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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Henry Niman who wrote (10969)	2/5/2005 11:50:35 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

If this bird flu hits the United States, a lot of folks could die. Pat's worried about it as well.

To: Henry Niman who wrote (10969)	2/11/2005 12:01:05 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

AVIAN FLU TAKES WING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA MART STEWART AND LY LAN GUEST COLUMNISTS The real news about flu this winter is still breaking and has not come from the flu shot shortage and then surplus, but from a re-emergence of avian flu in Southeast Asia. At a time when chickens are uppermost in the minds of many Vietnamese, as they welcome the lunar new year with feasts of chicken or duck, another epidemic of bird flu has killed or required culling nearly a million chickens, all the ducks in Ho Chi Minh City and many hundred thousands of quail. Of serious concern to us all is the transmission of the disease to several Vietnamese in a form apparently more virulent than in the past, and the deaths of 12 of them this season from the flu. Despite the quarantine and monitoring measures established by health officials throughout Southeast Asia, World Health Organization officials and health leaders in the region acknowledge that the disease virus is now likely deeply embedded in both wild and domestic bird populations and they do not expect to eradicate it fully. Some Tet celebrants who have been greeting the Year of the Rooster -- especially those who depend on the sale of unofficial fowl for their livelihoods -- have not been as alarmed about bird flu as health officials would like them to be. But officials also know that the slaughtering of diseased fowl and the monitoring of survivors is only a temporary stopgap, whatever the behavior of consumers. The volatile influenza virus thrives in the brew that is created by birds, animals and humans living in proximity in large numbers, whatever and wherever the arrangement. A January article in the journal Vaccine speculates that the great influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, for example, which killed about 50 million people worldwide in 18 months, originated from just this: a high concentration of soldiers, pigs, horses and nearby geese, duck and chicken markets in the British base camp at Etaples in Northern France in 1917. The mix of beasts (including humans), birds and an endemic flu virus, and the potential it has for a human health disaster, has officials increasingly concerned, and this should be the big flu news of the season for us. Though transmission of the H5N5 bird flu virus to humans has thus far nearly always proceeded from birds to humans, at least one case in Thailand is suspected of coming from human-human transmission. In any case, it's the potential of the flu gene for what biologists call reassortment, of hooking up with elements of other influenza genes to make new ones, that alarms public health scientists and health officials. If bird flu mixes it up with human flu and its virulence is combined with human influenza's capability for easy transmission from human to human, we could be faced with a pandemic -- and hardly the means to deal with it. In several public statements, WHO officials have explained the difficulty of making any kind of estimate about the death toll of a pandemic from a transformed avian influenza. At the same time, they have composed studied estimates that range from 2 million to 100 million and have also explained the difficulties of creating a vaccine against a rapidly morphing virus. Even at the low end, a pandemic could be devastating in its effects. While it has received scant news coverage in the United States, avian flu in Asia (or anywhere else) is potentially a global event and one with larger consequences than any modern disaster since the 1918 pandemic. As the Vietnamese welcome the year of a bird known for his wake-up call and worry about chickens and all that they harbor at the same time, we might do well to pay attention. Mart Stewart teaches environmental history at Western Washington University and Ly Lan is a Ho Chi Minh City writer and journalist. seattlepi.nwsource.com