer.
Please, not this early in the morning!
Welcome to Free Republic.
You're right. My apologies.
Coffee. Must have coffee.
Who is pictured?
Janine GOD awful O
WHO? :~)
>>Please, not this early in the morning!<<
This is the first story on WHO now upping the number to 100 million deaths from H5N1 pandemic flu. There will be several more today.
The HK scientists monitor flu growth in the (captive)avian population very carefully. When it gets too bad, they stick them all in bin-liners and gas them. They did this some years ago.
We NEED to keep a track on this, true. But its not as if we're helpless.
>>He must own stock in a flu vaccine manufacturer.<<
Hong Kong is discounting the effectiveness of vaccines
http://www.recombinomics.com/H5N1_vaccine_predictions.html
Was thinking more along the line that this is a Kerry loser post-election whine for flu vaccine shortages.
OK, so why did you sign up two days ago to post a flurry of threads warning of a flu pandemic? Why here? What's your goal? After all, if this doomsday scenario did come true, what could we do about it?
WHO has been pretty conservative. They initially said 2-7 million deaths, which is a VERY conservative number
http://www.recombinomics.com/H5N1_reassort_recombine.html
In 1918, there are estimated to have been from 50-100 millions deaths worldwide. In the USA, about 1/4 of the population got sick; about 500,000 died in a period of 10 weeks--more than we lost in WWI.
If we have that type of flu again, figuring the math,
with larger populations, there may be larger death totals.
(We don't know, because the flu will not be exactly the same.)
BUT, yes, there can be another worldwide flu pandemic;
we just don't know when. (If there is, figure on longer
waits to get flu shots. . .:-)
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