bird flu?

[Pirate Pete]

how worried are you?

it appears very dangerous on the news, but i wonder how much of this is hype?

think i better start finding more info about it

Pete

edit:the news chaps are saying its not if it mutates to human form, but when (same thing as terrorist attack in britain and global warming i believe)

[schmunk]

As I am neither old nor infirm, I feel very little worry...

[Beck]

I'm not sure if it has been 100% proven that it can be transmitted from human to human. When this has been proven i'l be very worried.

[Howard]

LOL BIRDS



Edit: What's Bird Flu?

[Beck]

You honestly telling me you haven't heard about it?
It's affecting South Asia alot.
:edit:Look what happened with SARS.

[Dickie]

Make your mind up...

TBH I reckon it's just another case of the media hyping it up to be another bringer of the apocalypse/death/bad things(tm).

like when they decide that oxygen or something causes cancer and that we should use as little as possible...

[Pirate Pete]

virus thats currently infecting birds in vietnam (or mabye just being carried by them like the bubonic plague, need to do some research) is what bird flu is

its fatal, when it attacks a human.

it hasnt mutated to infect humans but in my first post i have edited to say that it is not if but when according to the news (bbc)

mabye a hexus doctor could help us out on this one?

Pete

[midzt]

I'm quite worried about it as I think that if we have it, it means we can't eat chicken. I'm gonna starve!! Thats pretty much all I eat!

[Beck]

virus thats currently infecting birds in vietnam (or mabye just being carried by them like the bubonic plague, need to do some research) is what bird flu is

its fatal, when it attacks a human.

it hasnt mutated to infect humans but in my first post i have edited to say that it is not if but when according to the news (bbc)

mabye a hexus doctor could help us out on this one?

Pete

Some people has been saying it has. That might be why humans are catching it now. And its further afield than Vietnam.

[M@rco]

Seems quite worrying, but to be honest im not sure, i think the news may be hyping it all up a little bit.

[Flash]

its that fear thing again

[shiato storm]

well, its been around for some time but no one's stepping up to claim responsibility...governments being pretty useless, until it starts killing loads of people off!
to be honest its probably more media hype than anything, it hits the sick, eldely and young from what I can guess.

[Elmo]

Tbh, bird flu as been about for yonks, it's just now that it's come out to the forefront of the news cos a few people (ok, quite a few) have died from it.

There was a virology conference in texus over the weekend of all the top notch profs in the biz and i think this is where it's all sprung from. (my mum works for one of said top notch profs). It's Scaremongering, that's all. However, it is a serious disease, dont get me wrong.

Oh yes, and pete, it IS mutated. It was is a strain of avian flu that has mutated with the human flu to give a "super" flu which has accentuated and fatal symptoms.

Also, viri cannot be cured with anti biotics. Anti-virals do NOT *KILL* the virus, they simply reduce the symptoms. Vaccines are dead or inactivated viri which the body builds up t-cells (or is it b-cells... one or the other) against and so find it easier to attack the viri should they attack again. However, like the flu vaccine, this doesnt mean that you WONT cath the virus or suffer from it, you may still suffer from the virus, however it wont be as serious as it would be had you not had the vaccine as your body wouldnt have been as prepared for it.

P.S. I've not actually totally ready any of the posts, just skimmed quickly over them, so i dunno if i'm repeating or saying stuff that isnt needed or what not, but it's useful knowledge to have

[ajbrun]

I'm not scared because I've not heard much about it. I'm guessing it'll be like mad cow disease where only a few people died.

[Skii]

Nope. Still waiting for the SARS attack tbh.

Latest big story designed to sell newspapers and TV Airtime. There a a million lethal viruses out there that are a hairs breadth from wiping the world out, but one year from now well no doubt face a new threat from Hedgehog mumps or squirrel shingles.

Yawn.

[nichomach]

The strain that everyone appears concerned about is H5N1 which, according to the World Health Organization

...mutates rapidly and has a documented propensity to acquire genes from viruses infecting other animal species. Its ability to cause severe disease in humans has now been documented on two occasions. In addition, laboratory studies have demonstrated that isolates from this virus have a high pathogenicity and can cause severe disease in humans...The epidemic of highly pathogenic avian influenza caused by H5N1, which began in mid-December 2003 in the Republic of Korea and is now being seen in other Asian countries, is therefore of particular public health concern. H5N1 variants demonstrated a capacity to directly infect humans in 1997, and have done so again in Viet Nam in January 2004. The spread of infection in birds increases the opportunities for direct infection of humans. If more humans become infected over time, the likelihood also increases that humans, if concurrently infected with human and avian influenza strains, could serve as the “mixing vessel” for the emergence of a novel subtype with sufficient human genes to be easily transmitted from person to person. Such an event would mark the start of an influenza pandemic.

As I understand it, the problem is that H5N1 (like all type A flu viruses) mutates so bloody fast that it's impossible to come up with a vaccine for the strain that may cause a pandemic before it happens, so the government are doing the next best thing by laying in massive stocks of antivirals in advance, and getting ready to produce the vaccine when they isolate the strain at the centre of any pandemic.

Influenza viruses have a second characteristic of great public health concern: influenza A viruses, including subtypes from different species, can swap or “reassort” genetic materials and merge. This reassortment process, known as antigenic “shift”, results in a novel subtype different from both parent viruses. As populations will have no immunity to the new subtype, and as no existing vaccines can confer protection, antigenic shift has historically resulted in highly lethal pandemics.

WHO Avian Flu Page

Oh, and I'm "worried", but there isn't a lot to do about that at the moment.

Oh, and BTW, the reason that the SARS pandemic didn't happen was probably that Hong Kong wiped out its entire domestic bird stock, thus limiting any further exposure to infected birds.