Don't Worry Be Happy Article (all you have to do is be prepared?)
Avian Flu: Prepare For The Worst
By Becky Billingsley
Special for eDiets
Wash your hands often, cook chicken thoroughly, don’t hang around with live poultry if you don’t need to, keep away from all unprocessed dead birds and people with flu symptoms, and stock up as if you were preparing for a natural disaster.
That’s the advice from the Centers for Disease Control to prepare for almost inevitable occurrence of a global flu outbreak. Their concern results in part from recent avian flu human-to-human infection.
The current round of avian flu began 10 years ago in 1996 (see a timeline of the entire outbreak over the past decade at the end of the article). Now health officials have preparations in place for what they call an overdue pandemic.
Why this flu is different
Birds all over the world carry the viruses for avian influenza, but they don’t all get sick. When they do become ill, some just have a low pathogenic type that makes them feel a little bad, and then they recover.
But, according to the CDC, the “highly pathogenic form spreads more rapidly through flocks of poultry. This form may cause disease that affects multiple internal organs and has a mortality rate that can reach 90-100% often within 48 hours.”
It’s this highly pathogenic form that has experts worried.
“Regular” seasonal flu is bad enough; it kills 36,000 people annually in the U.S. The problem with avian flu is, health experts fear this recent strain is mutating into a virulent form that can pass easily from person to person and become highly contagious.
If that happens we’ll have a flu pandemic, which means a global outbreak. We’ve had three flu pandemics in the last century, and authorities say another one is inevitable.
The Spanish Flu in 1918 and 1919 killed up to 100 million people, with half a million deaths in the U.S. In 1957 and 1958 the Asian Flu killed a million people globally, with 70,000 American deaths. The most recent flu pandemic was in 1968 and 1969 when the Hong Kong Flu killed up to 2 million people around the world, with 34,000 deaths in the U.S.
All three of those flus were mutations from avian flu. The current strains of highly pathogenic avian flu are infecting birds such as chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, wild migratory birds, exotic song birds and caged pet birds. Also becoming sick and/or dying are humans, pigs, tigers, domestic cats and other species. Those are bad signs.
What an expert says
“We’re long overdue for a pandemic,” said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner on March 16. “We can’t say with absolute certainty when it might be, but it is concerning enough to many around the world to lead experts to believe we need to prepare now.”
Since health officials think a pandemic is inevitable, they also have theories about possible mortality rates. Previous pandemics like the one in 1918-19 had extremely frightening death tolls, but today’s health care is much better. On the other hand, people travel a lot more than they did in 1918, and can carry the virus farther and faster. Some experts have used the term “wild fire” to describe how the virus could spread across the world if there is an uncontained human outbreak.
“Nobody knows for sure what another pandemic will look like.” Skinner said. “When it comes to planning, we plan for a worst case scenario, which would have an attack rate of 30 percent of the population getting sick,” Tom Skinner said. “That’s pretty high, but we plan for the worst.”
Available drugs
Tamiflu and Relenza are the two FDA-approved antiviral drugs that ease the effects of avian flu, and they have to be taken within 48 hours of the onset of flu symptoms. The U.S. is stockpiling these drugs, with an immediate goal of having enough to treat up to 20 million people. Eventually there will hopefully be enough on hand to treat 75 million people, which is about 25 percent of the American population.
Tamiflu is also effective in prevention of getting the flu.
There are no vaccines for the current deadly avian flu strains, but work to develop one is ongoing.
Plans and precautions
Public agencies are preparing for the worst. The LA Times reported March 14 that U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt predicted wild birds infected with avian flu would be in the U.S. by fall 2006.
Leavitt posted a statement on pandemicflu.gov that says, “Let me be very clear. It is only a matter of time before we discover [highly pathogenic avian flu] in birds in America. The migration patterns of the wild fowl that carry the virus make its appearance here almost inevitable.
“The arrival of the first [highly pathogenic] bird in America should not be cause for alarm or panic. It does not mean that a pandemic is at our doorstep. It should, however, motivate us to pick up the pace, to renew pandemic preparations on every front at every level.”
One of the most important pieces of advice Tom Skinner has is for people to lay in a supply of bottled water, canned food, prescription and non-prescriptions medicines and other emergency supplies. In the event of a pandemic, people may want or need to stay home to avoid infection, or they might be required to stay home in quarantine if it is thought they have been exposed to the flu.
How much of a food and water supply should you stock? One noted avian flu medical scientist has laid in a three-month supply.
Precautions people can take to avoid coming down with avian flu include washing hands with soap and water after handling raw poultry, disinfecting any surfaces that have come in contact with raw poultry and cooking poultry to at least 165 degrees before eating it.
“The bottom line is,” Skinner said, “You can’t get avian flu from properly handled and cooked food.”
It is also important for families to talk about how they would handle it if one of them became ill with the flu. The government Web site pandemicflu.gov has printable family medical history and emergency contact sheets that can be used in the event people become so ill they can’t provide the information to medical personnel. The site also has a detailed list of suggested stockpile items.
A big part of the government’s plans includes educating the public on the facts of avian flu. Talking about worst-case scenarios, Tom Skinner says, is not intended to frighten people, but to inform them of real possibilities so they can understand the situation and make preparations.
A timeline
1996: A highly pathogenic form of avian flu discovered in a goose in China.
1997: First fatal cases of avian flu in humans is reported with six deaths in Hong Kong; 12 other people become sick and recover. It’s also found in poultry in farms and markets in Hong Kong.
1999: Two more avian flu-related human deaths in Hong Kong.
Feb. 2003: One death in Hong Kong; a family member of the deceased became ill and recovered.
April 2003: One death in the Netherlands (a veterinarian); 79 others in the Netherlands become sick with avian flu.
Dec. 2003: Avian flu reported in South Korea. Two tigers and two leopards in Thailand that had been fed fresh poultry died of bird flu.
Jan. 2004: In Thailand and Vietnam, 11 human cases resulting in six deaths. Avian flu reported in poultry in Japan, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Feb. 2004: Seven deaths in Thailand and 15 in Vietnam. A mild -- low pathogenic -- form of avian flu is reported in American poultry flocks in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas. Highly pathogenic avian flu is reported in Canadian British Columbia, Indonesia, China Japan. Domestic cats are infected in one Thailand household.
March 2004: There is a total of 8 human avian flu deaths (out of 12 cases) in Thailand and 16 deaths (out of 23 cases) in Vietnam. Another more severe form of poultry avian flu reported on another British Columbia farm.
April 2004: Two more British Columbia farms have infected birds.
May 2004: Another avian flu outbreak on a British Columbia farm.
July 2004: More bird flu among poultry in China and Thailand.
Aug. 2004: Three human deaths in Vietnam. Avian flu spreads to ostriches in South Africa and pigs in China. Malaysia reports its first cases of avian flu in birds.
Sept. 2004: The first human-to-human spread of avian flu is reported in Thailand, from a sick girl to her mother. Thailand has one human death and two other human infections, and Vietnam has a death. A new poultry outbreak reported in Malaysia.
Oct. 2004: Two more human infections in Thailand. Also in Thailand, there is an outbreak among tigers in a zoo, and the virus is found in two bald eagles imported to Brussels from Thailand.
Dec. 2004: Vietnam has a new human case. Poultry outbreaks continue in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Jan. 2005: Two more cases in Vietnam.
Feb. 2005: First human case in Cambodia, which is fatal.
March 2005: Two more fatal human cases in Cambodia. Avian flu is found in poultry in North Korea.
April 2005: Thousands of migratory birds in China die of avian flu.
May 2005: Cambodia has another fatal human case.
June 2005: China has another poultry outbreak.
July 2005: Indonesia has its first human infection. Russia has oubreaks in poultry and migratory birds.
Aug. 2005: Avian flu found in migratory birds in Mongolia and Kazakhstan and in poultry in Tibet and Kazakhstan.
Sept. 2005: Another possible case of human-to-human avian flu transmission, with one of three sick family members dying. There are avian flu poultry outbreaks in Russia and Kazakhstan.
Oct. 2005: More human cases in Indonesia and Thailand. Avian flu reported in poultry in Turkey, Romania and Greece, and there is another outbreak in Mongolia. It’s found in exotic songbirds from China an in wild birds in Croatia.
Nov. 2005: Two more human deaths in China, and one family member of one of the deceased contracted avian flu but recovered. One more death in Indonesia. More poultry outbreaks in British Columbia and Vietnam, and it is found in wild birds in British Columbia.
Dec. 2005: One human death in China, one in Thailand and two in Vietnam. An outbreak in poultry in Ukraine.
Jan. 2006: Three children in one Turkish family die of avian flu, and there is one more human death in Turkey. Two Indonesian children die, one more person in China and one in Iraq.
Feb. 2006: Poultry outbreaks in Nigeria, Azerbaijan, France, India, Iran, Germany and Egypt.
March 2006: Two more deaths in China. Three deaths in Azerbaijan. Domestic cats in in Austria test positive for Asian flu, probably from eating infected wild birds. Avian flu poultry and/or wild bird outbreaks in Poland, Cameroon, Myanmar, Central Java, Kabul, Jalalabad and Sweden.
Wed., March 15, 2006: Preliminary tests on poultry in Afghanistan makes authorities “99 percent certain” of that country’s first avian flu outbreak.
Fri., March 17, 2006: Avian flu in poultry confirmed in Israel, with one poultry worker showing flu-like symptoms. Denmark reports a dead buzzard positive for avian flu. The documented world-wide avian flu death toll stands at 96. In some cases avian flu was suspected as the cause of death but the patients were not tested for it.
Becky Billingsley is the editor of Coastal Carolina Dining and CEO of The Food Syndicate. Contact her at becky@thefoodsyndicate.com. |
