We're all gonna die again?
Guess what. This Hn51 variant already shrugs off every single anti-viral drug that's been thrown at it.
According to my doctor even very aggressive respirator therapy is useless.
L
EVERYBODY PANIC!!!!!
Lifted right from a 1970's newspaper.
Life is just this way. One side gets better weapons, the other side gets better defenses, and then more agressive weapons. It's true in every aspect of nature. This will continue on until death.
I was in Southeast Asia and recall reading that Tamiflu had little impact on the disease -- perhaps the resistance develops extremely quickly. Thus far, it doesn't seem all that easy to catch. Hope it stays that way. The actual disease is a very nasty way to go.
Damn, I hate reading stuff like this while congested and dealing w/ a sore throat...
Excuse me, but aren't most viruses (viri?) drug resistant? People seem to forget that antibiotics are for bacterial infections, not viral infections. For instance, there are anti-viral drugs that help surpress outbreaks of the herpes virus, but it never cures it.
Mark
And Bush is going to make sure there is no flu vaccine available for senior citizens in the US.
Killer flu, of whatever strain, has since the 1970s been recognized both as inevitable, and the #1 biological threat to the United States. It is a vicious, murderous disease, and has almost unpredictable possibility for human mortality. It has maintained between a 50 and 60% mortality rate, and there are no documented cases of "mild" infection.
On average, about 30,000 Americans die every year from typical influenza. If avian flu mutates to a Human to Human (H2H) strain, anywhere from 300,000 to 5 Million Americans could die, and an equal number could have permanently scarred lungs.
Officially, the WHO world mortality estimates by their top epidemologist was ordered reduced from 300 Million to only 3 Million. This was done with no scientific justification.
Already, the disease has been proven to cause the "cytokine storm" effect in the lungs, an overreaction of the immune system to the virus which results in severe lung damage, with blood and fluid entering the lungs, and oxygen deprivation to the entire body. This cytokine storm effect may actually be more lethal than the disease itself. For this reason, healthy young people with strong immune systems may have a far higher mortality rate than everyone else.
Once a sample of the actual H2H virus has been obtained, in the US it will take six months to produce 30 Million vaccinations. This is peak production, enough for 1 in 10 Americans.
Because of the serious potential of the avian flu, the vaccination scheme has been modified so that instead of vaccinating the very old, very young and infirm, the emphasis will be on school aged children most likely to spread the disease, and outbreak areas.
Other critical medical supplies in the US are manufactured on a "push" basis with almost no reserves. For example, the US has about 102,000 ventilators, 100,000 of which are needed for a typical flu season. In surge production it is unlikely manufacturers would be able to produce more than a small number more, in time.
The two major advantages that we have today, that we did not have during the 1918 Spanish flu, is a good awareness of public hygiene and good electronic communications.
In the last few years it was discovered that hand contamination, not coughing and sneezing, was by far the greatest means by which colds and flus are spread. It is now calculated that if you are out in public during an epidemic, if you wash your hands or use hand sanitizer about six times a day, you reduce your chances of catching a disease by almost 60%.
This is especially important because a typical cold or flu virus needs far more contamination to infect most people, because they have limited immunity. But since there is no known immunity to avian flu, much less virus is needed to cause an infection that will overwhelm the immune system.
The reason avian flu has not become H2H yet is because other than in internal organs, it concentrates in the lower trachea, rather than the upper trachea and sinuses, which is typical. Thus it is harder to get on the hands with coughing and sneezing. For it to adapt only needs one or perhaps two mutations.
Electronic communications will do much to prevent the spread of the disease. Even small communities can set up phone banks to systematically call every residence in their town or city, both to spread information and to determine if emergency medical and mortuary services are needed.
It is still not known how many animals may act as vectors of the disease. Certainly wild and domestic foul, which could wipe out much of our chicken and turkey industry. Dogs have been proven to catch and die from the disease, and pigs are also known to carry most flus.
The disease may last as long as two years, coming in two "waves". Entire communities may be missed, and some could almost be wiped out.
It sounds like Captain Trips.
"Remain calm, all is well."