H5N1, the next flu pandemic?

[admin]

It could kill a billion people worldwide, make ghost towns out of parts of major cities, and there is not enough medicine to fight it. It is called the Avian Flu (H5N1)... Is anyone else concerned?

[red]

Well Admin,
The other day in the paper they said they basically have no fear of the "bird flu" being found in Missouri. This was BIG WIGS out of I believe Jeff City. Their consensus was how was it going to travel across the ocean and infect domesticated fowl in this area. They also stated it was connected with "open air" markets like alot of poorer nations have.

They seem to be trying to disassociate the Moark situation from the Avian Flu....I wonder why???

I have a huge concern about this one...they have linked what it would do to civilization to what the pandemic event in the early 1900's did to the world!

[red]

Already showing signs of resistance to the drugs........



By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent 2 hours, 3 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The feared avian influenza virus is showing signs it can evade the drug considered the first line of defense against bird flu, researchers said on Friday.
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They found so-called resistant strains in a Vietnamese girl who recovered from a bird flu infection after being treated with Tamiflu. They also found evidence she was directly infected by her brother and not by chickens, a rare case of human-to-human transmission of the virus.

When bacteria and viruses develop resistance to a drug, it means higher doses of the drug are needed to eradicate or control an infection. Ultimately it means the drug will stop working.

This has happened with many antibiotics, starting with penicillin, and is common among
AIDS drugs.

The finding illustrates the need to find and use other drugs to treat influenza and to work quickly to develop a vaccine, the researchers said.

"I don't think we need to panic based on this finding," Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

But the report, to be published in the journal Nature next week, is bad news for doctors around the world who already have precious little in the arsenal against bird flu should it become a human disease.

"This is the first line of defense," Kawaoka said. "It is the drug many countries are stockpiling, and the plan is to rely heavily on it."

The H5N1 strain of avian influenza is considered by health experts to be the biggest single disease threat to the world. Since surfacing in Hong Kong in 1997, it has spread in flocks of poultry across Asia and is now in Turkey.

It does not yet move easily from birds to humans but it has infected 117 people in four Asian countries and has killed 60 of them, according to the
World Health Organization.

WHO believes it will eventually acquire the ability to move easily from human to human and that when it does, it will cause a pandemic that will sweep the world in weeks or months and kill millions if not tens of millions of people.

STOCKPILING SUPPLIES

Countries are stockpiling supplies of Tamiflu, an antiviral drug known generically as oseltamivir invented by Gilead Sciences and made and marketed by Swiss drug giant Roche Holdings.

They are to a lesser degree buying up supplies of Relenza, developed by Australia's Biota Holdings and marketed by GlaxoSmithKline. Known generically as zanamivir, this drug is also effective against avian flu but is given via the nose and considered less desirable than a pill like Tamiflu.

An older flu drug called amantadine is already considered to be of little use against H5N1 avian influenza. Work is proceeding on a vaccine but flu vaccines take months to make and cannot be formulated until after an epidemic has begun because they must use the precise strain of virus circulating.

Kawaoka, who is also at the University of Tokyo, worked with colleagues in Japan and Vietnam to analyze samples of virus taken from a 14-year-old Vietnamese girl, called "patient 1," who recovered from an H5N1 infection last March.

"Patient 1 had not had any known direct contact with poultry, but had cared for her 21-year-old brother (patient 2) while he had a documented H5N1 virus infection," Kawaoka and colleagues wrote in their report,

She had been given Tamiflu three days before she became ill, and then was treated with the drug when it failed to prevent her infection.

Kawaoka's team found several types of H5N1 virus in the girl's sample, some of which had developed genetic mutations to make Tamiflu virtually worthless against it.

"It is a mixture," he said. "Within the mixture we found virus that is highly, highly resistant. When you look at the virus as a whole, it is partially resistant," Kawaoka said.

"I think what is important here is that the vast majority of H5N1 viruses are still very sensitive to oseltamivir," Kawaoka said.

"Although our findings are based on a virus from only a single patient, they raise the possibility that it might be useful to stockpile zanamivir as well as oseltamivir in the event of an H5N1 influenza pandemic," the researchers wrote.

And it will be important to test the virus regularly to see if it is changing and becoming resistant to drugs, they said.

[red]

Reported the spread of this virus to Turkey & possibly Romania then I found this info a short time later.....................



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BREAKING NEWS
E.U. to aid Romania, Turkey on bird flu

Brussels (dpa) - European Union governments remained on full alert on Friday following the discovery of bird flu in neighbouring Turkey and Romania.

The European Commission rushed veterinary experts to both countries and E.U. foreign ministers are to meet next week to discuss plans for a global fund to help other countries hit by the disease.

As top E.U. veterinary experts continued day-long emergency talks in Brussels, the commission said it was responding to requests for help from Romania and Turkey.

"We have offered all assistance possible," said European Commission spokesman Philip Tod.

Tod confirmed that further tests on samples from Romania to confirm the presence of the H5N1 virus - which can be transmitted to humans - had been delayed due to customs procedures which apply to the transport of "dangerous materials".

The samples are now expected to arrive at the E.U. reference laboratory in Britain on Friday with results expected by Saturday afternoon.

E.U. assistance had also been requested by Bulgaria, which fears contamination from neighbouring Turkey and Romania, and experts will be dispatched there, Tod said.

Meanwhile, a meeting of E.U. foreign ministers in Luxembourg on October 18 will study plans to set up an international fund to help countries in south-east Asia which have been grappling with bird flu for several months.

"There will be a discussion on international coordination," said Tod.

Meanwhile, E.U. veterinary experts met Friday to discuss precautionary action to prevent the spread of bird flu to the 25- nation bloc.

The meeting was called in the wake of the discovery earlier this week of an outbreak of bird flu in a backyard farm in Romania and confirmation that the H5N1 virus strain had been found in Turkey.

Officials said E.U. vets would approve commission proposals on preventive measures, including a requirement that E.U. members reduce the risk of contact between wild birds and poultry flocks in high risk areas such as wetlands or other areas frequented by migratory birds.

"Each member state will define which areas are at risk and apply the necessary measures to separate wild birds from poultry," the proposal read, adding that where necessary, this could include keeping poultry indoors in high risk areas.

The commission said it was not recommending a ban on hunting but people were asked to advise authorities if they discovered any wild birds which appeared to have died under "abnormal conditions".

The E.U. executive said it must be informed on the way that national governments apply the preventive measures.

Scientists fear the bird flu virus could mutate and lead to a human pandemic. The H5N1 strain does not easily infect humans, but 117 people in Asia, mostly poultry farmers, have caught it over the past two years.

E.U. Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou has proposed to set aside one billion euros (1.2 billion dollars) to help make and distribute anti-viral drugs and vaccines in case of a pandemic.

Kyprianou is also suggesting that governments start stock-piling anti-virals, saying they are the best defence against such a pandemic.

[Tincan]

The Avian flu should not be taken lightly. Initially, the virus, is only viable in the bird population. The virus must mutate 10 times before it can actually use a human as a host. This virus has already accomplished that as it has been discovered in Vietnam and Thailand humans. It is only a matter of time before it reaches other countries and it may prove quite tragic for underdeveloped nations, the weak elderly and children. There are no antibiotics or medications to kill a virus.

[Scutter]

Trust the fact that it will hit us much harder than it does the third world countries Tincan. Over the last eighty years we have taken so much of the common bacteria out of our food supply that most Americans are not able to resist even the simple types present in most of the world's food and water.

[red]

along with this thread. Another article today on Yahoo news.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051017/ap_on_re_eu/bird_flu_26

[red]

well they found birdflu in a turkey in Greece now.......

1 hour, 1 minute ago

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece said on Monday it had detected one turkey with birdflu on the eastern Aegean island of Chios, becoming the first EU country where the virus has spread to.
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"The Center for Veterinary Institutes has informed us that one of nine poultry samples has tested positive to birdflu (H5) antibodies," the agriculture ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said the turkey came from a small private poultry farm of about 20 turkeys on the tiny island of Inousses off Chios which belongs to the Chios prefecture.

It said it was running further tests to "to verify the correctness of the analysis."

Government officials said there was no need to cull any of the other birds.

"There has been no order for the culling of birds in the area," a high-level government official told Reuters.

"It was a small farm with about 20 turkeys. But any transport of birds, people, vehicles and eggs has been forbidden."

"The final confirmation will be made by the special laboratory in Thessaloniki (northern Greece) where special tests will take place."

The official said the government's emergency response plan had been activated.

Neighbouring Turkey, only a few miles off Chios, has also detected cases of birdflu as well as Romania, both of which have culled thousands of birds in the past days.

[DWin60610]

the "big wigs" must have never heard of transoceanic air travel. within 18 hours i can go from hongkong to chicago to springfield. must not have heard of migratory birds either because this is already being reported in southeast europe. and from there it is only 12 hours by plane to springfield.

the NYTimes published excerpts of the Bush plan (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/weekinreview/16harris.html) to deal with the pandemic in last sunday's edition. excerpt below....

Act I: Illness Strikes a Village

In April of the current year, an outbreak of severe respiratory illness is identified in a small village in a country known to have experienced recent avian influenza disease. At least 25 cases have occurred, affecting all age groups. Several household clusters with infection of multiple family members are identified. Twenty patients have required hospitalization at the local provincial hospital, five of whom have died....

Specimens collected from several patients are sent to the World Health Organization ... and the Centers for Disease Control. C.D.C. determines that the isolates are of the avian subtype ... but that the viral genome had undergone changes consistent with an increased ability to spread between people.

The novel influenza virus begins to make headlines in every major newspaper and becomes the lead story on major news networks. Key United States government officials are briefed on a daily basis and surveillance is intensified throughout many countries....

The National Institutes of Health studies whether a vaccine developed against the avian viral strains provides some protection against the pandemic virus; and influenza manufacturers are placed on alert. Laboratory studies suggest that the vaccine developed previously for the avian strain will only provide partial protection against the new virus.

Over the next weeks, the W.H.O., with assistance from the United States and other governments, attempts to contain the outbreak but new cases continue to occur and to spread to neighboring countries.... Cases are reported in all age groups and case-fatality rates range from 2 percent to 15 percent, depending on the quality of medical care provided. Travel restrictions... are implemented at borders and quarantine stations.

Act II: An Airport in America

In late June, the C.D.C. reports that the virus has been isolated from ill airline passengers arriving in four major United States cities.... Vaccine manufacturers are requested to shift vaccine production from annual to pandemic vaccine.

In July, small focal outbreaks begin to be reported throughout the United States. The first doses of a new pandemic vaccine become available in September. Despite full-scale production by manufacturers, supply remains very limited.... Community-wide outbreaks begin to occur more frequently as children return to school, and by late August, outbreaks are occurring simultaneously throughout the country....

Overall, about 2 percent of Americans with influenza illness die. In communities during the peak weeks of ... outbreaks, about a quarter of workers are absent because of illness, the need to care for ill relatives and fear of becoming infected.

Hospitals are overwhelmed and staff shortages limit capacity. Intensive care units at local hospitals are unable to provide care for all who need it, and there are shortages of mechanical ventilators for treatment of patients with severe pneumonia. Makeshift hospitals established in schools and armories care for those who are unable to be treated in regular hospitals....

Act III: The Pandemic Rages

During the peak of disease activity in the community, police, fire and transportation services are limited by personnel shortages, and absenteeism at utility companies leads to spot power outages. Supplies of food, fuel and medical supplies are disrupted as truck drivers become ill or stay home from work.

In some areas, grocery store shelves are empty and social unrest occurs. Long lines form where food and gasoline are available. Elderly patients with chronic, unstable medical conditions hesitate to leave their homes for fear of becoming seriously ill with influenza.

Riots occur at some vaccination clinics as people are turned away or supplies run out. Several trucks transporting vaccine are hijacked, and a gray market develops for vaccine and antiviral drugs - many of which are counterfeit.

Pig herds acquire infection with the pandemic virus and are decimated; large numbers of workers in those settings become ill.

Family members are distraught and outraged when loved ones die within a matter of a few days. Public anxiety heightens mistrust of government, diminishing compliance with public health advisories. "Worried well" seek medical care despite their absence of influenza illness, further burdening the health care system.

Mortuaries and funeral homes are overwhelmed.

Epilogue

The peak of cases occurs in mid-October. By early December, virtually all communities have experienced outbreaks and sporadic cases continue to occur. A second influenza disease wave begins in later January and peaks about a month later.

Although vaccine production and vaccination have been ongoing between disease waves, the majority of people still have not been vaccinated at the time of the second wave, and antiviral drugs, for which stockpiles were exhausted during the first wave of disease, are available in very limited quantities.

[hardrockers]

I was told that Peterson Farms has had an oubreak of some kind of that affects the lungs and are having to destroy a lot of their birds. Has anyone else heard anything? We would be the last to know.

[red]

Go to Agriculture and then to Moark spreading manure.....page 2. One of the diseases carried that affects the lungs is Histoplasmosis ....check out on the net what it can do to you. Many people in this area have been affected by it but aren't even aware they have it.....flu like symptoms with chest congestion....then others have massive problems! Read up then post your opinion!

[hardrockers]

Cancer and ecoli. Was a USDA insp. far too long, not to know what goes down those lines and has to pass inspection. I believe there are 27 strains of ecoli bacteria that can affect a person. Hubby came down with it and extensive lab tests showed it came from chicken litter infested water. Water was from a well in Arkansas.
8 weeks he was down and about died. The specialist told us most of the cases were from the Bella Vista area.

[Scutter]

It is really time for our County Commission to something more than put out bridge contracts. Since it is pretty obvious that we are going to end up with a major concentration of birds in this county, it is time for the Commission to come up with a meaningful plan to combat any epidemic that may occur here, I am talking everything from stockpiling anti-virals by the Health Department, to gidelines on giving the medication, lists of backup EMT's, medical personnel, police and mortuary workers. designation of overflow treatment buildings and procurement of equipment to run those stations, designation of overflow morgues, quarantine guidelines and personnel designated to enforce the quarantines, The County needs to stockpile fuel reserves and generators and have a plan in place and enough trained personnel available on call to keep the County's water and sewer services functioning as that will be vital at the time. When, not if, we get hit with this thing, we will not be able to count on any outside help so we had better be ready to handle it by ourselves and the time to start working on a plan to do that yesterday. This sounds a lot like the old Civil Defense and it really is and it requires a lot of volunteers to learn critical functions and be willing to serve should that disaster befall us.

[DWin60610]

maybe there is a plan to develop a plan (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9896500/) to fight the spread of bird flu once it reaches the us?

[admin]

An interesting post from the Joplin Globe website (http://www.joplinglobe.com/)...


Vaccination clinic tests officials' readiness - Clinic serves as training for mass inoculations

Wally Kennedy - Globe Staff Writer - 11/2/05

NEOSHO, Mo. - Howard and Sylvia Kimbrough wasted little time Tuesday morning making a beeline for Neosho from their home in Diamond.

"My doctor did not have the flu shot," Sylvia Kimbrough said. "We thought we should get it when you could still get it."

The Kimbroughs - she is 75, and he is 83 - know that they are among the most vulnerable to complications from the flu. It's a risk they are willing to drive miles to avoid.

"It was a little drive to get here, but it was the only place that was close to us," Howard Kimbrough said.

Because of their ages, a nurse walked to the Kimbroughs' car to give them their shots. After filling out some papers and rolling up their sleeves, they soon were back on the road to their home.

The Kimbroughs were among several hundred people who received flu shots Tuesday at a vaccination clinic for residents of Newton County. What the Kimbroughs did not know is that they were participating in a test that county officials hope will never be needed in real life.

The clinic also served as a test of the county's ability to respond in the event a mass inoculation might be needed in response to a global influenza outbreak, the kind that President Bush on Tuesday warned might emerge from the bird flu that is circulating in Asia and Eastern Europe.

"This is a test of our emergency-response plan for a bioterrorism event, such as smallpox or anthrax," said Bob Kulp, director of the Newton County Health Department. "But, it could be a pandemic flu that we are really getting ready for. They don't have a vaccine for the bird flu yet, but when they do, we'll be ready to do it.

"If that happens, we must be able to vaccinate everybody in Newton County. This will be our mechanism to do that."

Instead of staging the clinic at the health department building in Neosho, where traffic flow might be a problem, the county staged the clinic at Calvary Church of Neosho, which is near Highway 60 on the south side of town. The church has a large parking lot with entry and exit points, and a large foyer where those to be vaccinated can wait inside if the weather is inclement. About 50 volunteers, representing every emergency-response group in the county, participated in the exercise.

Kulp said two things became apparent during Tuesday's clinic.

"We need more orange safety vests for the volunteers, and we need more road signage to control the flow of traffic," he said.

If the bird flu became a real threat to humans by mutating into a virus that can be transmitted from person to person, the county likely would have more than one mass-dispensing site for bird-flu vaccinations if enough volunteers were available, Kulp said.

Another possible response to an immediate threat could be busing people from across the county to one central site, he said. That approach would require cooperation from the county's school districts in that school buses most likely would be used.

Tuesday's clinic in Neosho is the second to be staged in the area within the past year or so. A two-day clinic last winter at the John Q. Hammons Trade Center in Joplin vaccinated 4,500 people.

Dan Pekarek, director of the Joplin Health Department, said the exercise provided valuable information on how to organize a mass inoculation.

"We had a whole host of partners for that, including volunteers from the hospitals and nursing programs," he said. "We were really happy with the results of that. All of partners played well together."

Pekarek said an outbreak of a deadly flu virus is more likely to happen in Southwest Missouri than a bioterrorism event, "but a pandemic flu would be much harder to contain. That's what we are most concerned about, and that's why emergency-preparedness training is so important."

[Scutter]

Yeah right, I am sure that if this area got hit, the majority of our citizens could get out of their sickbeds and into their automobiles and drive to a central distribution point. We need planning on a far deeper level than this and it is high time we started the process.

[admin]

Eventually there WILL be a pandemic of some sort... Maybe not H5N1, but without a doubt something will kill millions in the very near future.

[kay9_medic]

Older article but just as relevant today
------------------------------------------------

Bush's risky flu pandemic plan
By George J. Annas | October 8, 2005

Whenever world is not to his liking, President Bush has a tendency to turn to the military to make it better. The most prominent example is the country's response to 9/11, complete with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. After Hurricane Katrina, Bush belatedly called on the military to assist in securing New Orleans, and has since suggested that Congress should consider empowering the military to be the ''first responders" in any national disaster.

On Tuesday, the president suggested that the United States should confront the risk of a bird flu pandemic by giving him the power to use the US military to quarantine ''part[s] of the country" experiencing an ''outbreak." So we have moved quickly in the past month, at least metaphorically, from the global war on terror to a proposed war on hurricanes, to a proposed war on the bird flu.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/10/08/bushs_risky_flu_pandemic_plan/

[Scutter]

It sounds more like a war on his people and a way to insure he stays in office as "President for Life." Funny the last "President for Life" I knew personally didn't last in that office for long.

[admin]

From the Joplin Globe website...


Emergency workers simulate avian flu outbreak

By Linda Greer - Globe Staff Writer

NEOSHO, Mo. — Bob Kahler has been raising birds since the 1950s, and remembers even some 40 years ago hearing about avian flu.

Now he raises poultry near Neosho and believes that “TV talk” has a lot of people in a panic over something that’s been around for a long time.

“It’s been around for years. It’s just been called by different names,” Kahler said.

But area emergency-management and poultry specialists continue to look for ways to keep farmers prepared. The latest training session was scheduled in Newton County where 60 emergency-services and poultry-industry representatives held a mock drill, pretending that a 4-H family bought chickens in Wheaton, Mo., that were infected with high pathogenic avian influenza.

“The whole idea is to bring all these people together to talk through what would be done,” said Gary Roark, Newton County Emergency Management director.

Health, law-enforcement, and emergency-management officials were among those who participated in the eight-hour exercise at Crowder College in Neosho.

Speakers included doctors Shane Brookshire, Missouri Department of Agriculture state veterinarian, Daniel Shaw, University of Missouri anatomic pathology professor, and Howard Pue, Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Bret Rings, senior veterinarian with Tyson Foods, presented a poultry- industry review and an economic impact of an outbreak.

Producers’ preparations

Calling it one of the country’s best-controlled industries, Roark said poultry producers have been prepared for a disaster for years.

“They know this could wipe them out,” said Roark.

One of Tyson’s 6,500 growers, Ray Dean Rowe who has raised chickens in Crane and Mount Vernon for 13 years, said, “The only concern I have is people panicking. The disease has never infected in-house birds.”

Libby Lawson, Tyson public-relations representative in Springdale, Ark., said in an interview Thursday: “Avian influenza is not a new issue for the poultry industry. It’s been around for a long time, and we’ve successfully dealt with it on numerous occasions in the past.”

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, highly pathogenic strains of avian influenza have been detected three times in the United States: In 1924, an outbreak on the East Coast was eradicated in live-bird markets. In 1983 to 1984 an outbreak resulted in the destruction of 17 million birds in northeastern states. In 2004, the USDA confirmed an outbreak in the South in one flock, which was eradicated.

Lawson said one of Tyson’s primary lines of defense is biosecurity, or making certain the potential exposure to birds is minimized. Traffic is also limited to and from the farm, grow-out houses and any other potential exposure away from the farm.

“Obviously, since the birds are raised in a controlled environment, their potential exposure from wild birds is limited,” said Lawson. “With the recent attention to H5N1 avian influenza, we have further enhanced biosecurity measures and grower communication to ensure that effective biosecurity measures are be practiced.”

Tyson Foods implemented 100 percent flock testing for avian influenza in January, running 60,000 tests a month. If tests indicate any presence of H5 or H7 influenza, the affected farm will be isolated and flocks will be destroyed, according to Tyson reports.

Since three dead swans tested positive for bird flu in the Czech Republic in March, the government there began assisting poultry producers because of lost revenue caused by the public’s fear of eating contaminated poultry and eggs. Preliminary tests on one swan found 80 miles south of Prague showed the bird had the strain of flu which can be lethal to humans.

On April 5, German officials ordered 15,000 chickens and turkeys slaughtered on a Leipzig poultry farm after several birds died. It was not determined if the disease detected in the dead birds was the highly pathogenic form of H5N1.







Potential

for infection

A statement on Tyson Foods Web site reads: “The poultry industry’s current biosecurity and testing programs make the likelihood of an avian influenza infected chicken getting into commerce extraordinarily low. Even in the unlikely event that were to occur, according to the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control, proper handling and normal cooking kills the influenza virus.”

[Scutter]

The pandemic is coming and eventually we will get hit by one. It really doesn't matter if it is avian flu or ebola but it will eventually reach us. The key is to have local resources in place and not to even consider the possibility of outside help. In reality, pulmonary infections are the most lethal and the most difficult to treat so local labratories and compounding pharmacies have to be a primary part of any local plan along with forced quarantine and a set in concrete chain of command on the local level.

[kay9_medic]

Critics from government and public health organizations are warning that the new federal pandemic response plan is fatally underfunded.

By shifting responsibility to state and local governments while providing little money to fulfill those responsibilities, the federal government has created "the mother of all unfunded mandates," according to Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

"I am very concerned about the preparedness efforts because of a dramatic disconnect between what they put on paper to be done compared to resources actually made available to do them," Redlener said.

Washington State Secretary of Health Mary Selecky echoed the concern: "They gave us a list of work that they expect us to do, but they've only given us a little bit of one-time money. We need a sustained effort." (See our post on funding in Washington state.)

The Democratic Senator from New York, Charles Schumer, said: "This is an international problem that calls for a federal response — pawning it off on the state and local governments is not a solution."

The plan provides valuable guidance, said Jeffrey Levi of Trust for America's Health, but "the critical piece that is missing is how we will pay for implementation of these plans when a pandemic hits."

"We have made incredible progress," said Dr. Michael Osterholm of CIDRAP. "The one area that I continue to worry about in a very real way is the lack of resources. Planning for pandemic influenza at the local, state and federal level is not cheap." He added that the government must be involved with private-sector continuity of operations planning. "We need federal coordination around that," he said.

The root of the problem is an historic lack of funding for public health in the U.S. according to Dr. Redlener: "We’re about to face the consequences of a health-care system that’s in essence been neglected and allowed to degrade over time. Now it’s too fragile to handle what could be an overwhelming emergency. The prospect of a pandemic should be putting us into high gear in terms of trying to fix the health-care system even before we get a pandemic."

In addition, Redlener says, we must face the question of who is going to pay for private-sector preparedness: "This is a public-health issue. Will the public get caught in middle between the private sector and the government in terms of fulfilling the pandemic flu agenda? We don’t want this to be a ping-pong match on who pays for it."

--------------------------------------------------

You can bet that we'll be on our own. Fed won't be answering the phones.

Interesting item here though. Dick Cheney made $5 mil on a stock sale recently. Seems he owns stock in the company that makes Tamiflu and that company stock has gone through the roof over the last year.

[kay9_medic]

New developments:

The good news - there has been no evidence of the spread of Avian flu along migratory bird routes as was expected this year. There is no evidence that the flu, in it's present form, can spread from human to human contact.

The bad news - Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aJV0jtu5bMiY&refer=top_world_news) is reporting that "The World Health Organization sent two officials to Indonesia's North Sumatra province to investigate the largest cluster of human bird flu cases, as a government official said sick animals may have been involved."

"Ten of 11 pigs in the district where the infected people lived were found to have avian flu antibodies in their blood, Apriantono told reporters in Jakarta today."

This is a new angle. Pigs have both bird-like receptors and human-like receptors. If a pig is simultaneously infected with a human and a bird flu, the pig can get all the flu genes (8 from human, 8 from bird) and them mix them in the process of creating a daughter flu virus. That way, a Human H3N2 and a bird H5N1 can become an H3N1 with characteristics of both parents. The pig is the mixing vessel in this example.

Also, cats can get it.

All I can say to that is, washing your hands can save your life. It's enough to make me want to wear gloves whenever I leave the house. Howard Hughes wasn't as crazy as some people say.

[kay9_medic]

Originally posted by Scutter
The key is to have local resources in place and not to even consider the possibility of outside help.

Wanted to highlight that statement. Although Avian influenza is a low probability, high risk scenario, any kind of disaster can strike at any time. We live in a "just-in-time" supply economy where holding stockpiles of consumables just doesn't happen - a breakdown at any point in the chain literally breaks the chain. We can't expect outside help - the first responders, and probably the second, fifth and last responders, are our neighbors - emergency services within the county - and there is a limit to what they can do. It really comes down to each individual being as prepared as possible, and then some. Your neighbor's first responder might be you.

[Scutter]

Back in the Cold War days we had a very active and well trained Civil Defense Corps. Here in Neosho it was well organized, well led and well funded. The only thing was, there was always the nagging doubt that if the big one came, the volunteers would opt to head home to their families rather than to stand their post. I suspect that our mettle will be tested at some point in the near future, if not avian flu then it will be some other disaster and, as I have seen many times in the past, it will not be the organized services who come to the rescue, but rather the common Joe down the street who steps in and does what he can.