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Ready or Not, Bird Flu Is Coming to America
Officials Advise Stocking Up on Provisions -- and Warn That Infected Birds Cannot Be Prevented From Flying In
By BRIAN ROSS
March 13, 2006 - In a remarkable speech over the weekend, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recommended that Americans start storing canned tuna and powdered milk under their beds as the prospect of a deadly bird flu outbreak approaches the United States.
Ready or not, here it comes.
It is being spread much faster than first predicted from one wild flock of birds to another, an airborne delivery system that no government can stop.
"There's no way you can protect the United States by building a big cage around it and preventing wild birds from flying in and out," U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Michael Johanns said.
U.S. spy satellites are tracking the infected flocks, which started in Asia and are now heading north to Siberia and Alaska, where they will soon mingle with flocks from the North American flyways.
"What we're watching in real time is evolution," said Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. "And it's a biological process, and it is, by definition, unpredictable."
Industry Precautions
America's poultry farms could become ground zero as infected flocks fly over. The industry says it is prepared for quick action.
"All the birds involved in it would be destroyed, and the area would be isolated and quarantined," said Richard Lobb of the National Chicken Council. "It would very much [look] like a sort of military operation if it came to that."
Extraordinary precautions are already being taken at the huge chicken farms in Lancaster County, Pa., the site of the last great outbreak of a similar bird flu 20 years ago.
Other than the farmers, everyone there has to dress as if it were a visit to a hospital operating room.
"Back in 1983-1984, we had to kill 17 million birds at a cost of $60 million," said Dr. Sherrill Davison, a veterinary medicine expert at the University of Pennsylvania.
Can It Be Stopped?
Even on a model farm, ABC News saw a pond just outside the protected barns attracting wild geese.
It is the droppings of infected waterfowl that carry the virus.
The bird flu virus, to date, is still not easily transmitted to humans. There have been lots of dead birds on three continents, but so far fewer than 100 reported human deaths.
But should that change, the spread could be rapid.
ABC News has obtained a mathematical projection prepared by federal scientists based on an initial outbreak on an East Coast chicken farm in which humans are infected. Within three months, with no vaccine, almost half of the country would have the flu.
That, of course, is a worst-case scenario -- one that Lobb says the poultry industry is determined to prevent with an aggressive strategy to contain and destroy infected flocks and deny the virus the opportunity to mutate to a more dangerous form but one that experts say cannot be completely discounted.
The current bird flu strain has been around for at least 10 years and has taken surprising twists and turns -- not the least of which is that it's now showing up in cats in Europe, where officials are advising owners to bring their cats inside. It's advice that might soon have to be considered here.
Kagom said:So basically, it this going to be like monkey pox? Hehe, kidding. Honestly, I think we should prepare for the worst. Never hurts to just be a bit overprotective in such cases where a debilitating pandemic could kill off people.
I don't know. I was just spouting out crapdilloduck said:How?
I'm not afraid to admit to that.
theim said:People said the same thing about SARS. I predict a few limited outbreaks here and there but not the end-of-times global pandemic.
World 'due for a new pandemic'
13/02/2006 19:16 - (SA)
Johannesburg - The bird-flu virus outbreak was in line with historical precedent which showed the world was due for another pandemic, said the National Institute for Communicable Diseases on Monday.
"We are due for one (a pandemic)... if the periodicity holds," said the institute's director, Professor Barry Schoub in Johannesburg.
Since the 12th century, pandemics have occurred at a rate of about two or three every 100 years, he said.
The last pandemic was the Hong Kong flu of 1968 to 1969.
"It's a probability, but not a certainty," he said of the likelihood of the H5N1 virus spreading between humans.
The second cause for concern, Schoub said, was that the virus was established in the bird population and was a threat to humans.
For the H5N1 virus to cause the next pandemic, three factors were needed. The first two - the presence of the virus and for it to cross the species barrier - were already present.
Similarities with deadly Spanish flu
The third factor was efficient human-to-human transmission.
Schoub said there was little evidence of efficient transmission between humans.
A worrying factor, however, was that there were many "molecular similarities" between the virulent H5N1 virus and that which caused the Spanish influenza of 1918 to 1919.
This killed an estimated 40 million people worldwide.
Schoub said the fact that the virus, first detected in Hong Kong in 1997, had still not spread between humans was cause for hope.
"It has had the opportunity, but has not grasped it," he said.
The H5N1 virus has so far killed 88 - mainly young - people out of 166 infected in seven, mostly east Asian, countries.
"There is now preliminary evidence of some resistance to (anti-viral drug) Tamiflu, but it's still an effective drug," Schoub said.
The World Health Organisation had stockpiled five million doses of the drug.
So many unpredictables
International travel would help to spread a pandemic very quickly.
The Spanish influenza took between five and six months to spread, in an era when global travel was not yet common.
"No country in the world is really fully prepared for a global pandemic. It's very difficult because there are so many unpredictables."
It was also difficult to screen people at airports because the virus could be in incubation.
The recent discovery of the virus in Nigeria was cause for concern, said Schoub.
Kathianne said:There are cycles to pandemics, we are past due. Not saying THIS is the one, but the odds of it are pretty good:
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1880452,00.html
dilloduck said:DAMN K---I'm running as fast as I can but--------they can FLY!!!!!!!
Kathianne said:Homeland Security needs to get the message out of what the public should do,
deaddude said:Here is my guess for your "Safety Precautions." Stockpile water, Flashlights, Batteries, Diapers, and of course Duct tape. Assemble them correctly to build your very own anti-y2k/terrorism/avian flu robot.
