BBC breaking: Lethal bird flu strain in Croatia (deadly to humans)

[Taxloss]

The strain of the bird flu virus lethal to humans has been found in Croatia, the European Union has announced.

The virus, also known as avian flu, was discovered in wild swans found dead at a pond in eastern Croatia last week.

After tests in the UK, it was confirmed to be the H5N1 strain that has killed at least 60 people in Asia since 2003.

Officials are bracing for an outbreak of the lethal strain within the EU, after it was recently discovered in Turkey, Romania and Russia.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4378268.stm

----

Facemasks, getcha facemask here ...

On edit: As a Brit, I'm mildly concerned that we're bring that stuff HERE to test. But we do have some of the best labs in Europe.

[willing dwarf]

1. Fairly misleading and inflammatory headline you've got

Since this is the same bird flu that has been showing up in Romania, Sweden and recently in a parrot in Britain.

Not to say it's not a serious concern, but the headline makes it sound like humans in Croatia are dying from it right now.

[Taxloss]

2. The headline is the BBC headline.

My added comment is borne out by the first line of the article, which says it is "lethal to humans". I don't think it's misleading.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

3. What will The Sun's headline be?

WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!

[Taxloss]

5. Possibly. Parliament just confirmed that TWO parrots died in quarantine.

I'm pleased we're on high alert, this is serious.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

11. At times like this, I wish I was back in California...

...where I knew about a remote, abandoned youth camp with 2000 gallons of propane and a functioning electrical grid that was only known about by around 10 other people.

Not so much to hide from bird flu, but to hide from the loonies who will run riot and make life hell if it ever crosses the species barrier into humans.

[ErisFiveFingers]

39. That parrot's not dead!

It's just sleeping.

[willing dwarf]

10. Sorry, I didn't intend a personal attack

This new flu certainly is a hall of mirrors. It's hard to distinguish between reasonable concern and alarmist "the sky is falling" tendencies. Especially considering the disinformation on vaccines etc from pharmaceutical companies and all the trumped-up terror alerts, the bird flu is in itself a worry, but one that's aggravated in the US by lackadaisical initial response by government, and now the extreme response-- talk of using military to deal with flu, concerns about imposition of marital law, concerns about panic buying of food, medicine, fuel. We really don't know where this one will lead us.

A great blog dealing with the bird flu and thinking through its ramifications is Effectmeasure.blogspot.com I've been a casual reader for the last 6 months or so. I recommend it.

[Taxloss]

16. I didn't read your comment as an attack, don't worry.

My wording did need to be defended, because it was strong.

I hope I don't sound alarmist, I don't want to alarm anyone. But I feel some on DU are treating bird flu as something spun up by the media to distract attention from the crimes of Bushco, and that isn't the case. This is a global thing.

[willing dwarf]

24. Yes, the implications are complex and distressing!

So much room for confusion and emphasis on wrong syllable so to speak...Anyway,thanks for the reply!

[TallahasseeGrannie]

4. So would face masks work?

like they wore in China with SARS? Did it help there?

[Taxloss]

7. An N95 facemask would provide a great deal of protection.

N95 is a filter class - that or better will offer the best protection.

The other best ways to protect yourself should the worst happen (and it hasn't yet):

1. Basic hygiene - handwashing, showering every morning.

2. Get vaccinated. Don't believe DUers who tell you that vaccination is a government mind control plot.

Also, although this may be serious, it isn't going to be anything like the end of civilisation. This is not The Stand. But we should still take steps to ensure that we are well equipped to cope.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

12. "it isn't going to be anything like the end of civilisation."

Here's my problem with that statement:

Bird flu in and of itself is not going to destroy civilization, but the paranoid lunatics just might. I can imagine all sorts of savage hell breaking loose if it started to infect humans. Cops leaving their posts, electrical workers running for the hills, breakdown of transport, etc. The psychological aspects may be every bit as dangerous as the biological aspects.

[Taxloss]

14. That's a fair comment.

But to be honest I think the worst it will get on a societal scale - the absolute worst - is some minor shortages. Particularly, facemasks, some food items, and maybe fuel.

On a personal level, there is a risk of death for yourself or a member of your family, which of course would be much more serious. But the risk is not overwhelming and there are many things you can do to reduce it to an absolute minimum.

[shadowknows69]

19. nuking towns to quarantine them

watch or read "The Andromeda Strain"

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

22. LOL

That's going a bit over the top, I think.

[shadowknows69]

23. There are no limits

WHen something is deemed necessary for the sacred "National Security"

[AZBlue]

40. Over the top and true...it's a true story (or at least it's based on one).

It's not fiction! And, that's scary!!

[wordout]

26. -and blaming it on Iranians

[progressivebydesign]

45. thank the media for breathlessly reporting all of this with no balance n/t

[TallahasseeGrannie]

13. I would think that

one of the biggest threats of this possible pandemic is the disruption of daily routine, such as deliveries to food stores, closing of schools, etc.

And then as a grandmother I have to admit really worrying about toddlers and babies. Those are precious little people in my life. I also worry about my son, who is a paramedic. I'd assume they will get some of the first vaccinations.

Personally, I am increasing my food storage capacity so if we are stuck at home for a while we can hold out.

I believe in vaccinations. I didn't get one last year for the flu because it was hard to come by and I'm not high risk, and woudln't you know it, I got sick as a dog and was out of work for three weeks.

Never again!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

18. The aboslute worst case scenario I can envision:

Disruption of fuel supplies during the harvest season. I think that would be about as bad as it can get. The likelihood of that occuring seems to be very low.

[belle]

29. I carry those little travel bottles of hand sanitizer anyway. Great for

those days when you're just getting off the subway and want a bottle of water or a bite to eat before you have a chance to get to a bathroom sink. And I sometimes use the face masks for cleaning the house (dust & mold kickback). I figure when winter hits I can wear them under a scarf--won't get funny looks and might provide added warmth as well as protection.

I don't usually get flu shots, but probably will this year.

[Hoping4Change]

32. Actually facemasks arent a solution.

For extended discussion about facemasks read the thread in the discussion forum about this at fluwikie.com. Excellent site.

[Taxloss]

35. Not a solution, but a way of reducing the risk.

I'll check out that site, thanks.

[Kailassa]

33. There is no vaccine for it publicly available yet

The current influenza vaccine will do nothing against bird flu. If this virus was to mutate in the next few months, only "bush's chosen" would be vaccinated, because there would only be enough for a vey small percentage of Americans. And, because the virus is new to us, it would take two doses to create any immunity.

This means that, however much you trust pharmaceutical companies, it's only sensible to look to other ways to protect yourself, as they may have nothing to offer.

So if it does become an epidemic, the important things will be:

1. Having food already stored in case you are quarantined in your home, or just want to stay away from people to keep safer.

2. Hygiene. A touch-free tap would come in handy.

3. Avoiding crowded public places, wherever possible. Overcrowded hospitals could easily become breeding grounds for more lethal mutations of the virus. The health system forces poor people to go to hospital outpatients if they want treatment, and this will be a perfect place for the virus to spread.

4. Face masks, but you need to look at the best way to use these. Reusing them can spread infections.

5. Natural remedies of your choice. I know there are some here who rubbish everything that does not have a pharmaceutical company's patent on it, but many natural remedies are helpful. It's just a matter of sorting out the useful bits from the billowing clouds of hot air.

6. And, of course, vaccines and anti-virals, if we are lucky enough to have access to them.

[Taxloss]

36. A vaccine won't take long to prepare.

It's like cutting keys - we know the make of lock and we have the equipment and the blanks; once we have a key, we can churn out copies of it.

[Kailassa]

38. That's true when you have the equipment.

At the present time nobody in America does apart from the military, and they only have a small set up.

[AZBlue]

41. Does anyone know if the regular flu vaccine would help prevent avian flu?

I realize it's a different strain, but does it help prevent or minimize it at all? I definitely believe in yearly flu shots - and no, it's not government mind control, LOL. I get them every year and I'm quite sure the government isn't in control of my mind, as much as they might like to be!

[DrBloodmoney]

42. Getting vaccinated will not protect you against H5N1

It is not a member of the subtypes that this year's vaccines are targeted against... so think again. Although basic handwashing will work.

[progressivebydesign]

43. No. It is not spreading human to human... and hard to get from fowl

and the people who are dying are apparently eating sick or dead fowl that died of the illness. It's not easy to catch from the fowl, actually.

[Maddy McCall]

6. H5N1 has NOT yet mutated to spread easily from person to person.

And the only humans who have caught it thus far have caught it from diseased birds, and were people in close contact with those birds. Some claim that the virus has passed from human to human in two cases, but this cannot be proved, because those people also lived in close contact with infected birds.

Having said that, I'll reiterate: H5N1 has NOT yet mutated to spread from human to human.

[Taxloss]

8. True.

But the global pool of H5N1 is getting larger and larger, and it keeps rolling the evolutionary dice.

[progressivebydesign]

44. I repeat.. It has not mutated, and is still hard to catch from fowl.

There seems to be some confusion on here tonight that it is somehow now human to human transmitted, or that it's something that you can get from being near fowl. The people who caught it all ate a sick bird or a bird that died of a sickness... and grossly enuff, a dish that is made in Asia using raw chicken blood in a pudding (barf!) is getting the villagers.

There has been absolutely no evidence that it has mutated to human to human, it is all from eating raw, sick, fowl. No need for face masks... or anything of that sort now. It may take years to mutate, it may die off for a long time, or it may never mutate. It's like some volcanoes, they know they'll blow at some point.. maybe tomorrow.. maybe 20 years.. maybe 1 year.. but not apparently at this moment.

[Kailassa]

47. You are right, but ...

The situation now is similar to the situation of people living in a place where a hurricane is likely to hit someday. Just as they need to know about hurricanes to know which basic precautions would be most useful, we need to understand about bird flu to know how to best protect ourselves if it happens.

For myself, one precaution has been to spend a few dollars on a bundle of the very cheapest face-masks to put in a drawer and forget about until, if ever, they are needed. As there are health issues to be concerned about in reusing masks, my approach would be to wear a new one each time I'm in a crowd, after bird flu has appeared as a contagious disease in my area. But, for the moment, they are where they belong, out of sight and out of mind.

Life itself is a constant gamble, one more threat is nothing to lose sleep over. It's just a matter of seeing what sort of storms are most likely, and collecting the appropriate umbrellas beforehand.

I do think the people ridiculing any possibility it could happen are those who are afraid, because they don't realize how much they can do to protect themselves. We are not helpless here, and information on these boards should do more to empower than to frighten.

[TaleWgnDg]

9. This is highly inflammatory!! WTF??

This is bird flu strain H5N1 which is the very same bird flu virus that has been noted in southeast Asia, Turkey, Romania, and now Croatia. It has been contacted by a very small number of human beings that have, supposedly, contacted this H5N1 strain from birds.

H5N1 has not jumped human being-to-human being, and has not hybridized to human virus plus bird virus to a super-strong viral infection. In other words, this new BBC story is only about several dead wild swans in Croatia!!!!!!!!

Talk about inflammatory reporting. Shame on you, BBC.

[SidDithers]

20. The farther the virus spreads and the more birds infected...

simply increases the opportunity for the virus to recombine with a more easily transmissible regular flu virus.

Sid

[SheilaT]

15. I am getting so tired of hearing

the hype on this bird flu.

There are unknown thousands, possibly millions of viruses out there capable of making the jump from a host species to humans. And it happens periodically. But the odds of it happening with this specific virus -- H5N1 -- is vanishingly small.

The real way to think about this hype is to ask, What are they preparing us for? And I think the answer is to get us to willingly be quarantined or even put away in special camps in the event of a breakout of something supposedly (or maybe even actually) deadly.

Or maybe there is not wider conspiracy at work, but it's sad to see so many panicking blindly at every mention of the possibility of this bird flu jumping to humans.

Other than the fact it kills birds, it presents almost no danger to humans.

[Taxloss]

17. If this is hype, it's hype on a global scale.

It's a hype effort that requires the collusion of the USA, the UK, all the EU governments, Turkey, Russia, China, dozens of other states, and the World Health Organisation.

China is so concerned it has said it will close its borders at the first h2h transmission. Europe is taking unprecedented action. There's no need for panic, but there is every need for grave concern.

[SheilaT]

25. It is hype on a global scale.

The flu virus mutates on an ongoing basis, which is why it's not possible to eradicate. And precisely because Chinese farmers continue to raise ducks and pigs together, those two animals keep on passing flu viruses back and forth, facilitating the mutation process. And sometimes a mutated virus is more potent than another one.

Meanwhile, the only people who've gotten sick from this were in close contact with birds of some kind. It doesn't spread easily from person to person. To keep on saying over and over that this year it might mutate into a deadly one that passes easily from person to person is no more meaningful this year than it is any other year.

And to compare it to the 1918 world-wide pandemic, despite the apparent genetic similarity, is likewise misleading. Conditions were very different in 1918. That flu spread so very easily precisely because thousands of young men, many of whom had literally never been away from their home villages before, were suddenly herded together in large numbers in somewhat unsanitary military camps. And then were shipped off around the country and across the ocean in the service of WWI. Many people did not have running water. Hand-washing, the single biggest public health measure of all, wasn't as commonly practices, partly because of the lack of running water.

Yes, it's hype.

[Taxloss]

34. In 1918, we didn't have global air travel.

Thousands of people crossing international boundaries every day in metal tubes filled with recycled air.

The risk of mutation IS more meaningful this year because the global pool of H5N1 has nevr been larger - and the more dice you roll, the greater the chance of rolling a six.

[anotherdrew]

46. not just that...

tubes filled with recycled air, at high altitude, where mutation inducing natural radiation is much higher. the more virus in the world, the more chances for it to mutate.

[Orrin_73]

48. You are so right

how many people died so far from the bird flu, 62 out of 6 billion people. A hype probably set in motion by the drug industry to sell more drugs.

[FredfromSpace]

21. I live in Firenze, Itay.

And that is not too far from Croatia, as the crow flies.

Too close for comfort if you ask me.

[Straight Shooter]

28. We are all a plane flight away from one another.

I live in East Oregon. People here travel all over the world, of course, just as people in Firenze travel all over the world. We are all too easily connected. By the time people in Firenze become ill, if this mutates, the process will have already begun to incubate in Oregon.

I try not to become too concerned about this bird flu, which does require recombination or mutation in order to create a pandemic among humans. There is also the likelihood that there is another virus lurking "out there" which could mutate and cause great damage. That's the nature of the world we live in, and who knows how much of it has been caused by what we have unknowingly done and what has been caused by Mother Nature.

Welcome to DU, Fred. :hi:

[smirkymonkey]

30. How is the Italian Press reacting to this news?

Are Florentines as panicked as others, or do they seem to be taking it in stride?

BTW, Welcome to DU FredfromSpace! :hi:

[Just Me]

27. All the pieces are certainly in place for a pandemic.

It's clear that scientists fully expect this virus to evolve.

I'm glad I live in a scarcely populated area.

[rocktivity]

31. Well, I SUPPOSE it's better than being PECKED to death...

:evilgrin:
rocknation

[SoCalDem]

37. I would not want to be a bird, about now..

Just wait until someone's kitty catches it after killing a bird..

There will be mass extermination of all kinds of wild critters:cry: and some not so wile:cry:

If people quit "factory farming", lots of these diseases would not be a problem for humans..