http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9547047/site/newsweek/Some are infected by human to human transmission; but by very, very close contact—not like regular flu. It’s still a hard virus for a human being to catch. I don’t think anyone is really sure of how these cases have occurred. There were cases in Jakarta
where the only common exposure was at a zoo. But it’s hard to come in close contact with animals at a zoo.
We don’t know exactly what nature of genetic change is necessary to make this type of human-to-human transmission possible. This particular type has never been in our species—to our knowledge anyway. So there are two implications. That absolutely no one reading this article is immune. And, two, that we don’t know how it tracks in human beings. It is not a normal flu. For this flu to get into a form that would rapidly spread from one human to another or from a human to a towel or a cup or a doorknob or a subway pole to another human, we don’t know what would have to change. We also cannot answer another question that comes up. Will it still be killing 55 percent of all people if it changes? We don’t know if it has to forsake most of the virulence if it changes. We hope so, but we don’t know if that is the case…It could happen through a recombination event or a mutational drift event.
There is a vaccine announced by the National Institutes of Health that targets a particular strain of H5N1 in a particular strain in chickens... But it seems only to provide protective immunity for humans at the highest possible dose. It would mean two rounds of vaccinations. You’d have a real high drop-out rate… The other problem is that the vaccine must be thought of as a prototype because the human-to-human transmitter will have changed itself .
It’s not really a treatment. It doesn’t cure you, but it slows the ability of the virus to overwhelm your body and make lots of copies of itself and that buys you time to develop appropriate immunity and kill it off. Even then, you need to take it in the first 36 hours. You need to know how to tell the difference between a cold and the flu. You have to be able to pay for the prescription, while you are deathly ill, and dose yourself in less than 36 hours.
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You are right, but there is very little they really know and they won't know much until after a pandemic is underway. They aren't even sure what direction this is going to take.
I see no reason to get worried. Sure, it could happen...but it may not. They've said for years that the world is on the verge of something like this, but it could happen now or years from now.
The lack of information spreads more fear than anything else and I won't subscribe to it at all. To me, this is like an asteroid hit, lighting striking or getting hit by a car. No one knows when or if. It's like what the bush regime has been saying about terra: It's not a matter of if, but when.
A lot of things are a matter of when, but I won't live my life by that fear.