Posted on 04/19/2013 2:11:38 PM PDT by blam
Officials Fear That H7N9 Bird Flu Is Spreading From Person To Person
Jennifer Welsh
April 19,2013
As new cases of the bird flu H7N9 continue to pop up all over China, officals are getting more and more worried that the virus can spread between humans, or that it will soon develop the ability to spread between humans.
If it develops the ability to transfer easily from one human to another it could easily become a pandemic.
While the virus has been circulating in the bird population, and many types of birds have tested positive for it. According to the World Health Organization, researchers in China haven't found definite evidence of how it's transmitted to humans.
What's the source?
There's mounting concern about the virus's actual origins: A number of the confirmed human cases of the new bird flu, H7N9, say they hadn't interacted with live birds before they got sick. A Chinese official said only about 40% of the patients had tenuous connections to live birds.
Of almost 50,000 samples from poultry markets, only 39 have tested positive for the virus — a very low number according to The New York Times. They also noted that no pigs have tested positive for the virus.
It could come from birds, or from other animals, or some other environmental source, Time reports.
Will it spread between people?
There are even hints that the virus could spread from person to person, but it doesn't seem to do it all that well yet. According to the New York Times, there are four possible instances of H7N9
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Who keeps the “Bring out your dead” Ping List.
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
Me.
We did that fear once already, it was boring.
Please add me to your Bringing out the Dead ping list.
Ping
Done. Welcome aboard.
See post # 4
Sleepy kiteh.
Yeah. Very. lol
Typically, influenza has about a two week incubation period, which results in the epidemic coming in deceptive “waves”.
As an idealized example, “patient zero” lives in a small, rural town. By the time he shows his first symptoms, he has already directly and indirectly infected perhaps a dozen people. And the two week clock begins for them when they are infected, so there is a pause. This is “iteration one”.
During this pause, they are infecting much of the rest of the town, and the people they infect are “iteration two.”
By the time the first iteration group are beginning to show systems, the disease has likely already spread to neighboring towns.
By the time the town is recognized as “town zero”, the disease has spread throughout their region, and is on the gateway to becoming national, then international.
And it is all interspersed with pauses. If the regional or national government responds quickly, establishing a quarantine around the town, it *appears* that they have stopped the spread, but it is already far beyond their quarantine line.
Ping... (Thanks, blam and nully!
Thanks for the ping!
You’re Welcome, Alamo-Girl!
Ditto.
They live with their animals.
Such is the problem of public health officials.
No matter what we try to predict--whether it's earthquakes, volcanoes, or the next highly lethal and contagious pandemic--we're stuck with the reality that we simply cannot see the future.
As pandemics go, the 2009 one was only slightly more deadly than seasonal flu, which kills tens of thousands of people in the US every year. So it was seen as not very serious.
This flu, H7N9, is far more deadly. But it does not seem to be contagious. The other avian flu, H5N1, is even more deadly but also not contagious. We don't know if those would remain as deadly if they became contagious.
Meanwhile, we're doing our best. It's difficult. As 1918 showed us, pandemics can be devastating. At least we got SARS right, and stopped the deadly disease before it spread very far.
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