Do you think that bird flew will pass like the mad cow desease or will it reach pandemic proportunes?
99572
Just a few months ago it was all "Oh no, Mad cow!!!" Now we barely hear anything about it on the news. I think this too will pass.
348526
You should definitely have power point pictures/transparencies or actual pictures of tons upon tons of the poultry that is being destroyed because of the possibility of infection, this image will really grab attention. You should discuss how many people have actually been affected and relate this to the number of people who die every day from things like cancer and heart disease to put this pandemonium in some perspective. You may want to discuss the possibility that even if we successfully treat affected people the virus could mutate and form a resistant type.
141270
Whatever ...\nBoth will now die due to the avian flu ..
640329
Well the acting was more than a little wooden. \n\n1) The movie makes two assumptions. First that the virus will acquire the ability to spread from human to human all at once and be watched when it happens. Nice to have a CDC type standing by to observe. Second the when this happens, that the viruse iwll keep much of its current lethality for humans. Right now it's killed about half of the people known to have been infected. \n\nNeither assumption has much grounding in reality since no one know qute how it will have to change to move on to humans. Useful for the script perhaps... \n\nBut, within its assumptions, the movie was pretty accurate. It did not pull a magical rabbit out a hat to cure the whole thing, nor did it claim (except at the end) that everyone will be infected or if infected will inevitably die. Patients were treated symptomatically, not with antibiotics, and Tamiflu was metnioned but not as a cure all. \n\n2) Government paralysis and bumbling is probably to be expected, especially if the variant flu arrives before the current US administration leaves office. It has a baseline assumption that the Federal Government is dangerous and should be deprived of both finances and authority. This has the usual effect on morale; understanding they are not supposed to be effective, employess don't go out of their way to be so. The absurdity of its response to the Katrina disaster is an example. Having each state and locality going off in its own direction is not a formula for efficient solution of an engineering problem (as in this case a clinical medical one).\n\nBut fundamentally, the inabiliy of the government to respond sensibly is perfectly correct. There will be panic and bad acting from some, including most likely qutie a few of the politicians, like the Vrigina governor in the movie. Until a vaccine can be developed, there isnothing which looks like it will be of much help. The drugs (Tamiflu, etc) aren't all that effective for regular human flu, and no one knows how effective they will be against a new human contagious variant of the current avian virus.\n\n3) Most flu viruses are quite contagious. This one certainly is within amongst the birds. If the virus learns how to do humans, it's only reasonable to assume that it will be, like the rest, quite contagious. In the people infected so far, the incubation period is atypically long, a bit more than 2 weeks. This means that people will be able to spread it before realizing they are sick. I think it's likely to spread quite well if it gets loose in humans. \n \n4) There is little reason to believe that this disease, even under worst case assumptions, will be unlike all others in human history. No disease kills everyone. The closest we have ever come is with diseases new to a population. Many Old World diseases were entirely new to the New World, and their effect on the New World population was devastating. Some estimates are that 80 - 90% of the entire New World poulation was lost to disease almost before there was conventional conflict between European colonista and the locals. The New World returned the favor, most likely with syphlis which is first recorded in Europe early in the 1500s. Yellow fever may have a New World origin as well though it has found a home away from home in equatorial Africa.  \n\nSo, I don't think it will be the end for humans if the current avian flu virus manages to become infectious in humans. Even if it retains its lethality. I do think that there will be many deaths until a vaccine is developed, or someone finds a drug which is effective, unlike any other anti-viral drug known. And still more deaths until enough vaccine is produced and gotten to all who need it.
285043
I have heard stories of killer bees being a huge threat, a huge flu season for the last three years, so I'm a little skeptical about this bird flu.\n\nThat being said having an emergency plan for any contingency is ALWAYS a good thing.  The old Boy Scout motto of being alway prepared comes to mind
409462
There is an opportunity of the virus spreading by fowl migrating from Siberia's Tyumen region to Alaska and mixing there with birds flying to Canada and to other parts of the United States.\nBird flu mutation is possible in the countries where the number of different viruses is high. This group includes the United States.\nThe virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu could reach the Americas in six to 12 months or even sooner as infected wild birds migrate toward the Arctic and Alaska, the U.N. bird flu chief said.
171228
Pigs can't fly.\n\nPeople are more concerned about birds that are migratory and can carry the disease form place to place.
461321
Yes...\n\nMy job requires looking at hundreds of avian influenza articles per week. It influences me as a form of torture.\n\nEventually, however, avian influenza will influence all of us. There is the possibility it will mutate into a form that infects upper respiratory tract cells, and thus spreads from person to person. The probability of that happening is undetermined. \n\nEven if that doesn't happen, avian influenza has had a profound affect upon the poultry industry of every country in which it has been found. The U.S. pountry industry (if you are in the U.S.) will be less affected than many other countries, because so many of our chicken's are raised indoors. Nevertheless, the U.S. pountry industry will have to undergo many regional culls. This will actually drive the price of poultry down, as we have seen in other countries, because people will be scared to buy chickens. The economic ripple effect will be felt by everyone, in one form or another.\n\nBut, we will survive. All chickens will be raised indoors, in time.\n\nThe U.S. might experience less regional outbreaks of avian influenza than other countries, because West Nile Virus has devastated local wild bird populations - meaning there is less of a vector for avian influenza to use. However, migratory bird populations, such as ducks, will still spread it to farms where chicken's and other poultry are exposed to the outdoors.
955891
What is END?\n\nEND is a contagious and fatal viral disease affecting all species of birds. END is probably one of the most infectious diseases of poultry in the world. END is so deadly that many birds die without showing any signs of disease. A death rate of almost 100 percent can occur in unvaccinated poultry flocks. Exotic Newcastle can infect and cause death even in vaccinated birds.\n\nWhat Are the Signs?\n\nEND affects the respiratory, nervous, and digestive systems. The incubation period for the disease ranges from 2 to 15 days. An infected bird may show the following signs:\n\nSneezing, gasping for air, nasal discharge, coughing; \nGreenish, watery diarrhea; \nDepression, muscular tremors, drooping wings, twisting of head and neck, circling, complete paralysis; \nPartial to complete drop in egg production; \nProduction of thin-shelled eggs; \nSwelling of the tissues around the eyes and in the neck; \nSudden death; \nIncreased death loss in a flock. \nHow Does END Spread?\n\nEND is spread mainly through direct contact between healthy birds and the bodily discharges of infected birds. The disease is transmitted through infected birds' droppings and secretions from the nose, mouth, and eyes. END spreads rapidly among birds kept in confinement, such as commercially raised chickens.\n\nHigh concentrations of the END virus are in birds' bodily discharges. Therefore, the disease can be spread easily by mechanical means. Virus-bearing material can be picked up on shoes and clothing and carried from an infected flock to a healthy one. The disease is often spread by vaccination and debeaking crews, manure haulers, rendering truck drivers, feed delivery personnel, poultry buyers, egg service people, and poultry farm owners and employees.\n\nThe END virus can survive for several weeks in a warm and humid environment on birds' feathers, manure, and other materials. It can survive indefinitely in frozen material. However, the virus is destroyed rapidly by dehydration and by the ultraviolet rays in sunlight.\n\nSmuggled pet birds, especially Amazon parrots from Latin America, pose a great risk of introducing exotic Newcastle into U.S. poultry flocks. Amazon parrots that are carriers of the disease but do not show symptoms are capable of shedding END virus for more than 400 days.\n\nWhat Can You Do to Prevent END?\n\nThe END virus can be picked up on shoes and clothing and moved from an area with sick birds to an area with healthy ones. Moving birds from one place to another can also spread diseases, especially because some birds can carry disease without looking sick. By making biosecurity a part of your daily routine, you can decrease the chance of END showing up in your birds.\n\nCall your veterinarian or local extension agent to examine all of your sick birds or birds that die suddenly, especially if you have been around other people’s birds or brought new birds home.\n\nEND is also a threat to pet birds. Birds that are illegally brought into the United States may spread the END virus because they are not quarantined and tested by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). All bird owners should take the following precautions to avoid a disease outbreak:\n\nAsk bird suppliers for copies of paperwork that proves their birds are imported into the United States legally or are from U.S. stock, were healthy before being shipped, and were transported in new or thoroughly disinfected containers. \nKeep records of all sales, shipments, and movements of birds. \nSeparate all newly purchased birds from older ones for at least 30 days. Examine the new bird, checking it for any sign of disease or illness before introducing it into your flock. \nTo help keep your birds healthy practice backyard biosecurity:\n\n1. Keep Your Distance.\n\n\nRestrict access to your property and your birds. Consider fencing off the area where you keep your birds and make a barrier area if possible. Allow only people who take care of your birds to come
129127
It could become a pandemic, although it's not as likely as the media tries to sell. The avian influeza virus could become infectious to humans, but it must exchange gentic material with the human influenza virus to do so. The Influenza virus mutates its surface epitopes about avery 9 months, give or take. That's why there's no cure for the common cold, you get abrand new one every year. That means the the avian flu virus must find a compatible human flu virus to merge, and with its high mutation rate, it's ot as likely as the media believes.
238089
at the rate that the bird population is falling without our killing them, we have to kill them to stop the spread.  If it spreads, there would be no more chicken or turkey dinners. :(
38619
The bird flu is of the type H5N1.  This refers to the protein structure of the virus.  The virus can currently pass from bird to bird and from bird to human.  Bird to human spread is difficult.  Close contact with infected birds is needed, which is why it has been mainly poultry workers who have been infected.\n\nThere is a very high mortality rate in humans who contract H5N1.  However once the virus has infected a human it is unable to spread human to human and is therefore contained.  The worry is that the virus is able to mutate to allow human to human spread.  Humans have no natural immunity to H5N1 so if the virus does mutate there would be a Pandemic.\n\nAuthorities are  now trying to contain the virus to prevent the spread in bird  populations.  If they are successful the virus will be unable  to mutate and unnable to jump  the species barrier.\n\nGood web resources are the WHO and CDC websites and also the UK's Health Protection Agency.
274567
It's an AVIAN flu virus. We already have it here (~10-15 BIRDS with it and maybe 1-2 people) and it's no big deal right now. IF it manages to acquire the ability for human to human transmission THEN we are all in big trouble. \n\nRight now I would only worry for people that go hunting or people that keep lots of birds. You can only get it from birds...
13027
There is no vaccine for it and low resistance. People who are weak will die more easily. It is not 100% fatal, just very severe.\nThe real danger may be that it could reduce the population of birds, both domestic and wild.  The damage to food production could be very bad.
832265
A transgenic virus carried by birds and the birds unaffected by it. You should be writing horror stories. Click the link below.
269690
As their lungs filled … the patients became short of breath and increasingly cyanotic. After gasping for several hours they became delirious and incontinent, and many died struggling to clear their airways of a blood-tinged froth that sometimes gushed from their nose and mouth. It was a dreadful business.\n\n--Isaac Starr, 3rd year medical student, University of Pennsylvania, 1918.\n\nAll the genes of all influenza viruses in the world are being maintained in aquatic birds, and periodically they transmit to other species... The 1918 viruses are still being maintained in the bird reservoir. So even though these viruses are very ancient, they still have the capacity to evolve, to acquire new genes, new hosts. The potential is still there for the catastrophe of 1918 to happen again.\n\n--Dr. Robert Webster, Influenza Expert, Present Day.\n\nThe pair of quotes presented above were used to begin and end a short essay I wrote many years ago on The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic. Isaac Starr's words offer powerful testimonial to the harsh lethality of a killer stain of influenza, and Dr. Robert Websters observation reminds us that it would be dangerous to regard the events of 1918 as an isolated slice of history that we can safely file away and forget. \n\nIn the early part of 1995, as I cast around in search of the disease that would ultimately prove to be the true villian of the science thriller I was planning to write, influenza was scarcely on the radar scope of anyone but virologists specializing in the field of emerging diseases. Because influenza exists in the human population in an ever-present but relatively benign form, changing just a little from year to year, we tend, quite mistakenly, to think we understand the nature of the threat that it presents. \nBird Flu cannot be eradicated, we must learn to live with it\nDespite the apparent "novelty" of a strain of bird flu that can sweep across the globe and kill not only the domesticated foul that carries the virus causing the pandemic, but also those humans unfortunate enough to get too close to the sick birds they tend, finding influenza in domesticated birds is not the least bit uncommon. \n\nThe natural reservoir for influenza virus is in fact the intestines of water fowl. In particular, ducks habor the virus, and suffer no ill effects from doing so. Because these migratory birds are always on the move, and because they shed virus in the waterways that they inhabit, influenza virus travels widely and is easily transmitted from bird to bird. Because of this, domesticated birds, like the turkey and the chicken, which cross paths with the virus, become infected and habor the potential to transmit the virus to humans (for example, virus secreted onto the surface of eggs could end up infecting egg handlers-- for this reason, if bird handlers notice any of the following symptons in their birds they should immediately notify Federal or State animal health officials: sudden death; lack of energy and appetite; decreased egg production; soft-shelled or misshapen eggs; swelling; purple discoloration; nasal discharge; coughing, sneezing; lack of coordination and diarrhea). \n\nOften an intermediate host, the pig, is involved in the cross-species transmission of influenza. When this happens, the result is referred to as Swine Flu. Even so, the source of the virus is generally aquatic birds. \n\nMost strains of bird flu do not cross species and end up infecting humans. However the H5N1 strain that has in the last decade been known to infect humans, and kill them in 5 out of every 10 cases, clearly has surmounted the first of two barriers that must be cleared before a bird flu pandemic can take hold in the human population. The second barrier will be surmounted when this strain acquires the ability to jump from one human to another. This may never happen, and hopefully will not. But based on the history of pandemic flu, it seems more likely that this is just a matter of time.
225340
Yes i am worried. people are GOING to die, if we don't take the proper precautions, i am going to Austria in may 2006, where the bird flu is, and i am really freaked out. Can anyone help me with this.