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Apr 12: Bird flu questions.

So the BBC has a have your say item about the one case of Bird Flu that has hit the UK, or Scotland to be more precise.
Here is the question the BBC askes: Source
  1. Have you been affected by the Scottish alert?
  2. Have you stopped buying chicken?
  3. Are you a poultry farmer?
  4. What actions are you taking as a result of the news?
  5. What action should be taken to prevent the spread of the bird flu virus?
  6. What are your concerns?
  Here's what I think...
  1. No, it was only one swan, could have been infected anywhere, but decided that it would be lovely to pops it's clogs in a small harbour of a scotish village would be a nice place, or it got ill, landed out in sea and died there and ended up being washed ashore.
  2. No, one case of Bird Flu is not enough, come on?! If others don't buy it, woot makes it cheaper for me!
  3. Err Nope, I live in London, no room for a huge warehouse full of chicks.
  4. None. Not much I can do is there?
  5. Come on be serious, you don't expect me, an IT professional to be able to give a qualified answer to that kind of question do you? Leave it to the experts, if they mess up, we can easily blame Tony for not keepin' an eye on the birds.
  6. Err non at the momet, I think some people are making a mountain out of a mole hill, yep it sells papers, get people off the ball of what's really happening.

Also, why do the media still call it a 'possible' Pandemic ? How many have died of Avian Flu? check here and you'll find that so far it's only 195! and most have been in China and Vietnam, where people do tend to live in very close proximity to their farm animals, so the contamination risk is much higher.

If one looks at past 'pandemics' like say SARS. the total death rate there was 813 Globally.If one excludes China and Hong Kong, then then number is 167.  Check here for the numbers (a PDF file)

The main reason why both of these diseases didn't become Pancemic, is that they both didn't posses that exta element that is required to make that leap from being a non contagious illness to a seriously contagious one.

For more serious and authortive information of Avian Flu . Check here at the centre of disease control and prevention.

As I often say, Never believe the headlines, do the googling, look around for the correct answers yourself.
Posted by Andy Rambling in News, News Comments: (2) Trackbacks: (0)
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#1 - joanna said:
2006-04-12 14:51 - (Reply)

joannaIs it logical to make the assumption that since the Queen owns all of the whales, she also owns the birds, which in turn makes her responsible for the spreading of bird flu, ahem, let me rephrase that: spreading the fear of contracting (implied microscopic risk) bird flu?

#2 - The blogs & Articles team. said:
2006-04-12 15:17 - (Reply)

The blogs & Articles team.This is just to let you know, that we found the recent post in your Blog, related to the bird flu virus, to be an interesting point of view and have today added that entry of your blog, to our site: www.birdflubreakingnews.com.

You have obviously given some serious thought to the subject of the "coming pandemic". While you are right in what you say, this is a rapidly developing situation and at times even the global organisations responsible for keeping track of all of the news are unable to keep up with the events.

We try to get as much and as diverse (but focused only on the bird flu) content on this site, so that an informed decision can be made by the visitor to the site.

Thank you for this and we hope to have further contributions from you in the future, regarding this important subject.

The blogs & Articles team.

#2.1 - Andy 2006-04-12 16:17 - (Reply)

AndyI do appreciate that it's a serious issue, But considering that the CDC have mentioned that Avian Flu has been around since 1997 and the links I provided are detailed and relivant. If we are to compare Avian Flue to SARS, SARS spead much further around the world in a much shorter period of time than Avian Flu has.

But yes, there is also that theoretical situation of, If someone has a bad flu (normal Human one) and also manages to get Avian Flu, then there is a theoretical possibility that the two virui will mutate together and maybe produce a more virilant Human/Avian flu, but then again, it may not. Personally, I will leave that to the experts.

Joanna, The Queen owns the Swans in all the Royal Parks. Otherwise that's it .. ;-)


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