Posted on 11/23/2005 7:08:55 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
US updates quarantine procedures ahead of possible bird flu pandemic
47 minutes ago
US health authorities have called for updating quarantine procedures, including better access to passenger lists for incoming ships and planes, to improve preparedness for a possible bird flu pandemic.
The proposed changes, which include more authority to administer medical treatments and vaccines to people under quarantine, are part of a review started two years ago following the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
"Existing communicable disease regulations are outdated, have not kept up with advances in disease control measures and have not been substantially updated for over 25 years," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement on Wednesday.
The CDC said it has already increased nationwide the number quarantine stations near airports, sea ports and key border entries from eight to 18.
The need for updated regulations became necessary during the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003, when health authorities found it difficult to get in touch with airline passengers who may have been exposed to the disease during flights.
In their proposals, the CDC wants wants access to crew and passenger lists from foreign and interstate flights.
Currently planes that land in the United States must send passenger lists before they take off to be checked by US intelligence agencies for suspected terrorists.
The new quarantine procedures have been published in the official journal and are open to comment by the public and the airline industry for the next 60 days.
The CDC said it hopes to implement the changes by mid-2006.
Ping!
That doesn't sound too good to me. I'm not an anti-vaccine advocate, but sounds like they're talking about more authority to force vaccines, and how would a forced vaccine help a person already under quarantine? It's almost impossible to have an effective flu vaccine until the flu breaks out and they isolate the particular strain.
But AIDS folks don't get locked up . . .
....only in Cuba.........
What about illegals crossing the borders.
Please go to this Stanford University link for a terrific and concise look at the type of pandemic we are likely to face when (NOT if, the experts all say) Bird Flu mutates to a human transmissible form.
Excerpts:
The Influenza Pandemic of 1918
The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351. Known as "Spanish Flu" or "La Grippe" the influenza of 1918-1919 was a global disaster.
In the fall of 1918 the Great War in Europe was winding down and peace was on the horizon. The Americans had joined in the fight, bringing the Allies closer to victory against the Germans. Deep within the trenches these men lived through some of the most brutal conditions of life, which it seemed could not be any worse. Then, in pockets across the globe, something erupted that seemed as benign as the common cold. The influenza of that season, however, was far more than a cold.
In the two years that this scourge ravaged the earth, a fifth of the world's population was infected. The flu was most deadly for people ages 20 to 40. This pattern of morbidity was unusual for influenza which is usually a killer of the elderly and young children. It infected 28% of all Americans (Tice). An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during the pandemic, ten times as many as in the world war. Of the U.S. soldiers who died in Europe, half of them fell to the influenza virus and not to the enemy (Deseret News). An estimated 43,000 servicemen mobilized for WWI died of influenza (Crosby). 1918 would go down as unforgettable year of suffering and death and yet of peace. As noted in the Journal of the American Medical Association final edition of 1918:
"The 1918 has gone: a year momentous as the termination of the most cruel war in the annals of the human race; a year which marked, the end at least for a time, of man's destruction of man; unfortunately a year in which developed a most fatal infectious disease causing the death of hundreds of thousands of human beings. Medical science for four and one-half years devoted itself to putting men on the firing line and keeping them there. Now it must turn with its whole might to combating the greatest enemy of all--infectious disease," (12/28/1918).
Excerpt from a letter from a doctor on a military base in Massachusetts:
Camp Devens, Mass. Surgical Ward No 16
29 September 1918
My dear Burt-
It is more than likely that you would be interested in the news of this place, for there is a possibility that you will be assigned here for duty, so having a minute between rounds I will try to tell you a little about the situation here as I have seen it in the last week.
As you know I have not seen much Pneumonia in the last few years in Detroit, so when I came here I was somewhat behind in the niceties of the Army way of intricate Diagnosis. Also to make it good, I have had for the last week an exacerbation of my old "Ear Rot" as Artie Ogle calls it, and could not use a Stethoscope at all, but had to get by on my ability to "spot" ' em thru my general knowledge of Pneumonias. I did well enough, and finally found an old Phonendoscope that I pieced together, and from then on was all right. You know the Army regulations require very close locations etc.
Camp Devens is near Boston, and has about 50,000 men, or did have before this epidemic broke loose. It also has the Base Hospital for the Div. of the N. East. This epidemic started about four weeks ago, and has developed so rapidly that the camp is demoralized and all ordinary work is held up till it has passed. All assembleges of soldiers taboo.
One can stand it to see one, two or twenty men die, but to see these poor devils dropping like flies sort of gets on your nerves. We have been averaging about 100 deaths per day, and still keeping it up. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a new mixed infection here, but what I dont know. My total time is taken up hunting Rales, rales dry or moist, sibilant or crepitant or any other of the hundred things that one may find in the chest, they all mean but one thing here -Pneumonia-and that means in about all cases death.
The article you quote from states that 28% of the population of the US were infected with the flu. Currently the population of the US is somewhere around 280 million, IIRC. 28% of that is 78,400,000. 78 million. If only 5% die, that is three million nine hundred thousand dead. That would be if the fatality rate were only 5%, and the same percentage of the population were infected as with the 1918 flu.
Pretty interesting.
I don't know about updated quarantine. Seems to me we should go back to the rules and standards we had in the 50's when public health officials did more than just watch and immigrants were examined at the border. My home was quarantined when I got scarlet fever.
1) Government officials
2) Medical personnel
3) Telecommunications people (i.e. TV people/radio/phone)
4) Immune deficient people
5) The elderly
Dead last) Children
WTF?
Based on the stats from people who've aquired this particular strain, 50% of people are dying. I say everybody deserves an equal shot. Why should an AIDS patient or somebody who's lived to be 80 get a shot over a healthy parent and their kids? Who is of greater benefit to the long term survival of society? And why do we need a park ranger and a welfare case worker more than an engineer or a construction worker? If the flu becomes a reality and they try to implement this plan, there is going to be some lead flying.
Quarantine won't work. This deadly flu will be around the world in days, on jets.
Enough to totally wreck the world economy. Unlike in 1918, the media will fan the flames of panic, causing schools and jobs to shut down. Travel and transportation will stop, business will grind to a halt.
In 1918, the media was only newspapers, totally on a wartime censorship basis. The govt could "spin" the pandemic as they saw fit, to control panic etc.
Today, we will see "Katrina X 1,000" reporting, and the global economy will grind to a halt.
Don't forget that a quarantine won't work anyway as people can be infected weeks and months before symptoms show. The best defense will be rest and medicines to calm the symptoms.
Well, there's no vaccine for the forseeable future anyway, so it's all academic. And Tamiflu may not be useful, plus the best it can do (I did some research on it yesterday, plan to do more) is lessen the duration of the flu by one and a half days, and perhaps the severity. But some of the side effects are pretty bad - vomiting, nausea, bad headaches, hallucinations, no sleep for three days.
The figures I've read are 2-21 days from contact to symptoms. That's not months, although it apparently (from what they know) be longer than for "regular" flu.
I'd like some accurate figures from China.
But, if it is spreading H2H in China, it'll get out of China and we'll know then.
If this strain is 2-21 days, that still gives a LONG time for transporting across the world.
Will the quarantine Santa's reindeer too?
21 days is a lot longer than most flus, which are roughly (IIRC) about 3-5 days. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can correct me.
I just don't believe
a modern, Western nation
with good nutrition
has the kind of base
of supressed immune systems
to support mass deaths.
I'm curious about the cykotine storm effect (could have wrong spelling there), which happens to those with good working immune systems. The immune system over reacts; in which case those with weaker immune systems would be the lucky ones. Supposedly that's what happened with the 1918 flu. That's why people aged 20-40 sickened and died more than with a "regular" flu.
That is, if Fumento isn't 100% correct.
Metacrawler gives
very few hits searching for
cykotines. My bet
is speculation
about cykotine storms is
just speculation.
WebMD has NO
articles on cykotines.
Alternative health
topics often are
driven by fads and near myths.
This sounds like it's one.
What is the Cytokine Storm?
We think of external microbes as our worst enemy during an outbreak of influenza or bronchitis, but our own immune systems are potentially more lethal. When our body detects foreign microorganisms indicating an infection, it might over-protect our lungs. We race so many antibodies to the site that they collect in a Cytokine storm, potentially blocking airways and causing suffocation. Medical researchers have identified the stages of the Cytokine storm and are working on treatments, other than flu vaccines, to weaken an overactive immune response.
At all times, sentries circulate in our bloodstream, called white blood cells, that are the first to sense if a virus or bacteria has infiltrated. Immediately, our body sends defenders from the immune system, T-cells, to the site of the infection. During this stage, our immunity functions properly, and T-cells attack the microbes so they do not get too strong a foothold in our lungs.
However, the mere presence of T-cells clustered at one site, especially the lungs, alerts other T-cells that a full-scale war has started. In the second stage, even more T-cells, known as cytokines, flood the lungs. This propagates a Cytokine storm where far too many immune cells are caught in an endless loop of calling even more. The Cytokine storm ends up inflaming the tissue of the lungs and crowding air passages, causing breathing difficulties.
Not only can severe inflammation damage your lungs permanently, but a prolonged Cytokine storm will eventually shut down your breathing. Airducts get clogged and cells no longer properly absorb oxygen. This is what makes the Cytokine storm so deadly in certain epidemic strains, such as bird flu. Even bronchitis, other varieties of influenza, pneumonia, and possibly rheumatoid arthritis are susceptible to triggering a Cytokine storm.
Of course, flu vaccines are usually effective at preventing the flu during its peak season. But they are no guarantee, especially when flu strains mutate after the vaccine has been manufactured. Therefore, researchers are pursuing other methods of preventing the Cytokine storm by bioengineering a drug that could slow the snowball effect of antibodies. They hope to force the cytokines to recirculate in the bloodstream, rather than pool in the lungs. Experts predict that a major influenza pandemic could kill millions of people worldwide as it has done in centuries past.
I dis-arranged the K and T. I should have known.
It certainly sounds
like a Bad Thing. But I'd like
to know more about
how often it hits.
Metabolic responses
that over-react
(or under-react)
don't sound like responses of
immune systems that
are balanced, healthy.
It sounds like chemical cues
are getting ignored
or never sent that
allow the "storm" to happen.
I wonder if these
are really healthy
immune systems? Hopefully,
we'll see more reports.
Here's a link to the CFR (I know, they have a weird reputation...) recent symposium or whatever it's calle about Avian flu. Trascripts, five discussion. I read two of them last night and the cykotine storm was disucssed.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/9230/council_on_foreign_relations_conference_on_the_global_threat_of_pandemic_influenza_session_1.html
I think the number quoted is 55%. That number is only those people who arrive at the hospital requiring care. My question is: how many people are out there that have had/have the H5N1 and no apparent ill effects...that would tend to drive the 55% number down.
Now, having said that. I've seen reports that sampling have been taken from healthy people in areas of infection and none have tested positive.
"If the flu becomes a reality and they try to implement this plan, there is going to be some lead flying."
Especially if a panic 'sets-in'. I plan to isolate and am already prepared to do just that. And yes, I have plenty of 'lead.'
From a Kazakhstani weekly, Panorama, November 18th (no online version):
The outbreaks of avian influenza in China and some regions of Russia can wipe out all the undertakings of the Kazakhstani poultry industry. This was the opinion expressed by Nigmat Zhakupbaev, chief of epizootic monitoring and veterinary measures for the Kazakhstan Ministery of Agriculture, as he spoke at the AGRICA 2005 agricultural conference. He emphasized that since cases of avian influenza have been registered in Russia, Kazakhstan's situation remained complicated. During the course of local outbreak erradications, 13 thousand poultry of a total of 30 million (in Kazakhstan) were lost - but it was possible stop the outbreaks from spreading from their centers of origin. "Three groups of experts were invited from Holland, and they unanimously agreed that our prophylactic measures were carried out with the utmost care, and, because of this, we were able to prevent the spread of avian influenza," Mr. Zhakupbaev declared.
At the present time Kazakhstan is standardizing its poultry disease prophylaxis and epidemic preventive measures. Especially strict measures have been enacted with regards to poultry facilities: "If a single case of avian influenza is diagnosed, the entire flock will be destroyed and the business will no longer be allowed to engage in poultry." Within the framework of veterinary measures, so-called 'empty zones' have been created: within a radius of 5 kilometers around each poultry processing plant no one is allowed to keep domestic poultry, they are to be removed, and personnel - regardless of their job titles - are to be well-trained. In order to prevent contact between wild and domestic birds, there are poultry-free zones 3-5 kilometers in radius around all large lakes which lay along the routes of migratory birds. In addition, all poultry establishments will have monthly serological studies of their birds.
As far as vaccination is concerned, in Mr. Zhakupbaev's words, foreign experts have confessed that this measure of combating the avian influenze virus is inadvisable. It is reported, however, that the (Kazakhstan) Ministry of Agriculture intends to discuss this question with representatives of the poultry industry and researchers, with particular regard to financing.
To avert the import of this disease, 25 veterinary posts with disinfection barriers have been established on the Kazakhstan-PRC border, and, due to the serious epizootic situation, their activities have been prolonged to December 1st. The yearly financing for these vet posts is 172 million Tenge ($1.28 million), but this sum was not increased after the outbreaks of avian influenza in the neighboring countries.
I have been eating one chicken dish or another for a last few days. To tell you the truth, it is giving me creeps:) It seems many people who live in countries bordering China have the same feeling.
1. China will never give an accurate number even if they had the ability.
2. China knows that the olympics are doomed because of this.
Anyone who believes anything that is officially stated by China is a silly fool.
True, but the reporters will then start dieing, thus sparing us their endless BS.
Well there is a silver lining.
The 1918/1919 flu pandemic was taken pretty seriously in the U.S., and there was considerable quarantining.
Ebusinesses in 1918/1919 were pretty limited to stock "ticker tape" companies, telegram, financial wire transfer, and telephone companies, too...substantially less than e-businesses today that can essentially work from home or other isolated areas.
Stock trading today is going to go on even if Wall Street is shut down, for example. The computers/servers will keep on clicking out orders.
With Katrina, we've seen that one entire "major" city can be lost and still have our economy grow nationally (3 GDP growth).
Bird flu quarantines will be more severe, one suspects, than Katrina, but probably less so than during the 1918/1919 flu pandemic that hit before anti-biotics and anti-virals were invented...in an era that had far fewer e-businesses.
Yes, there are pluses and minuses 1918/2006, but I truly fear the new media's ability and eagerness (for ratings) to fan the flames of all out panic.
In 1918 the media meant newspapers, which were 100%o on a patriotic, fully censored, wartime footing. They willingly repeated government spin.
It will be vastly different now, with the media throwing panic gasoline onto every spark.
Radios were all the rage by 1919, and newspapers had vastly larger audiences back then than now. Plus, that was the era when "yellow journalism" was invented (e.g. the news media caused the Spanish-American war over Cuba).
You are correct that today's news media will graphically hype any event to create as much public panic as possible, of course, but the U.S. has survived this sort of thing for centuries.
The news media incites panic...the public generally yawns.
You are more optimistic than I am.
Well, I do live in a red state, so my local population isn't spooked quite as easily as yours (no offense intended).
That difference in geography might explain our occasional difference in perspectives.
I was in the service when President Ford (remember W.I.N. "Whip Inflation Now") ordered all servicmen and women to get the swine flu shot.
I wasn't up to scratch for several weeks after that.
BRRR!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.