Bird Flu Pandemic - Page 3 - General running

Plodding Hippo

22/10/2005 at 23:09

and you all dont know aboutyour renal failure

Buney

22/10/2005 at 23:13

poor bloody birds !

the "bird flu pandemic" has killed about 60 people in Asia

60

not 60 million on a densely populated continent where people live in close proximity with livestock and have less of the health care resources of more industrialised countries

vaccine/antibiotic resistant flu will be a much more challenging pandemic a few years down the line

Buney

22/10/2005 at 23:15

more vulnerable ( elderley, unwell etc) will die as a result of cold, malnutrition and poverty this winter in uk than 60 from the bird flu pandemic

Plodding Hippo

22/10/2005 at 23:16

yes

Rowan Green

23/10/2005 at 14:58

It's not the bird flu that's the danger to people, it's if it mutates to pass from human to human. That's likely to happen at some point, could be next week, could be a couple of years. There's also no real way of knowing how bad it will be. Could be little worse than the flu bugs we get every year, or it could be the doomsday bug and wipe out most humans on the planet.

So there's no point panicking (won't do any good), but there's also no harm in being prepared.

Here (if I can get it to work...) is a link to the NHS guidelines. We are at phase 3 right now, possibly verging on phase 4, out of 6.

NHS Flu Pandemic Contingency Plan (pdf)

Burnt Out

24/10/2005 at 00:21

I blame the Dirty Digger. It sells his newspapers.

BO

jingle*jingle*jingle

24/10/2005 at 01:54

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.

If's, if is mutates, if it becomes easily catchable by us poor humans - not when.

We should all be dead now from CJD, salmonella (sp), asestoso (sp) etc etc.

It is all scare - mongering (so many sp's) The government should be spending money on real diseases that exist and not wasting money on sleeper contracts for something that may never exist.

(Sorry rant over I just get really annoyed over these things)

(also should apologise for spelling - so sorry)

jingle*jingle*jingle

24/10/2005 at 01:57

asestoso - possible asbestos (sorry)

jingle*jingle*jingle

24/10/2005 at 01:59

Also If's if it mutates

God - I'm rubbish at typing when I'm mad :-(

Suffolk Swede

24/10/2005 at 09:30

Only online at work so haven't managed to keep track of this until this morning, it's very interesting to see what people views on this are.

I would just like to point out to jog' (just out of interest not as a critisims) that in this country much research is carried out in acadmia and it is the universities and funding bodies that decide who and what gets funding.

However, if it is a serious disease of high containment (there is talk of making the human bird flu mutant cat 5!!)there are only govement facilities capable of carrying out this research.

What make me laugh most about all of this is i work somewhere where state of the art research is being carried out yet the building is falling apart around us. It is common to have power cuts and water leaks including in the cat 3 labs!!

Rant over, i'm sure we all get miffed by work at some point or other!!

Burnt Out

24/10/2005 at 11:49

jog,

Asbestosis I think. I agree that the government doesn't generally have its priorities right. I also suspect that half the reason for this is that we live in a democracy and the media get the public worked up about "news" rather than important issues.

The other half is that we don't like paying taxes.

BO

Rowan Green

24/10/2005 at 12:04

Most experts seem to agree it's 'when' not 'if'. Flu has a habit of creating a new cross-species mutant strain every now and again. No reason to think it will stop.

Even if you consider it to be an 'if' that's still no reason for the government not to spend money on it. Just think what would be the reaction if the next mutant turns out to be something really nasty and the government hadn't taken precautions they could have?

Of course a really nasty bug might solve a few problems by wiping out excess numbers of humans. The black death was bad news for a lot of people but brought prosperity for many of those that survived. But governments can't think like that *EG*

Waapster

24/10/2005 at 12:10

I'm with Rowan on this one. If it is a really remote possibility that has been whipped up into a scare by Murdoch, why are governments across the world buying up stocks of anti-virals?

The point of risk management is to address potential threats so that "if" they happen, we are prepared.

It is possible to occupy a position between complacency and outright panic. I hope that is what the government will do.

GGHT

24/10/2005 at 12:31

Buney exactly, what's 60 people in Asia?

More people probably get killed by lightning in a year, literally.

The best thing now is,
WE'VE GOT TO ASK BRUSSELS FOR PERMISSION TO REFUSE LIVESTOKC FROM INFECTED COUNTRIES.

Nice.

Ms Toria

24/10/2005 at 17:53

There's a book called Kiss Me While I Sleep (by Linda Howard, can't remember what genre it falls under) published a few years ago that covers the threat of avian flu & the possibility that the governments aren't doing enough plus any terrorists in labs may actually help the flu develop further. Only fiction though of course.

Buney

24/10/2005 at 22:29

did read somehwere this week the "12,000 will die of (common) 'flu this winter"

Ultracat

25/10/2005 at 08:25

Opening up the debate a bit, why do we have to transport birds thousands of miles in the first place. These birds are kept in very crowded conditions for days and half of them die on route.

I am all for banning importing wild birds because its cruel, and if it stops the spread of bird flu then even better.

There were two flu pendemics(?sp) last century, one in 1918 which killed more people than the first world war, and the other was in the 1950s, apparently these things tend to happen every 50 years or so.

I will worry when and if it mutants.

Rowan Green

26/10/2005 at 13:01

I agree Jane, though I think there'd have to be exceptions made for properly transported breeding stock for zoos (and maybe for some private collections).

Problem is, I think most of the deaths are the result of ilegal and/or badly controlled traid. You'd have to think about banning traid in pet birds too, and you'd still have some smuggling problem.

It also wouldn't help much with this problem. The only UK case was in Quarantine, and quarantine did what it was supposed to... Bird flu will probably arrive in Britain shortly via wild birds anyway. And the mutant if/when it happens could happen anywhere in world and then will spread via humans not birds.

Coops10

26/10/2005 at 13:06

Is a vaccine the only tweetment.....get it? Ahem, I'll get my coat.

Rowan Green

26/10/2005 at 13:42

Cheep cheep

(That's bird for boom boom)

PS: going back to the original post in this thread, are plumbers considered a priority catagory?

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