After the Presidential address last night, ABC did a special on if 3 major disasters hit - would Americans be prepared to handle them. One of them was a major earthquake. The 1st was avian flu. I didn't get the 3rd - after the 1st one, I had to stop listening and changed - it scared the mess out of me.
They said if it hits, it could hit as early as this winter. They predicted 200,000 Americans could die from it (I think the press' new job is to scare the mess out of everyone). They also said Britain was looking for additional morgue space.
Did anyone else see this? I was trying to gather if this is just speculation, or if they really think this would hit. Tamiflu seems to be an effective treatment (not cure - there is vaccine yet and wouldn't be until approx 6 mos after an outbreak), but Roche is the only company that makes it, and every country wants it. Here's an article:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...o_050915223654
WHO chief issues new warning on avian flu
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - World Health Organisation (WHO) boss Lee Jong-wook issued a new warning about avian flu, reiterating that the virus, which has triggered a major health scare in Southeast Asia, could mutate into a major killer.
At present, the H5N1 strain of bird flu, harboured by wild migrating birds and poultry flocks, is lethal for humans but is not very contagious, nor can it be easily transmitted from person to person.
"The existing H5N1 hasn't yet acquired its ability to transmit among the humans but when it acquires this ability -- and there is some evidence that this will be the case -- I hope this will be simply less toxic than the existing H5N1, which has killed half the people infected," Lee told reporters.
The WHO's director general spoke at the fringes of a UN Summit where US President George W. Bush launched what he called an "international partnership" aimed at preventing avian flu and other new strains from becoming the first new pandemic of the 21st century.
The WHO's biggest fear is that H5N1 may mutate, acquiring genes from the human influenza virus that will make it highly infectious as well as lethal.
Pressed on whether the stage had come to prepare for a mutated H5N1 virus, Lee said "the biggest fear (is) that it will acquire this capacity but ... the issue is timing."
"We cannot afford to face the pandemic unprepared," Lee said after announcing that the WHO would join the US-led initiative, which is focussed on sharing samples of the virus among lab researchers.
The WHO last month said current production of anti-viral vaccines was insufficient to deal with a catastrophic flu epidemic like the one that struck in 1918 and killed some 40 million people around the world.
WHO already has a stockpile of medicine that could be used during a pandemic, Lee said.
The UN agency had access to 30 million doses of an antiviral drug called tamiflu, he said.
"The 30 million capsules are reserved by a company. When we tell them to ship to certain countries, they will airlift it to the nearest airports, from where we will be responsible for this," he said.
H5N1: Avian Flu
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