Tejeck, a couple of glitches in your review: <As for the mortality rate..........the rate to date is 50%. >
Initially it was 70%. Now it's down to cumulative mortality of 50% [meaning recent death rate is even lower].
BUT. And that is a BIG but. But that is with Tamiflu and whatever other treatments the patients are getting. Without Tamiflu the death rate would be higher.
I recognize that the death rate has varied. I have usually said around 50% because it changes so frequently. What we do know is that the rate whether at 50% or 70% is very high and very worrisome.
What matters is the death rate when untreated. While there is the wishful-thinking idea that a virus usually becomes less fatal during genetic drift, reassortment, recombination, that's only a probabilistic outcome. It's not necessarily the case. The mortality rate could well be 70%. Or even worse.
I am hoping that as it mutates, it will become less fatal.
<Human to human transmission is possible but not until the virus mutates at least once. >
Logic error. If the bug can hop from a live chicken to a live human, as has been happening all too often, then it can hop from a live human to a live human.
It is true that some avian flu [I think there are 15 varieties]have jumped, on occasion, from one human to another [but never beyond the second human] but with this one, its not been proven....at least not yet.......that human to human has occurred. However, my concern voiced with E. Jetson was that his post suggested that tranmission between humans was far more common than it really is.
And one last point...........the jump from bird to human is not done easily by H5N1. It requires very close proximity to a bird and/or its feces and frequent contact. That's why we have seen most of the human flu cases in areas where people keep chickens and ducks in close proximity to human habitation.
No more mutation is needed. The need for the change is to make the virus virulently transmissible from human to human. With the current transmissibility, which is not much, just as it is not easily passed from bird to human, there's no risk of a pandemic. The pandemic will come from the genetic change.
Yes, I understand what you are saying but I am only concerned about the pandemic and the flu's general entry into the human population.....meaning the mutation that will allow the pandemic. Once that mutation occurs, one doctor has speculated that the flu will be global within 48 hours due to frequent air travel.
That might all seem a bit pedantic, but let's keep things straight. Humans can infect humans as easily as birds can infect humans, and I expect more so as humans kiss more humans than they kiss birds. Though perhaps the fingers in mouth vector is more important than aerosols or kissing. Bird handlers putting their fingers in their mouths is perhaps the main method of propagation from bird to human.
I have seen nothing written to suggest what you are saying in your last paragraph is true. In fact, transmission from birds to humans is not done easily and requires very close contact.....such as you suggest: putting one's fingers in one's mouth after touching an infected bird. I further understand that transmission from human to human has not occurred beyond one person if at all.
From the CDC:
"The spread of avian influenza viruses from one ill person to another has been reported very rarely, and transmission has not been observed to continue beyond one person."
cdc.gov |
