"What's your take on the Avian Flu .. I'd love to hear your thoughts."
Sorry to drop off the Yeehaw list. I don't follow low-priced issues much, but have researched a few of your issues. Comments on HOKU lead to Idaho Power, and their ISP through power lines technology, and the world's biggest Wi-fi hot spot, in Eastern Oregon, where I spent summers in my boyhood.
In regard to Augustus' comment, the H and N characterization of a flu type refers only to two surface protein types. There is a vast range of pathogenic qualities, and their is extreme variation in the likelihood of a particular strain leading to wide-spread disease. BTW, there are 144 possible permutations of the 16 known hemagglutins (H), and 9 known neuraminidases (N). Only 3 are currently circulating in people.
Opinion on Avian flu goes from "What Me Worry" to "The End is Nigh". Some scientists like Henry Himan have followed this since the SARS epidemic and see evidence of mutations which make human transmission more likely. (Henry contributes to a thread here on SI, Subject 53838.
There are those who point out we've had humanized Avian flues before. They've been serious and have killed millions, but nothing like the Great Plagues in Medieval Europe. Hong Kong flu of 1968-69 killed 34,000 in the US and was a Type A (Avian) virus, H3N2. This virus is still circulating in humans, as is the H1N1 "Spanish flu" virus which killed 500,000 in the US in 1918-19, and maybe 50mm worldwide. H1N1 was a bird flu that combined with a human one, and became easily transmissible, person to person. From these examples, you see that immunity is acquired, and the disease becomes less dangerous, and that many die during the initial burst of human to human transmission.
The worry about H5N1 is that it is new and humans do not have immunity to it. Very credible scientists are worried, like Anthony Fauci of NIH. Rick Harmon comments on how the world has changed since 1918. There is the terrifying human vector, in which a "super-spreader" carried SARS from Hong Kong to Toronto, and killed dozens there. But there is also rapid, world-wide monitoring and new treatment technologies. SARS was scary, but was quickly defeated by quarantines, and it stopped spreading.
Birds are not the only potential intermediate hosts of influenza. SARS probably involved civet cats in China. There has been swine flu. You may remember the comforting phrase, "when pigs fly...." Birds do fly. Geese have been circling my pond every evening, on their way South from Canada, where H5N1 has been reported. So, I don't hunt them, and I wash my hands a lot. I keep a full pantry and firewood, and can stay here a long time if the nearby town looks suspiciously dark at night.
cdc.gov |
