Posted on 02/21/2005 3:09:17 PM PST by bitt
Washington — The Earth may be on the brink of a worldwide epidemic from a bird flu virus that may mutate to become as deadly and infectious as viruses that killed millions during three influenza pandemics of the 20th century, a federal health official said Monday.
Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said scientists expect that a flu virus that has swept through chickens and other poultry in Asia will genetically change into a flu that can be transmitted from person to person.
The genes of the avian flu change rapidly, she said, and experts believe it is highly likely that the virus will evolve into a pathogen deadly for humans.
She made the remarks in a plenary lecture at the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
In Asia, there have already been a number of deaths among people who caught the flu from chickens or ducks. The mortality rate is very high, about 72 per cent of identified patients, said Dr. Gerberding. There also have been documented cases of this strain of flu being transferred from person-to-person, but the outbreak was not sustained, she said.
“We are expecting more human cases over the next few weeks because this is high season for avian influenza in that part of the world,” said Dr. Gerberding. Although cases of human-to-human transmission have been rare, “our assessment is that this is a very high threat.”
This assessment, she said, is based on the known history of the flu virus.
The avian flu now spreading in Asia is part of what is called the H1 family of flu viruses. It is a pathogen that is notorious in human history.
“Each time we see a new H1 antigen emerge, we experience a pandemic of influenza,” said Dr. Gerberding. In 1918, H1 appeared and millions died worldwide. In 1957, the Asian flu was an H2, and the Hong Kong flu in 1968 was a H3.
There had been small appearances of the H1-type of avian viruses in other years, but nothing like the H5 now rampaging through the birds of Asia.
“We are seeing a highly pathogenic strain of influenza virus emerge to an extraordinary proportion across the entire western component of Asia,” she said. “The reason this is so ominous is because of the evolution of flu.... You may see the emergence of a new strain to which the human population has no immunity.”
Study already has shown that the virus can infect cats who can then infect other cats, which Dr. Gerberding said was “another harbinger” of the possibility of a human pandemic.
“The science here is all alerting us that we have a great deal to be concerned about,” she said.
The CDC chief said her agency is getting ready for a possible pandemic next year.
A special flu team, organized last year, continues to monitor the spread of the avian flu and to analyze the strains as they appear.
The government has ordered two million doses of vaccine that would protect against the known strains of avian flu. Dr. Gerberding said this would give manufacturers a head start on making the shots that would be needed to combat a full-blown epidemic of an H1-type of flu in this country.
CDC is also plugged into an international communication and monitoring system that, it is hoped, will give an early warning of the emergence of a deadly new flu.
But at the same time, the agency is helping to produce the 180 million or so doses of regular flu that are needed annually. Dr. Gerberding said the timeline for producing the regular vaccine yearly is very tight, with little room for problems. To produce a new vaccine in response to the sudden emergence of an H1-flu bug would require an extraordinary new effort, she said.
“We don't now have the capacity to do both,” said Dr. Gerberding.
Along the same lines, I've also been surprised at the zeal with which they've gotten after Smokers.
In regard to aviun flu combining with other strains - I think I read that one of the ones they are most concerned with is a swine strain, that if that combines with the avian, it would become far easier for it to be tranmitted from animal to human and then from human to human.
I'm not as up on the latest strains as I used to be, but do try to keep semi-up-to-date, just because of the region where I live. Poultry is big business here, particularly chickens.......heck among my closest neighbors are about 150,000 broiler/fryers!!!!
All kidding aside, a mutating strain that could be passed from the poultry to humans would be devastating, in so many ways and in so many places.
Don't you mean:
AHHHH!!!!!!
WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh duck a &^ck!!
Wait a minute....That's how it spread!!
This Avian flu also infects and kills cats (140 tigers at one tiger zoo died of it), ferrets, ducks and geese.
Since swine are often found living side by side with the birds in rural areas of China, that's where almost every year's flu comes from. This Avian flu was originally found in the same Guangdong province where SARS originated, iirc, in 1997. Now it is all over Asia, with human deaths in Cambodia, Viet Nam, etc., a very few of which were human-to-human transmission...it is said to be endemic in Asia, meaning it's everywhere, and irradicable.
Sooner or later, we'll face it.
I have a contact at the CDC and the description of the mood there was "terrified and freaked out" over this. This may be a very big deadly one.
NO,NO,NO.. Never by eaing the meat. This is a virus that can only be spread by contact with living animals. Chicken meat, even from an infected bird would be completely safe to eat. Of course, all poultry must be cooked, never eaten raw. But not because of Avian Flu virus...
My grandfather died of that flu,,he was sick in the morning and dead by nightfall.My father who was 14 rode his horse all over the parish delivering food and burying the dead. He was 14! It was terrible. My mother was left with her mother and two sibs and not a cent.
Also watch out for other new bird diseases such as a variant of Herpes known as "Chirpes" - it's a new canarial disease and it's untweetable.
You are right, you are not a virologist and not a doctor. This disease has a high mortality, is affecting other species than birds and they think the victims die so fast that they have missed the early human cases where virus is in feces, blood, saliva and every organ fails. This is nothing to laugh about.
B.S. Don't we have any respect for vectors anymore?
Does you head swell up when you encounter a particularly hard wall?
Here we are to consider a disease with a little understood etiology and an undetermined epidemiology and we are to gain by going into a state of panic?
have there been any US cases yet? I imagine it would pop up on the west coast first, lots of flights to Asia from those cities. I really worry it could come into the US through infected clothing - so much apparel is made in chinese factories and imported and placed on the shelves in US stores.
I agree. You should read The Hot Zone, the true story of the Marburg/Ebola outbreaks in Africa.
No western cases yet, at all.
My grandfather, a Serbian immingrant, was in the US Army in 1918. He ws the only one in his company not to get the flu. Nearly all of them died. The doctors poked and probed him to find out why he never got sick. He told him it was all the garlic he ate. He was serious.
I saw a blurb about a possible case on West Coast but nothing else, I will find out. I thinkk I did read of 5 cases in Taiwan. What my cdc person says is that they think they have missed the early human cases because they were all looking for a respiratory death but the entire body is affected and it is really bad. I will get an update. And CDC does send out surveillance papers.
I am not suggesting panic but the CDC is very very worried about this. I lived thru the ppolio epidemics when there was no vaccine and nobody panicked.
I don't see panic, I see legitimate concern and a high level of it. Seems appropriate to me.
The etiology of this disease is known, a virus. The mode of transmission, in all possibilities , is known. What is not known is what would happen with person to person transmission. Would it get worse or would the virus get less mischievous.
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