Avian Flu !

[Archer]

How Ironic that I just finished watching season two!!!!!!!

Avian flu pandemic is coming

WORLD HEALTH WARNING: It will happen soon and is likely to kill millions worldwide

Don Harrison

The Province

February 27, 2005

Empty factories.

Deserted malls.

Closed schools.

Restrictions on air travel and idled public transit.

Darkened theatres and quarantined hospitals.

This is not some doomsday fantasy, but a likely scenario for cities such as Vancouver in the event of a pandemic outbreak of avian flu.

Will it happen?

The world's most respected infectious disease experts say it's not a question of "if" but "when."

At a conference last week in Vietnam, the normally conservative World Health Organization dropped its sensational bombshell: a killer pandemic is coming, probably soon, and it will kill millions.

They said the likely culprit will be a mutated strain of avian flu and it will come from Asia, where the proximity of animals and humans creates the perfect pandemic breeding ground.

Dr. Danuta Skowronski of the B.C. Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver is the woman whose timely warning alerted physicians to what turned out to be SARS, helping B.C. avoid the deadly consequences that disease visited on Toronto in 2003.

In the exclusive question and answer session with The Province that appears below, Skowronski says Vancouver is Canada's gateway for all infectious diseases coming from Asia.

We asked her what science knows about avian flu and what the public needs to do to prepare for what

the WHO calls "the greatest possible danger."

dharrison@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Province 2005

Vaccine will be ready for all?

A virtual unknown six months ago, a Vancouver-based vaccine-maker now stands between Canada and what could be its greatest crisis since the Second World War.

[Guest blondton13]

That's truly scary. I dread viruses-they're so insidious in their behavior. And we're so much more successful in creating antibiotics as compared to antivirals. Ebola,Marburg-they are so cool in movies-but I would never want to come across them myself. And to die from flu??? That really blows.I try to conscious of washing my hands often, but I bite my fingernails---I'm just asking for something!!

[Guest SouthernCelt]

Found this on the internet today. Not the avian flu but potentially worse now that the world is so mobile and able to spread viruses everywhere...

New viruses jump from monkeys to humans...

These kind of stories make one want to pull a "Luminary" and seek solace and enlightenment all alone in the wilderness (other than a tropical rainforest however).

[Archer]

I think the scariest thing about these viruses is there is no proper contagents or quarantines to put into place. I live in Vancouver BC and they say it will be the epicenter for this Virus. The sad reality is our city is not ready for this kinda of global threat. Our big city budget is for the Olympics and our new Ecom systems incase someone wants to blow us up for being peace keepers. hehe

The saddest thing about where I live is where I work. I work for a large corporation out here and when the power goes out we think we are under attack!

[Guest blondton13]

...These kind of stories make one want to pull a "Luminary" and seek solace and enlightenment all alone in the wilderness (other than a tropical rainforest however).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What? You don't love all those flesh boring flies, bedbugs that carry Chagas, the multitude of leeches and the hundreds of highly venomous snakes???Shame on you, Southern Celt! That is nature at its finest!!

P.S. Here's a link to the CDC on Avian Influenza in humans:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/gen-info/avian-flu-humans.htm

Edited March 1, 2005 by blondton13

[Darth Paul]

Here's another link I posted over in The Real World. Scary stuff.

https://www.comcast.net/News/HEALTHWELLNESS...20b0617ddf.html

[Guest SouthernCelt]

What? You don't love all those flesh boring flies, bedbugs that carry Chagas, the multitude of leeches and the hundreds of highly venomous snakes???Shame on you, Southern Celt! That is nature at its finest!!  

Where I live (rural Mississippi) I already have plenty of that sort of stuff -- mosquitos, chiggers, ticks, leeches, rattlers, copperheads, cottonmouths, coral snakes (rarely but they're there), etc.

[Darth Paul]

Where I live (rural Mississippi) I already have plenty of that sort of stuff -- mosquitos, chiggers, ticks, leeches, rattlers, copperheads, cottonmouths, coral snakes (rarely but they're there), etc.  

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Awww, man! You guys got coral snakes?! As in "red on yellah'll kill a fella"? We 've got all the other bad boys you mentioned but I have yet to run into a coral snake.

[Guest SouthernCelt]

Awww, man!  You guys got coral snakes?!  As in "red on yellah'll kill a fella"?  We 've got all the other bad boys you mentioned but I have yet to run into a coral snake.

Yes, we've got corals but like I said, they're rarely seen. I've only seen a couple "in the wild" in my lifetime. A lot of people will see banded king snakes (which have the same colors but in a different arrangement) that are two to three times (or more) the size of corals and think they're corals.

The fact that they're here but just not seen often was driven home to me in a video of a herpetologist going through a copse of trees in one of the state parks and pointing out/catching snakes of various types that the average hiker or camper would never see. One of the first ones he showed was a coral hiding at the base of a wild shrub alongside a path.

Now back to the topic at hand...