Replies

"Jihad Falcon"

The one billion casualty figure is derived from the pattern of the three pandemics in the last hundred years and using the observed mortality rate of the avian flu.

I think the 1918 pandemic had a mortality rate of less than 5%.

When the North Koreans set off the latest nuclear crisis in the fall of 2002, they claimed to have weapons "more powerful" than nuclear bombs and then threatened "to destroy the world".

There are rumors UBL got his anthrax from the North Koreans.

Whether or not this particular strain will be this lethal, this is the future - - genetic weapons.

I doubt most understand how little time is left.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/10347278.htm

Smuggled birds had flu (snipped)
Deadly H5N1 brought into Brussels airport
BY M.A.J. MCKENNA
Cox News Service

ATLANTA — The small suitcase being carried through the Brussels airport by the traveler from Thailand looked unremarkable. But when customs officials opened it Oct. 18, they found a surprise: two rare small eagles, weak but healthy-looking, taped inside lengths of PVC pipe.

Their surprise turned to horror when tests on the eagles came back four days later: The smuggled birds were infected with avian influenza H5N1, the Southeast Asian virus that health authorities fear could blow up into a pandemic and kill millions. . .

The finding launched a frantic hunt for the man who carried the eagles, the officials who inspected them and the 135 passengers who shared the man's two flights. Twenty-three people were tested; 652 birds that had been in the airport, including the eagles, were destroyed. . .

The AMA meeting takes place amid sharply elevated concern over H5N1 flu. Last Monday, a World Health Organization official warned that if avian flu gains the genetic ability to move easily from person to person — something that no scientist knows how to stop — it could cause up to 100 million deaths around the world.

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/hot/flu/news/nov1504mto.html
Avian flu may portend a 1918-like pandemic, says Osterholm
Robert Roos News Editor (snipped)

Nov 15, 2004 (CIDRAP News) – The nature of the widespread avian influenza outbreaks in Asia points to the threat of a human flu pandemic that could rival the disastrous pandemic of 1918-1920, infectious disease expert Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, warned in a public forum in Minneapolis last week.

There are disquieting signs that the H5N1 virus circulating in Asian poultry flocks could do as much damage to humanity as the "Spanish flu" virus of 1918, said Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota Center for infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), publisher of this Web site.

The H5N1 virus has already killed 32 people in Asia, and disease experts say it could trigger a pandemic if it acquired the ability to spread easily from person to person. If that happened, said Osterholm, it's unlikely that an effective vaccine could be made available quickly. . .

Osterholm said the 1918 pandemic caused "at least 40 million deaths, but probably closer to 100 million, if you talk to the historians." A disproportionate number of victims were healthy young adults, he added.

Given the lack of good defenses, Osterholm estimated that a 1918-like virus arising today could cause more than 1.7 million deaths in the United States and as many as 177 million worldwide. (Editor's note: The estimate of 264 million deaths that was originally published here was later recalculated to adjust for age.) The US death toll in 1918 was about 500,000. . .

Further, Osterholm said studies of the H5N1 virus isolated from recent human patients point to a gene that causes a "cytokine storm"—a flood of molecular messengers triggering inflammation—similar to what was seen in the 1918 victims. In effect, the body's immune system response to the infection, rather than the infection itself, is what makes the situation so dangerous. It also explains why healthy young adults, with their robust immune system, may be at particular risk.

http://www.omaha.com/toolbox/story_printer.php?u_id=1272073&u_brow=Internet+Explorer&u_ver=5

Published Tuesday
November 30, 2004
Researcher predicts millions of deaths if bird flu spreads

(snipped)

HONG KONG - A flu pandemic could kill 100 million people around the world in a worst case, according to a World Health Organization researcher.

The estimate was significantly higher than the agency's past predictions of the toll in such a catastrophe.

The WHO, a U.N. agency, has long been warning about the potential for the A(H5N1) strain of avian influenza virus - popularly known as bird flu - to mutate and cause the next human pandemic. The virus has spread widely among bird populations in Southeast Asia and has produced a few fatal bird-to-people infections.

Dr. Shigeru Omi, the WHO's director for Asia and the Pacific, issued the warning Monday.

He said that if a pandemic should strike - a possibility he called "very, very likely" - governments should be prepared to close schools, office buildings and factories to slow the rate of spread. They also should work out emergency staffing to prevent a breakdown in basic public services such as electricity and transportation, he said.
Such arrangements may be needed if the disease infects 25 percent to 30 percent of the world's population, Omi said. That is the WHO's estimate for what could happen if the disease, now found mainly in birds, developed the ability to spread easily from person to person.

No significant quantities of vaccine are likely to be available until five or six months after the virus becomes a pandemic, Omi said.

The agency previously had said the death toll would be from 2 million to 7 million people in such an outbreak, but Omi said the toll could be more, from 20 million to 100 million. . .

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/10/28/pandemic.shtml

Russian Expert Says Flu Epidemic May Kill Over One Billion This Year

Created: 28.10.2004 18:06 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 18:15 MSK
MosNews

The world is on the brink of a major flu epidemic — one that could claim more than a billion lives, the head of the Russian Virology Institute, Academician Dmitry Lvov said at a press conference organized by the RIA-Novosti news agency on Thursday.

“Up to one billion people could die around the whole world in six months,” Lvov said. The expert did not give a timeframe for the epidemic, but said that it is highly probable that it will start this year. “We are half a step away from a worldwide pandemic catastrophe,” the academic said.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/29/news/flu.html
Tens of millions could die from flu
(snip)

. . .A few analysts have suggested that the death toll could be considerably higher. Dr. Henry Niman, a medical researcher in Pittsburgh who criticizes the World Health Organization as being too conservative, said that with more than 70 percent of the human victims of the disease dying so far, the death toll could exceed one billion if the disease were to spread rapidly among people..

But Omi and Peiris each pointed out that the high death rate recorded so far might be overstated, because people with less severe cases of the disease might not be diagnosed as having it..

Peiris also pointed out that one likely way for the disease to acquire the ability to pass easily from person to person - the acquisition of human influenza genetic material by the virus - could also reduce the death rate to the range described by Omi. "If the virus reassorts and picks up human influenza genes, then it's quite possible the severity could be limited," Peiris said..

The World Health Organization, a Geneva-based UN agency, has reported 44 confirmed human cases of A(H5N1), 32 of whom have died, a 72.7 percent rate. The organization has identified only one case of probable human-to-human transmission - a mother who cradled her dying daughter all night - while the rest of the cases appeared to have been acquired directly from animals...