Posted on 03/12/2006 5:22:46 AM PST by Lessismore
MOSCOW, March 7 (RIA Novosti) - The world is one step away from a bird flu pandemic that cannot be averted by quarantine or vaccination, a Russian expert said Tuesday.
"One amino-acid replacement in the genome remains to make the virus transferable from human to human," said Dmitry Lvov, the director of a virology research institute at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences.
Lvov said the pandemic virus could strike at any moment, and would most likely come from China, leading to tens of millions of human deaths, or one third of the global population. He added quarantine measures could delay the pandemic for a few days but not prevent it, and that vaccination would not stop people getting sick.
"A good vaccine will only save [people] from death and complications, but not from the illness itself," he said.
Lvov said any pandemic was based on a hybridization of the bird and human viruses.
Pigs are the most vulnerable animals in the face of both human and bird viruses, which makes them "an intermediary link between human and bird flu," he said.
Lvov said the bird flu pandemic was irreversible like any other natural cataclysm, and would not stop until the highly pathogenic strain mutates into a less dangerous one.
"When will it stop? When highly pathogenic strains localized in wild birds are once again transformed into a low-pathogenic one according to the law of nature," Lvov said.
He said all that could be done to deal with the pandemic was large amounts of vaccination, hundreds of thousands of beds in intensive care, and the necessary instruments and medicines.
Lvov also said that the bird flu virus would shortly sweep the south of central Russia, specifically the Astrakhan, Rostov-on-Don, and Volgograd Regions.
The Agriculture Ministry said Monday that bird flu had been registered in eight regions in the south of the country, a major stopover area for migrating birds.
The ministry said over 1.3 million birds had died or been slaughtered in three outbreaks of bird flu since July 2005.
--- We also have a more technologically advanced medical industry. ---
Good point. I sure hope that our medical industry is able to protect itself so that they can treat the sick and dying.
If in fact, the industry itself gets whacked, that will be one more basis for anarchy.
I live in the deep woods. I can work via the internet. If necessary, I would just hole up.
Some of those in the health industry are promoting this; the UN seems to be one of the primary activist organizations. Those who would receive increased funding are lobbying the hardest for increased funding, no surprise. These are not the elites, although they would probably like to be.
I haven't finished reading the thread, I stopped at this remark of yours to make a comment: Most of the 1918 deaths were due to the 1918 virus, not opportunistic infections.
Nope. Too crowded. Nobody goes there any more.
"We also didn't have modern medicine and antibiotics."
Antiobiotics are anti-bacterials. Antiobiotics have no effect on viruses.
Once you are stricken with a virus, there is no medicinal treatment to kill the virus - your immune system is the only thing between you and death.
Sambucol...elderberry kills flu virus. Stock up, folks.
I agree but you cannot tell people who wish to scoff how serious this is. They won't believe it till they see it.
Luckily, we won't have to make any vaccine for people who truly believe in intelligent design and know that the avian flu virus cannot evolve into something that can be passed from human to human
Yeah, birds never go in the deep woods so you'll be OK.
Sorry cheap shot, but it's not clear if this will be spread human to human or also bird to human. Depends on the mutation I guess.
LOl! I don't like crowds either.
I just read the book on the 1918 pandemic in which my grandfather died. People literally fell in their tracks. Mass graves were used in places and in Philadephia the bodies piled up on porches until a group of priests took them away.
The reason for the number of people who died was the inattention and denial of public health officials who continued not to take action after the flu was spreading. Military put on boats to go to Europe for the war, died and were literally thrown overboard, the ships were ships of death. It was an awful catastrophe.
Granted, I like my steak well done, but...
Just pick up your shotgun and blow away birds. No problem. They will come back healthier.
It can evolve (mutate, actually) all day long and it's still a virus. It will never magically turn itself into a bird - or a human!
A couple years ago I applied for a patent on a simple "Double Chamber Oxygen Bag" a DCOB if you will.
The bag was meant to replace the oxygen bag on an EMT's mouth to mask apparatus. The device would isolate the EMT's breath from the patient. Probably about $5 to make it.
Patent office challenged it by saying a previous inventor "foresaw" my version of his rube goldberg.
Neither the US Army nor the manufacturer of the face mask were interested. Although some ER doctors and an army doctor thought it was a good device.
In light of the bird flu I should maybe recontact these people again.
There was a long thread quite active for a while - "Avian Flu Preparedness Thread". There was a long discussion about the utility of elderberries. Maybe someone can dredge up a link or you can do a search. The problem with eldeberries is they stimulate the immune system (apparently) which may not be a good thing with this flu. Unless it can keep someone from getting the flu in the first place.
There are opinions all over the place on this.
A virus mutating into another form of the virus is not evolution. It would be evolution if it evolved into something else.
Get your definitions straight.
Makes human beings seem rather puny and disposable, doesn't it? We are one amino acid replacement away from distruction. Our secular saviors better hop to and come up with the magic bullet, oh, and in the meantime, buy stock in casket makers. You'll make a killing, if you survive.
I didn't say they did.
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