4th Horseman Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 Bird flu a bigger challenge than AIDS, warns WHO By Alexander Higgins, Geneva THE lethal strain of bird flu poses a greater challenge to the world than any infectious disease, including AIDS, and has cost 300 million farmers over $10 billion in its spread through poultry around the world, the World Health Organisation said yesterday. Scientists also are increasingly worried that the H5N1 strain could mutate into a form easily passed between humans, triggering a global pandemic. It already is unprecedented as an animal illness in its rapid expansion. Since February, the virus has spread to birds in 17 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, said the WHO’s Dr Margaret Chan, citing UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates of the toll on farmers. “Concern has mounted progressively, and events in recent weeks justify that concern,” Dr Chan, who is leading WHO’s efforts against bird flu, told a meeting in Geneva on global efforts to prepare for the possibility of the flu mutating into a form easily transmitted among humans. ENOUGH SAID.... 4TH HORSEMAN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elders (Admins) The Old Man Posted March 8, 2006 Elders (Admins) Share Posted March 8, 2006 It hit the news whilst I recently had a bad case of the flu that the first bird to die of the deadly H5N1 strain had croked it in France. Not far away from the UK yet there doesn't seem to be much on the news of late, that I've seen anyway. I hope it doesn't get out of hand across the Channel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ein042 Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 Correct me if I'm wrong, They are saying, I think, that for the Avian flu to become contagious among humans, it first mixes with a strain of say, a human influenza? Say someone who has type A flu also contracts the H5N1 though .. whatever means, blood or products of infected poultry. Then the virus mutates in the human body into a form that is communicable to other humans? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4th Horseman Posted March 8, 2006 Author Share Posted March 8, 2006 Correct me if I'm wrong, They are saying, I think, that for the Avian flu to become contagious among humans, it first mixes with a strain of say, a human influenza? Say someone who has type A flu also contracts the H5N1 though .. whatever means, blood or products of infected poultry. Then the virus mutates in the human body into a form that is communicable to other humans?Hey Ein42..good to see you on the board...hope all is well... wow, let me dust the cobwebs off of my biology degree from a number of years back and try to remember how viruses work...give me a minute.. influenza viruses can change in two different ways. One is called "antigenic drift." These are small changes in the virus that happen continually over time. Antigenic drift produces new virus strains that may not be recognized by the body's immune system. We know that a person infected with a particular flu virus strain develops antibody against that virus. As newer virus strains appear, the antibodies against the older strains no longer recognize the "newer" virus, and reinfection can occur. This is one of the main reasons why people can get the flu more than one time. In most years, one or two of the three virus strains in the influenza vaccine are updated to keep up with the changes in the circulating flu viruses. So, people who want to be protected from flu need to get a flu shot every year. The other type of change is called "antigenic shift." Antigenic shift is an abrupt, major change in the influenza A viruses, resulting in new hemagglutinin and/or new hemagglutinin and neuraminidase proteins in influenza viruses that infect humans, of which if i remember there are15 different hemagglutinin and 9 different neuraminidase subtypes, hence the one combination being H5N1, or 5 hemagglutinin and 1 neuraminidase subtypes joined together. Shift results in a new influenza A subtype. When shift happens, most people have zero protection against the new virus, and are basically sitting ducks. While influenza viruses are changing by antigenic drift all the time, antigenic shift happens only occasionally. Type A viruses undergo both kinds of changes; influenza type B viruses change only by the more gradual process of antigenic drift. In a nutshell, antigenic drift are only very, very small changes in a known viruses surface proteins, to the extent that the body's natural defenses cannot recognize. This is why multiple vaccinations are produced yearly, scientists are trying to predict which way the influenza-A virus will mutate... antigenic shift on the other hand is far more insidious. As you stated, this is where two different and independent virus strains, each with their own key genetic signatures and surface proteins, join together to form one big super strain..with a protein substrate completely unrecognizable by the body's defense system, which then can easily be transmitted from human to human.... we are now seeing more and more people infected with the H5N1 virus worldwide. This is a very troubling indication that the virus may be on the brink of becoming a pandemic. With migratory birds carrying the virus from country to country, it is only going to be a matter of time before H5N1 goes down as one of the greatest pandemics in history... i hope this answers some of your questions, at 47 i just could not remember EVERYTHING i had learned about virus mutations...here are a couple of good websites that i got some of the information from..what i find to be as or more troubling is that you know we are not being given the complete details from our government. It is incumbent upon each and every one of us to absorb as much knowledge about H5N1 as possible...vigilance is our defense.. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/fluviruses.htm https://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/focuson/flu...igenicdrift.htm https://www.cehs.siu.edu/fix/medmicro/ortho.htm enjoy... till the last change..be done.. 4th Horseman... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elders (Moderators) Libby Posted March 8, 2006 Elders (Moderators) Share Posted March 8, 2006 First, 4H, let me say how impressed I am that you could remember all that from way back - I have trouble remembering stuff from last week! Actually, I don't really have difficulty remember that I read various things, just where I read them. But I read something about one point you made - the number of cases that are now being discovered - and it was the article itself that made me wonder whether some of these cases are being discovered because they are being looked for. In other words, could H5N1 be naturally present in some areas and has been for a long time, but just never got picked up because no-one was looking for it? Another piece I read a little while back - it was an editorial bit in the UK Independent - where the writer was questioning whether we should "panic" about this because there have actually been very few deaths. Now I didn't buy into all he said, but there's no way really to test whether it was all the containment/culling that was put in place that kept the death toll low, or whether the disease would have caused few deaths anyway. I suppose both these questions really are interrelated, but on the other hand there's as yet no evidence of either the prevalence of H5N1 or the numbers of people who could become infected to a serious degree by it. And we don't know if there are people who have been infected but recover without a diagnosis of H5N1 being made. I don't think it's appropriate to be complacent about it, however. Even if it ends up not being a potential pandemic, the focus is still necessary. All too often, it's the public/media attention that keeps the governmental people (CDC and equivalent) on their toes. They should know by now that it's not a good idea to adopt a "wait and watch" attitude. By the way, it was announced a week or so ago that some dead swans in the UK had been taken off for analysis. Two of them were from my town - I haven't seen anything about any findings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ein042 Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 Thank you both so much! A staggering amount of biology for me :O but the articles made it a little clearer. Horseman the reason I asked was an article linked from Google Earth forum to a Jan 12 2006 WHO report which scared me a bit. "Virus from one of the patients shows mutations at the receptor-binding site. One of the mutations has been seen previously in viruses isolated from a small outbreak in Hong Kong in 2003 (two cases, one of which was fatal) and from the 2005 outbreak in Viet Nam. Research has indicated that the Hong Kong 2003 viruses bind preferentially to human cell receptors more so than to avian cell receptors. Researchers at the Mill Hill laboratory anticipate that the Turkish virus will also have this characteristic." WHO update Is this normal? My science knowledge is extremely limited :( Also Libby, I guess it's really possible this has been around a lot longer but the numbers of bird deaths are astronomical - a friend recently returned from Romania and the economic devastion from the slaughter of so many birds is affecting so many people Also I think there is a vast amount of undereporting from places like Thailand, China and Viet Nam among others. If these governments don't submit the samples we are in big trouble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raven Wolf Posted March 9, 2006 Share Posted March 9, 2006 4th horseman always finds a new way to amaze me! Well, I guess I'm keeping my pet doves inside for yet another year. *sigh* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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