Fear of Flu Outbreak Rattles Washington

Health officials have warned for years that a virulent bird flu could kill millions of people, but few in Washington have seemed alarmed. After a closed-door briefing last week, however, fear of an outbreak swept official Washington...

The day after the briefing, led by Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of Health and Human Services, and other senior government health officials, the Senate squeezed $3.9 billion for flu preparations into a Pentagon appropriations bill.

Mr. Leavitt acknowledged in an interview that the United States was not prepared for a pandemic flu outbreak. He plans to spend next week touring Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the countries most likely to be the source of an avian flu outbreak, and talking with health ministers there about a coordinated surveillance of outbreaks.

Mr. Leavitt warned in the briefing last week that an outbreak could cause 100,000 to 2 million deaths and as many as 10 million hospitalizations in the United States, one person who was present said. Those numbers have been presented publicly many times before. But hearing them in closed session gave them urgency, some who were at the meeting said.

"A friend of mine called me from Seattle last night and said that there were lots of people coping with a real bad flu."

More info, please. How bad is it? Any deaths? How long has it been going on? How severe are the symptoms? Are many being hospitalized? Is the age range concentrated & if so, what is the range? Has that flu been typed as avian or a different strain.

I ask because my daughter goes to college in that area. Please provide as much info as you can. Thanks.

FReegards,
RT

H1N1 (Spanish 1918) was avian...Bush has taken wayyyyyy too long to react. Norway is already building a stockpile of anti-virals and working on a number of vax...have been for quite some time.

China and Vietnam are (like the beautiful idiots they are) shoving adamintine and relenza into their chickens to keep them alive...so basically their training h5n1 to be resistant to 2 of the three known relatively effective medicines against it.You cant immunize a "ring" of people around the outbreak and stop the vector like you could small pox.

The reason it worked with smallpox is that smallpox is a human only disease, in other words we are its only host. That's how we managed to wipe it out.

If this flips we are in deep crap.

Right now, h5n1 is 50% fatal with good medical support h1n1 was 30% fatal, and it killed what, 20 million people so basically, with h1n1 as a baseline 100 mill isn't that far off because h5n1 has to lose some of its deadly-ness to be a better human to human flu so call it 30% fatality.
It's MUCH smaller than SARS I or SARS II.If it does "flip" and become a better human to human virii.There really isn't a good way of stopping it.

The only real solution is immaculate hygiene practices..n-100 masks..filtered air in your domicile...and hiding out in your house until it blows over 2 or 3 times.

Notice I said 2 or 3 times? H1N1 was a 2-year event.3 waves worldwide until it mutated to the point it was baseline with humano-typical flu.The military enforcing quarentine is a joke..this is not small pox.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.