Ready or Not, Bird Flu Is Coming to AmericaOfficials 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 PrecautionsAmerica'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." Other than the farmers, everyone there has to dress as if it were a visit to a hospital operating room. 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. ABC News has obtained a mathematical projection prepared by federal scientists based on an initial outbreak on an East Coast chicken farm. Within three months, with no vaccine, almost half of the country would have the flu. That, of course, is a worst-case scenario -- but one that cannot be completely discounted. In Europe officials are advising owners to bring their cats inside. It's advice that might soon have to be considered here in the US.
 BANGKOK, Thailand 02/20/2006 -- The World Health Organization has issued a dramatic warning that bird flu will trigger an international pandemic that could kill up to seven million people. The influenza pandemic could occur anywhere from next week to the coming years, WHO said. "There is no doubt there will be another pandemic," Klaus Stohr of the WHO Global Influenza Program said on the sidelines of a regional bird flu meeting in Bangkok, Thailand. "Even with the best case scenario, the most optimistic scenario, the pandemic will cause a public health emergency with estimates which will put the number of deaths in the range of two and seven million," he said. "The number of people affected will go beyond billions because between 25 percent and 30 percent will fall ill." Pandemics occur when a completely new flu strain emerges for which humans have no immunity. It also comes just a few months after the first probable instance of human-to-human transmission of the bird-flu virus emerged. The virus killed 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam earlier this year and led to the slaughter of millions of poultry birds across the region. " There is a conclusion now that we are closer to the next pandemic than we have ever been before," Stohr told reporters. "There is no reason to believe that we are going to be spared." Stohr said if bird flu triggers the next pandemic, the virus would likely originate in Asia. "An influenza pandemic will spare nobody. Every country will be affected," he said. There have been other pandemics within the last half century, all spread worldwide within a year of being detected. The Asian flu pandemic of 1957 claimed nearly 70,000 lives in the United States and one million worldwide after spreading from China. In 1968, the Hong Kong flu pandemic is also said to have killed around one million. Both pandemics were believed to be mutations of pig viruses. It is important that countries act quickly to guard against a possible pandemic and take stock of their inventories of antiviral, Stohr said. Health ministers and senior officials from 10 Southeast Asian countries, along with China, Japan and South Korea, are among the more than 100 people attending this week's meeting to develop strategies against flu and other infectious diseases.
Tuberculosis
The Red Cross called it the most alarming tuberculosis situation since World War II and urged EU leaders to do more to combat the threat. The World Health Organization (WHO) said the "hottest zones" of new strains were all on the borders of the EU. Of 450,000 cases in Europe and central Asia annually, 70,000 are new strains.
'Wake up'The health groups' warnings came as they launched the Stop TB Partnership in Europe to try to fight the epidemic. Markku Niskala, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the message for EU leaders was: "Wake up, do not delay, do not let this problem get further out of hand." "The drug resistance that we are seeing now is without doubt the most alarming tuberculosis situation on the continent since World War II," he said.
The WHO has found high levels of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in Baltic countries, Eastern Europe and central Asia. And studies in Latvia showed 18% of drug-resistant cases there are the most extreme variant.
"The hottest zones of drug-resistant tuberculosis are all around the periphery of the European Union," said Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO's Stop TB division.
"Investment in tuberculosis control must reflect the real emergency we are facing and be placed higher on the European agenda, especially in donor countries," he said.
About 1.7m people are dieing of tuberculosis every year.
Drug resistant TB 'more severe' TB bacterium Patients must complete a full course of drugs to cure TB The problem of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis may be even more severe than previously thought, experts warn. A survey of 79 countries by the World Health Organization published in the Lancet found TB drug resistance in virtually every one. Particularly high levels of resistance were seen in regions of the former Soviet Union and parts of China. About a third of the world's population is infected with the TB bug, with 8.9 million developing TB each year. In 2004, the respiratory disease caused 1.7 million deaths worldwide. MULTIDRUG-RESISTANT TB Kazakhstan: 14.2% of new cases Tomsk, Russia: 13.7% Uzbekistan: 13.8% Estonia: 12.2% Liaoning province, China: 10.4% Lithuania: 9.4% Latvia: 9.3% Henan province, China: 7.8% Anti-microbial drugs have proved very effective at treating TB. But experts believe their misuse has given the bacteria too much chance to evolve new defenses which render the drugs less effective. The biggest problem is patients failing to complete a full course of the drugs. Even though symptoms might have disappeared, small amounts of the bacteria may remain, and are capable of mutating. Multi-drug-resistant TB strains are those that are resistant to at least the two most potent drugs, isoniazid and rifampicin. More dangerous strains Scientists have recently reported an even more worrying from - extensive drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) - which has been found among people with HIV in South Africa. We have not been serious about controlling TB - Professor Peter Davies TB Alert The latest study was carried out for the Global Project on Anti-Tuberculosis Drug Resistance Surveillance, which was set up in 1994. From their analysis, the WHO team estimated there were 424,000 cases of multi-drug-resistant TB world-wide in 2004. China, India and Russia accounted for half of these cases. The researchers believe about 1% of new cases of TB are caused by multi-drug-resistant strains. However, in eight countries, including Kazakhstan and Latvia, the figure was above 6.5%. Three countries - Andorra, Iceland and Malta - had no cases of resistance to first-line drugs, while in the United States, Hong Kong and Cuba, the cases of MDR TB showed a decline. Lead researcher Dr Mario Raviglione said: "The findings of the Global Project emphasize the importance of implementing sound tuberculosis control activities to prevent further creation of MDR tuberculosis, and the necessity of mainstreaming high-quality treatment for MDR tuberculosis into routine tuberculosis control programs. "Otherwise XDR-TB is bound to keep emerging as a fatal variant of TB, especially in high HIV prevalence settings." Cases of tuberculosis (TB) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland rose by 10.8% in 2005, figures show. Lack of funds Professor Peter Davies, of the organisation TB Alert, said TB - and in particular multidrug resistant strains of the disease - was a bigger problem than people had expected it to be.
Chikungunya Disease
Chikungunya, Swahili for "that which bends up", causes high fever and severe pain, but was not thought to be fatal. However, the health minister of France, which rules the island, said this week 77 deaths may have been caused directly. He told Le Figaro newspaper on Thursday this was a "radically new situation, that was not anticipated or foreseen by any scientific theory. "We are face-to-face with a devastating epidemic which suddenly accelerated at the start of the year. Developments went beyond all the predictions made by experts," he said.
SARS
• Fever greater than 100.4°F
• Headache • Overall feeling of discomfort • Body aches • Some people experience mild respiratory symptoms. • After 2 to 7 days, SARS patients may develop dry cough and have trouble breathing. SARS appears to be primarily spread by close person-to-person contact. Most cases have involved people who cared for or lived with someone with SARS, or who had direct contact with infectious material (such as respiratory secretions) from an infected person. Potential ways in which SARS can be spread include touching the skin of contaminated people or objects and then touching your eyes, nose or mouth. This can happen when a SARS-infected person coughs or sneezes droplets on themselves, other people or nearby surfaces.It also is possible that SARS can be spread more broadly through the air or by other ways that are currently unknown. Mad Cow Disease (BSE):
He said that people should stop eating beef and that the newspapers should start warning people of the possibility of infection. Funding for Lacey's research was cancelled and he was fired from his research position at Leed's University. Dr. Lacey's warning were ignored and suppressed.
In 1987, 700 BSE infected cows were reported in Britain. By the summer of 1988, the number had climbed to 7,000. By late 1994, the figure had risen to 36,000. In June 1988, the British government ordered the compulsory slaughter and destruction of the carcasses of all affected cattle. But it was already too late. BSE infection had already flooded into the meat supply and infected many unsuspecting British citizens. John Collinge of St Mary's Hospital in London says that a major epidemic could still occur. "It may only involve hundreds, but it could be Europe-wide and become a disaster of biblical proportions," Dr Collinge said. "We have to face the possibility of a disaster with tens of thousands of cases." BSE has subsequently spread across Europe to cattle in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and as of June 2001 to the Czech Republic. To date, almost 200,000 cattle are known to have contracted BSE. Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United States now exclude blood donations from anyone who has resided in Britain for 6 months or more during 1980 to 1996. In January 17, 2001, the FDA ordered a ban on blood donations in the U.S. from anyone who has lived in Britain or Ireland longer than six months, between the years 1980 and December 1996. This ban on donating blood is for life! In an article by Lynette J. Dumble entitled "Mad Cow Disease: A Manmade Pandemic Set to Put AIDS in the Shade," 1 microbiologist Dr. Stephen Dealler states, "At the moment the number of cases of CJD we are seeing are doubling every year. If they double for a long time then the numbers are in millions...." AIDS
From that obscure beginning, AIDS grew into the public health disaster of our time, a global phenomenon that has tested social, cultural, religious and scientific beliefs. Twenty years later -- with expensive drug therapies, but no cure or vaccine in sight -- AIDS continues to spread rapidly, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Many researchers warn that the worst is yet to come.
"During the past 10 years, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States has undergone a dramatic transformation from one concentrated primarily among homosexual men to an epidemic that is now closely associated with the inner city," said David Bloom, professor of economics and demography at Harvard University's School of Public Health.
The cause of the continued spread of AIDS"Low levels of education, high levels of multiple sexual partnering, high rates of homosexuality/bisexuality and high rates of injecting drug use account for the relatively high rate of new infections among blacks and Hispanics in the U.S.," Bloom said. The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 800,000 to 900,000 people in the United States are currently infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Each year, another 40,000 people become infected. Although African-Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, they represent 54 percent of the new HIV infections. Hispanics, who represent about 12 percent of the population, account for 19 percent of the new infections. "It's devastating," said Teresa Holmes, a spokeswoman for the Balm in Gilead, a New York-based organization that works with African-American churches to provide training and assistance for HIV/AIDS programs. AIDS is the No. 1 cause of death for African-Americans aged 25-44, according to the CDC. "One in 160 black women is infected with HIV and one in 50 black men," Holmes said. "It's not just the inner city, and it's not just the poor that are affected. You could almost lose or wipe out generations." Thirty percent of gay black men in their 20s are infected with HIV, compared to 7 percent of white gay men, according to a recent CDC study of six large U.S. cities. An African-American woman is 20 times more likely to contract AIDS than a white woman. African-American adolescents accounted for more than 60 percent of AIDS cases reported in 1999 among 13- to 19-year-olds. The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that out of the 36.1 million people infected with HIV worldwide, 26 million of them live in Africa. One fourth of the adults in South Africa are believed to be living with HIV, the highest percentage in the world. Quoting Mark Feinberg, a professor at Emory University School of Medicine and an AIDS researcher since 1984; "It's going to have a long lasting and devastating impact on the human race. The impact on our future from the AIDS epidemic is so enormous that even for someone like myself who's been involved in it for 17 years, it is impossible for me to truly conceive of the magnitude of the epidemic." AIDS is now a Global Pandemic
November 2006 - HIV epidemic 'is getting worse'
AIDS Virus Facts 11/21/06 UNAids says there are an estimated 39,500,000 (39.5 million) people now living with HIV. The number living with the virus has increased everywhere, with the most striking increases in East Asia and Central Asia/Eastern Europe. Some countries, such as Uganda, are seeing a resurgence in new HIV infection rates which were previously stable or declining. The report, which is based on disease surveillance around the world, says there were an estimated 4.3 million new HIV infections this year alone, with 2.8 million of these occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. Forty per cent of new infections were in people aged 15 to 24-years-old. In 2006, 2.9 million died of Aids-related illnesses. Women at risk In Eastern Europe/Central Asia there was a 70% increase in the number of new infections seen in 2006 compared with 2004 - 270,000 compared with 160,000. In South-East Asia, the number of new infections rose by 15% from 2004 to 2006. The increase is fuelled by high-risk behaviour such as injecting drug use, unprotected paid-for sex and unprotected sex between men. Across the world, women are more likely to be affected by HIV than ever before, the report reveals. UNAids also says the HIV epidemics in Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland are continuing to grow.
More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981.
Africa has 12 million AIDS orphans.
By the end of 2005, women accounted for 48% of all adults living with HIV worldwide, and for 59% in sub-Saharan Africa.
Young people (15-24 years old) account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide - around 6,000 become infected with HIV every day.
In developing and transitional countries, 6.8 million people are in immediate need of life-saving AIDS drugs; of these, only 1.65 millionare receiving the drugs.
The number of people living with HIV rose from around 8 million in 1990 to 38.6 million in 2005, and is still growing. Around 63% of people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Regional statistics for HIV & AIDS, end of 2005
For further informative reading on the AIDS epidemic we
suggest the TIME Magazine article Death Stalks a Nation: http://www.time.com/time/2001/aidsinafrica/ OTHER: 1968The Hong Kong flu became the third flu pandemic of the 20th century. The World Health Organization estimated that a total of 1.5 million died in the Asian and Hong Kong flu pandemics. 1957-1958The Asian flu swept around the world, making it the second flu pandemic of the century.
World wide statistics 2005:Number of people without access to safe water: 1,400,000,000
Number of people without access to adequate sanitation: 2,900,000,000 Number of children under the age of 5 who die each year from easily preventable diseases such as diarrhea, malaria and measles: 13,000,000
BANGKOK, Thailand 02/20/2006 -- The World Health Organization has issued a dramatic warning that bird flu will trigger an international pandemic that could kill up to seven million people.
The influenza pandemic could occur anywhere from next week to the coming years, WHO said. "There is no doubt there will be another pandemic," Klaus Stohr of the WHO Global Influenza Program said on the sidelines of a regional bird flu meeting in Bangkok, Thailand. "Even with the best case scenario, the most optimistic scenario, the pandemic will cause a public health emergency with estimates which will put the number of deaths in the range of two and seven million," he said. "The number of people affected will go beyond billions because between 25 percent and 30 percent will fall ill." Pandemics occur when a completely new flu strain emerges for which humans have no immunity. It also comes just a few months after the first probable instance of human-to-human transmission of the bird-flu virus emerged. The virus killed 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam earlier this year and led to the slaughter of millions of poultry birds across the region. " There is a conclusion now that we are closer to the next pandemic than we have ever been before," Stohr told reporters. "There is no reason to believe that we are going to be spared." Stohr said if bird flu triggers the next pandemic, the virus would likely originate in Asia. "An influenza pandemic will spare nobody. Every country will be affected," he said. There have been other pandemics within the last half century, all spread worldwide within a year of being detected. The Asian flu pandemic of 1957 claimed nearly 70,000 lives in the United States and one million worldwide after spreading from China. In 1968, the Hong Kong flu pandemic is also said to have killed around one million. Both pandemics were believed to be mutations of pig viruses. It is important that countries act quickly to guard against a possible pandemic and take stock of their inventories of antiviral, Stohr said. Health ministers and senior officials from 10 Southeast Asian countries, along with China, Japan and South Korea, are among the more than 100 people attending this week's meeting to develop strategies against flu and other infectious diseases. |
Friday, 21 December 2012
Pestilence :more signs of the times
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