Posted on 01/10/2006 5:39:00 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
As bird flu cases rise at a disturbing pace in Turkey, new research offers a bit of hope - it's likely that many people who get it don't become seriously ill and quickly recover.
Although not definitive, the new study suggests the virus is more widespread than thought. But it also probably doesn't kill half its victims, a fear based solely on flu cases that have been officially confirmed.
"The results suggest that the symptoms most often are relatively mild and that close contact is needed for transmission to humans," wrote Dr. Anna Thorson of Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm and colleagues who conducted the study. It was published in Monday's edition of Archives of Internal Medicine.
So far, the bird flu deaths in Turkey involved children playing with dead chickens.
The new study involved 45,476 randomly selected residents of a rural region where bird flu is rampant among poultry - Ha Tay province west of Hanoi. More than 80 percent lived in households that kept poultry and one-quarter lived in homes reporting sick or dead fowl.
A total of 8,149 reported flu-like illness with a fever and cough, and residents who had direct contact with dead or sick poultry were 73 percent more likely to have experienced those symptoms than residents without direct contact.
The researchers said between 650 and 750 flu-like cases could be attributed to direct contact with sick or dead birds. While most patients said their symptoms had kept them out of work or school, the illnesses were mostly mild, lasting about three days.
By contrast, most of the more than 140 cases linked to bird flu and reported to the World Health Organization since January 2004 have been severe - killing more than half the patients.
Dr. Frederick Hayden, a bird flu specialist at the University of Virginia, said the study "is useful for hypothesis generation" but highlights the need for widespread blood testing in Asia to determine the true incidence of bird flu in people.
The study authors noted that without any blood-test evidence to prove that the Vietnamese residents had bird flu, the results are only suggestive and far from conclusive.
So, is the sky falling or isn't it?
Watch this space...I'll get back to you when it does.
"So far, the bird flu deaths in Turkey involved children playing with dead chickens."
Fascinating hobby.
That splains a lot.
FYI
Ping the list???? Is this credible??
My grandmother slapped the piss out of me when I was a child for playing with a dead blue jay.
She said I would get sick and die.
From the article:
Dr. Frederick Hayden, a bird flu specialist at the University of Virginia, said the study "is useful for hypothesis generation" but highlights the need for widespread blood testing in Asia to determine the true incidence of bird flu in people.
The study authors noted that without any blood-test evidence to prove that the Vietnamese residents had bird flu, the results are only suggestive and far from conclusive.
The exact same thing happened in my family--odd, isn't it? All my grandparents lived through the 1918 epidemic, and had a horror of birds. None of them would even own a parakeet.
To this day, I will NOT touch a dead bird--but then again, I think chickens are feathered raptors and if they weighed 30 pounds they'd hunt in packs and humans would be prey...;-D
I think we all have a repulsion reflex to anything dead. Although I am interested in why it died, I will not walk up to anything and slice it open looking for clues.
And why were these kids playing with dead chickens??? Did they have their full mental capacities?
From Girl Gets Bird Flu After Kissing Chicken
Sumeyya Mamuk considered the chickens in her backyard to be beloved pets. The 8-year-old girl fed them, petted them and took care of them. When they started to get sick and die, she hugged them and tenderly kissed them goodbye. The next morning, her face and eyes were swollen and she had a high fever. Her father took her to a hospital, and five days later she was confirmed to have the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu
When you are born a peasant child in a third world backwater you make your own toys from what you have available.
Just a guess.
I have no earthly idea why they were playing with dead chickens.
I remember as a kid being fascinated with any dead animal...poking them with sticks, looking at the yucky stuff, etc. I remember my brothers throwing stuff around to scare me--fish they'd caught, crawdads, snakes they'd killed...
Kids do gross stuff. Maybe that's what these kids were doing. Who knows? Not me.
"Dr. Frederick Hayden, a bird flu specialist at the University of Virginia, said the study "is useful for hypothesis generation" but highlights the need for widespread blood testing in Asia to determine the true incidence of bird flu in people."
"The study authors noted that without any blood-test evidence to prove that the Vietnamese residents had bird flu, the results are only suggestive and far from conclusive."
Without blood tests the study is useless.
Bird flu heading towards West, says Turkey
By Kate Connolly in Ankara
(Filed: 11/01/2006)
Officials in Turkey admitted yesterday that the deadly strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus was marching across the country and had infected poultry in 25 cities.
The virus appeared to be spreading westwards. Four people were hospitalised in the town of Aydin, near the Aegean coast in the south-west of the country. The area is one of Turkey's biggest tourist magnets and popular with British holidaymakers.
A health official struggles to catch a chickens that may be infected
Bird flu was detected in fowl in the Aegean port city of Izmir, while on Monday, it was found in birds at the resort of Kusadasi, a stone's throw from the Greek island of Samos. The news sparked fears that it could do years of damage to tourism, Turkey's most important industry.
In London, the Foreign Office advised visitors to Turkey: "Avoid visiting live animal markets, poultry farms and other places where you may come into close contact with domestic, caged or wild birds; and ensure poultry and egg dishes are thoroughly cooked."
Fifteen cases of H5N1 infection of humans, all of whom were in contact with birds, have been confirmed in central, eastern and northern Turkey. The virus, which originated in Asia, has so far killed a teenage boy and girl - and probably a younger child - in the same family.
In the capital, Ankara, three cases have been confirmed, while four suspected cases are being treated in two hospitals. Countries across Europe stepped up their controls on travellers arriving from Turkey.
In Germany sniffer dogs examined the luggage of people coming off flights from Istanbul and Ankara to ensure they did not contain any poultry products, while neighbouring countries set up disinfectant baths for cars or people to pass through.
None of those in hospital was believed to be in a critical condition. According to the health ministry all had been bird-to-human transmission cases, rather than the feared human to human scenario.
After a stuttering start to its attempts to fight the virus, the government was keen last night to stress that it had the situation under control. It said it had culled 306,000 birds, even as some people, particularly in rural areas, attempted to hide their poultry from veterinary inspectors.
"The situation is fully under control. We will continue to deal with the situation with utmost care," said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister.
The fear of some experts however, is that the closer the contact those who contract the disease have with others, the greater the chance H5N1 has of mutating into an illness transferrable from human to human, sparking a pandemic.
The government issued a health and safety film yesterday in which it urged citizens: "Don't risk your life or those of your family - hand in your birds."
"the bird flu deaths in Turkey involved children playing with dead chickens."
Note to self, "STop playing with dead chickens!"
Yeah, reminds me of that time when I dropped a cinder block on a turtle just to see what he looked like inside his shell. I was just a little kid but the fact remains that all small kids are nothing more than Barbaric little savages.
BTTT!
So long as they were chickens you slaughtered, maimed, etc., and not dead because they were sick, go right ahead and play. ;-)
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