Virulent TB in South Africa may imperil millions, experts warn - International Herald Tribune
Has bird flu made the jump?
... or not: ABC News: Renowned Bird Flu Expert Warns: Be Prepared
"Society just can't accept the idea that 50 percent of the population could die. And I think we have to face that possibility," Webster said. "I'm sorry if I'm making people a little frightened, but I feel it's my role."
Nothing but the good news there.
Avian flu outbreak in Nigeria yields worrisome scenario
...
Maria Cheng, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization, said her agency suspected that there might be human cases of H5N1 flu in Africa but had no way to confirm that yet. "We're getting a team ready to go," she said, "but we're waiting to get the invitation from Nigeria."
...
On Friday, a BBC News reporter visited one of the northern Nigeria farms where 20,000 birds had died. Although the Health Ministry had announced that the farms were quarantined and being disinfected, he reported that basic safety measures were being ignored. Carcasses were being burned in the open, letting infectious feathers and dander spread downwind. The farm workers doing the culling had no protective gear. Villagers were still entering the property to draw well water.
Nothing to worry about there, is there?
Bird disease in flu-hit Nigeria "spreading like wildfire"
"We have 20,000 new infections reported today, bringing the figure for infected birds to 80,000. What worsens the situation is the movement of infected poultry, in a frantic effort to minimise losses," he said.
Haruna and several market stall holders told AFP that once chickens are infected farmers are killing them and rapidly dumping them on the market in an effort to beat any future quarantine and make a quick profit.
Other outbreaks have been contained by government acting quickly to quarantine and destroy infected flocks, and by the cooperation of the affected farmers. Nigeria barely has a government, much less an effective one, and this situation is ripe for creating a crossover strain that can move between humans easily.
Remember this is a country where ebola, which is extraordinarily difficult to contract, kills people by the dozens or hundreds every few years. So H5N1 should have no difficulty rearranging its genes for human transmission.
Watch and wait.
It's baaaack ; First outbreak of bird flu reported in Africa | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
CDC - Influenza (Flu) | Weekly US Map: Influenza Summary Update
This: The Standard - China's Business Newspaper looked like a good article on bird flu in Indonesia.
Unfortunately, the Hong Kong Standard is running crappy software on their server so all you get is this:
ODBC driver does not support the requested properties.
/content_type1.asp, line 8
When will they learn?
UPDATE: (8:10AM 11-28-05) It's fixed now. Read and enjoy.
Bird flu sparking human epidemic is 'science fiction': Spain
Here's another perspective on bird flu, from ground zero: Cure worse than disease
Bird flu making inroads in Europe? More than 1,000 poultry found dead in Macedonia
Local authorities say it's not, but "were testing the dead poultry, with results expected within a few days."
I have to wonder if sick birds will be slaughtered and rushed to market before they're noticed.
HoustonChronicle.com - Chances of bird flu pandemic called 'very high'
CNN news just reported 1300 bird deaths in western Turkey, thought to be from avian flu. The area is a major migration crossroads to Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Stories like this one: US sends mixed message on bird flu threat are keeping a small pilot flame of incipient panic alive in the back of conciousness, so that if an outbreak of avian flu actually occurs, and particularly if it occurs in the United States, there will be severe panic. The avian flu is being ignored for the most part, but the stories are out there, comparing it to the Spanish Flu of 1918 with stories of how bad that pandemic was. An actual outbreak of human transmitted avian flu will be the trigger for mass hysteria in the developed countries that could be as bad as the outbreak itself.
And when people learn that the vaccine that is being promised is 18 months away, what then?
The reconstruction of the 1918 flu genome has been completed, and the virus has been determined to be ... an avian flu virus, one that jumped directly to humans.
Experts Unlock Clues to Spread of 1918 Flu Virus | theledger.com
I am watching "The Return of the Black Death" on Discovery, a program that examines the considerable evidence that Black Death was not the bubonic plague.
But if it wasn't, what was it? And why did it disappear? And what if it comes back?
ABC News: Avian Flu: Is the Government Ready for an Epidemic?
With the hurricane disaster, avaian flu has dropped out of the spotlight. But it's still out there - HK hunter hot on the trail of deadly bird flu virus
FT.com / World / Europe - European farmers act to halt spread of bird flu
Hope so.
Avian influenza may have found its natural reservoir: BBC NEWS | Health | Ducks are 'a big' bird flu threat
"I had a little bird
Its name was Enza,
I opened up the door,
And influenza"
Quack, quack.
Here's some cheerful news: EPIDEMIca // H5N1 // M-J Milloy
So are the Chinese covering up a major avian flu outbreak at Qinghai Lake? They concealed how bad the SARS outbreak was until it was out in the world, and couldn't be concealed any more. That makes this story very plausible.
And then there's the story of the "mysterious" bacterial infections from pigs that have killed 24 people so far, with no good treatment available yet. No good treatment for swine strep?
It's going to be an interesting winter.
Update: more from epidemica:
More victims Chinese "mystery disease"
While the number of victims has increased to 27 dead, 21 critical and 131 infected, China's pig disease in Sichuan remains a mystery; Chinese officials have stated the cause is streptococcus suis bacteria (swine flu); still, the high number of victims and the large area in which infections are reported are very unusual for the bacteria, and there are no independent reports, since China refuses to let anyone in; the WHO has nobody on the ground in Sichuan, but a spokesman in the Philippines says "the situation is still very localised", "this doesn't pose a real threat to international public health", "it's not an explosive situation"; how can he be sure of all this, all the way from Manila? the Chinese told him!; in another nice twist, a Chinese daily reports sick pigs being eaten, sold, and even dug up after being buried / RM
Nothing to see here, move along.