Posted on 10/06/2005 5:34:51 AM PDT by OESY
...After nearly a decade of research, teams of scientists said yesterday that they had re-created the historic influenza virus that by some estimates killed 50 million people world-wide in 1918 and 1919. The scientists concluded that the virus originated as an avian bug and then adapted and spread in humans by undergoing much simpler changes than many experts had previously thought were needed for a pandemic.
Some mutations of the 1918 virus have been detected in the current avian-flu virus, suggesting the bug "might be going down a similar path that led to 1918,"....
The studies, published yesterday in the journals Nature and Science by researchers from the Armed Forces institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine, suggest that a bird-flu pandemic could erupt in more ways than previously thought -- and could be as lethal as its predecessor....
The findings could also help researchers hone their efforts to develop vaccines and treatments for avian flu by pinpointing which pieces of the virus made it so virulent. CDC researchers narrowed in on a gene in the re-created 1918 virus that allows the bug to attach itself to cells and multiply. With the gene, the virus was highly lethal; it lost its virulence when researchers removed it. Those findings and the genetic makeup of the virus will now be publicly available. The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity endorsed making the genetic information public....
Deciphering clues from the bug has never been so urgent. Avian flu continues to spread in poultry flocks and is jumping to humans with increasing frequency. The lethal strain has claimed 60 lives in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia since late 2003.
Most of those cases occurred in people who had direct contact with infected poultry....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Husband and I just got our flu shots yesterday but it doesn't protect against Evian flu.
Hopefully this supposed Evian flu pandemic will not happen BUT
if it does happen than I hope the government will be ready.
I heard recently that all flus are borne out of the avian population.
NeverGore :^)
True, but there are many nations that aspire to bringing their health care standards up to US 1918 standards.
LOL ...cute..oops that's Avian not Evian flu.
My Grandfather died of the 1918 flu. My Grandmothers letters and diary tell horrible stories about it. They even ran out of coffins to bury the dead.
That flu epidemic was devastating in my hometown. At the time it was named “Evansburg”, PA. The flu killed so many people that the name was changed to “Conneaut Lake” so the reputation as a death town would die with the old name. People were afraid to move to Evansburg – but not afraid to move to Conneaut Lake.
Fortunately medicine today has advanced a long way in the last 90 years.
They even ran out of coffins to bury the dead.
1918 is not 2005....at least in the US.
Good point. Medical care has advanced a lot. I wonder how many cases went into bacterial infections? There are complications of illnesses that can be dealt with now. That would help.
Gee, I got a shot for the swine flu that was supposed to kill us all back in the late 1970's so I must be OK.
Check out this link that I just found googling the 1918 flu:http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2005/10/06/scientists_re_create_1918_flu_pandemic_virus/
My father had the 1918 flu (survivived, or I would not be here) and is still surviving.
"Good point. Medical care has advanced a lot. I wonder how many cases went into bacterial infections? There are complications of illnesses that can be dealt with now. That would help."
I'm not sure what to make of this. This kind of fear makes people lose it, even here on FR.
There was a thread on FR from about a year ago, when the CDC was predicting a really bad year for the latest flu virus, with lots of people dying. Some people on FR were saying that anyone who wasn't willing to get a flu vaccination should be put in an interment camp -- even though the flu shot they were offering was from the previous year, it wasn't even for the nasty flu strain they were expecting.
Of course last year's flu wasn't a big problem, so the CDC projections were wrong. They were also wrong about how big a deal SARS would be in the US.
Not sure what to think about them; they seem like they have cried wolf alot over stuff. Maybe they are right this time, who knows.
Seems like every year we get dire warnings about the possibility of a virulent flu outbreak; how it's just around the corner. When it happens we'll know about it. I just don't quite understand why the CDC, for example, issues these alarmist sounding pronouncements and scares people. I'll worry when it starts to happen. At that point, I'd probably put myself under quarantine. I have enough of what I need that I don't need to shop for a long time. I like to stock up before winter sets in because hauling groceries through the snow and slop at 10 degrees is not my idea of fun. I just hope that they have not cried wolf so much that when it happens for real, people blow it off until it's too late.
"I just hope that they have not cried wolf so much that when it happens for real, people blow it off until it's too late."
Yeah, I agree.
One aspect of today's technology is that communication is so fast to spread information that the info about what is happening will spread faster than the virus can spread. People should have more warning and be able to take precautions alot more readily than the people from generations ago.
Is there any way to get the whole article, I don't subscribe to the online Wall Street Journal.
:-)
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