For those that need an excuse to prepare

Well, I would say that 2 years ago it wouldnt have been at the top of the list of concers for most of us unless it was maybe a fear of a bio attack.

 

Very good RH!

Isn't that always the way??

Reading back...I'll have to weigh in later..but the market? And Bear's comments? I work in Real Estate and Property Management... I don't know how some of these people sleep at night..the salespeople...

We just sold a house for $320,000. A 3 BR, tract home in a subdivision...that was originally a $84,000 home...in 1993. I looked it up on the Net....and they are projecting this kind of growth for a good solid 5 more years....before it stabilizes....

I have got to get out of here......Some days..I really hate what I do.

 

Well if the flu dose hit then I could see real estate prices for those left to enjoy them being QUITE reasonable...a few million more homes on the market and a few million fewer folks to buy them, and similar for a lot of other things.

 

Well since the bird problem is now in South America the time is a lot more limited before it migrates north.

On that note, whether or not it mutates into a flu virus that spreads from human to human contact (which is what it will have to do to become a true and deadly problem) has yet to be determined.

It's going to be an interesting few years coming up folks...very interesting.

 

Kin you skin a griz, pilgrim.

 

Well, I recon I could skin most anything with skin, just some thin skined critters, the hide may not be as good as others.

 

More and more organizations and officials are using the word.... IMMINENT... "adj. 1. likely to occur at any moment; impending. 2. threateningly or menacingly near of at hand".... Its an "interesting" turn in terms..... watch the avian flu developments closely and act quickly if you need to.... IMHO....

http://www.pia.gov.ph/news.asp?fi=p051107.htm&no=3

PIA Press Release
11/07/2005
Red Cross prepares for avian flu


Quezon City (7 November) -- Senator Richard Gordon, Chairman of the Philippine National Red Cross, has alerted all the Red Cross Chapters nationwide for the possible entry of the Avian Flu in the country.

"We have to be ready for the imminent threat of pandemic in Southeast Asia related to the Avian Flu. There have been confirmed cases in our neighboring countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. The PNRC has taken preparedness and response efforts to assist the government in its efforts to prep up for the possible advent of bird flu," Gordon pronounced.

According to Gordon, all Red Cross Chapters including the National Headquarters frontline services were ordered to immediately re-activate and re-orient Chapter Core Disseminators who underwent SARS, Public Health and Disaster Response Trainings. He has also instructed the production of Information Education Communication materials to be distributed to schools and community health centers.

PNRC Secretary Vic Liozo said Avian Flu Preventive Education has already been integrated to all Red Cross training courses offered nationwide. He added that Red Cross volunteers have been assigned to help in the monitoring of bird sanctuaries, poultries, pet shops, markets, cockpit arenas, and slaughter houses.

"We don't want to be caught off guard when an outbreak hits us," Gordon emphasized adding that, "the PNRC's standard procedure is to Predict, Plan, Prepare, Practice, Cope, Mitigate, Rescue, relieve, and Rehabilitate in each situation."

Gordon has also ordered for the stockpiling of Personal Protective Equipment and Tamil Flu Medicine and Vaccine to all local Red Cross Chapters.

"We urge organizations and individuals to be involved and to volunteer in our preparedness and response efforts. Report to your local chapters all cases of unusual death of fowls or any suspicious symptoms of bird flu in humans," appealed Gordon. (Office of Sen. Gordon) [top]


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4404770.stm

Flu pandemic: the UK's dilemmas
Health experts are warning a flu pandemic is imminent - with attention being focussed on the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu which has emerged in South East Asia.
The UK government has put together a plan for what it would do if a pandemic reached the UK.

Here, the BBC's Panorama programme looks at the dilemmas it poses.


THE PROBLEM

The UK first began planning for a flu pandemic earlier this year, putting it ahead of the vast majority of countries in the world who have no plans in place at all for a pandemic.

But flu is not an easy thing to prepare for.

People will not have immunity to a pandemic flu because it will be a new type, and many will die. Others will spread it unknowingly.

The biggest unknown is how bad it is all going to be. The government is working with a range of outcomes from under 20,000 deaths up to 750,000.

Plans which might work to ameliorate suffering and panic at the lower end of this scale, will look completely inadequate at the other end.

The UK's plan will come into operation when the World Health Organization reports that a new variant of flu is transmitting from human to human.

How the UK acts will depend on how the virus behaves, what age groups it targets, where the flu comes from and how fast it transmits.

But the proposals lead to a number of dilemmas.

SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT SHUT SCHOOLS?

Schools, where large groups of people gather and mingle, are central to the spread of any infectious disease.


When children catch flu, the period of time during which they could pass it on to other people, is longer than for adults who have caught the same bug.

So it makes sense to shut schools to curb the spread of disease.

But that would mean parents having to be at home to look after the children - including nurses, doctors, police and local government officials, who would all be needed to cope with the pandemic.

It would also remove a large proportion of people from the workforce, affecting business.

And it's not clear that closing schools will actually stop children socialising with each other.

How long would parents be willing to quarantine their children for? If they are out on the street playing football with the neighbours then they may as well be in school.

Local education authorities would take the responsibility for deciding if schools should be closed, but a situation where one area chooses to shut schools while another keeps them open is probably not tenable.

Local authorities have asked for more guidance from the government.

It is a tight call, and for now the government has decided that making the decision will have to wait until a pandemic strain emerges.

If it is clear that it affects the young in particular, schools will be shut.

If not, if the virus kills the elderly as the seasonal flu tends to, they will probably remain open.

SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT RESTRICT AIR TRAVEL?

If, as is most likely, a pandemic starts in South East Asia, the way it will arrive in Britain is on an aeroplane, carried by a human.

Given this knowledge, it would seem to make sense simply to stop flights coming into the country.

But if air travel was stopped as soon as a pandemic was identified, thousands of UK citizens would be stranded abroad.


Even shutting routes into the UK from one country in South East Asia would result in abandoning travellers, business people and diplomatic staff to the flu.

It would also be hugely detrimental to the affected area, potentially stopping the flow of aid and medical supplies.

And if you cannot stop 100% of flights, it's not really worth stopping any.

Modelling work has shown that if you even let in 1% of normal flights you have merely slowed the spread of flu by a few days or weeks, at vast cost to the economy.

Australia has already stated in its pandemic plan that entry screening will be imposed during a pandemic.

However the UK government does not currently believe that this will be effective.

The main problem is that diagnosing flu is not easy: people can have and spread flu, before showing any symptoms.

Some might develop symptoms during the flight, while others may carry the flu without ever showing symptoms.

Potentially you could qurantine people in the same way that live animals are quarantined today but this is an extreme measure which may not be popular, or possible.

There is an acceptance amongst the government's scientific advisers, that come a pandemic ministers may respond to public demands to screen passengers at airports - even though the effectiveness of this measure is not yet proven.

If other countries, like Australia, enact this measure then there will be pressure on British politicians to do the same.

ANTI-VIRAL STRATEGY

Anti-virals are drugs which can be used to treat flu, and are potentially life saving.

The government has currently ordered enough Tamiflu to treat 25% of the population from its manufacturer Roche.


The stockpile of 14.6m doses will be in place by September 2006.

When a pandemic strain emerges, doctors will see which groups are most at risk, and allocate the stockpile accordingly.

The elderly, and people with weakened immune systems are likely to be among those at the top of the list.

People need to be given the drug within 48 hours of developing flu symptoms for it to be effective.

How the NHS gets the drug to people in this timeframe is still being worked out.

It may be that there are 'flu centres' where you go to pick up the drug or that it is actually delivered to your door by a health professional.

Tamiflu can also be given to prevent people getting flu - but this only works if they are taking the drug when they are exposed to the virus.

So using the drug this way would mean a stockpile would be reduced very quickly.

But it may be useful to use Tamiflu as a preventive drug in some cases in a bid to stop the spread of the virus.

However, using the drug in this way would mean obtaining more of it, and demand for Tamiflu greatly exceeds supply.

In addition, these drugs have not been tested in a pandemic situation, so no one is certain they will work.

CONTAINMENT

If the human to human transmission of flu was spotted quickly, anti-virals could be given at the point of outbreak in a bid to wipe the virus out by giving it no human hosts to spread to.

Roche has offered to provide the World Health Organization with a stockpile of 3m doses of the drug which would be shipped to the scene of the outbreak when it was discovered.

But come a pandemic, the biggest stockpiles will be held by governments like our own.

Would it be better to send this stockpile to the country where the pandemic occurs, or keep it and wait for the flu to come?

Again this is not an easy call. If the containment strategy doesn't work then the government would have used up part of a stockpile which could have been used for treating sick people at home.

If a pandemic were to start closer to home in say Romania, Turkey or another European country, the decision is likely to be harder.

We might feel more responsibility to closer neighbours, and our economic ties with these countries are stronger.

Even some of our essential services, such as domestic gas, are dependent on European suppliers.

Across Europe, stockpiles of anti-virals are nowhere near WHO recommended levels.

The EU, as part of its co-ordination of pandemic plans - which will be discussed later this month, is considering creating its own 'solidarity fund' in order to pay for anti-virals and other measures if a relatively unprepared country is affected first.

VACCINE STRATEGY

Perhaps the most contentious questions of all concern vaccines.


No vaccine would be available until four to six months into a pandemic - because scientists have to see the flu strain before they can develop a vaccine.

People will then have to wait their turn for immunisation. Priority groups like healthcare workers will be vaccinated first.

But the government is building up a contingency stockpile of 2m-3m doses of H5N1 vaccine which can be manufactured now.

This is not yet a pandemic strain. The vaccine might offer some protection against the strain which does emerge - but nobody can be certain about this in advance.

The UK government is also tendering for a "sleeping contract" so that a vaccine manufacturer can be primed to produce enough vaccine for the UK population - 120m doses - as soon as the pandemic strain is identified.

 

Actually, there hasn't been any confirmed cases of H5N1 in North or South America. There are many different strains of avian influenza that are in the U.S. poultry flocks at any given times. Just not the H5N1 strain, to the best of our knowledge.

 

I thought I had heard that the H5N1 had made an appearance in Columbia?

 

Cool, I just heard it as a foot note on network TV news and I know they are notorious for getting things screwed up.