Tracking the next pandemic: Avian Flu Talk |
Increase in human cases for 2008 |
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Albert
Admin Joined: April 24 2006 Status: Offline Points: 47746 |
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Posted: March 03 2008 at 5:07am |
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I noticed that we're on record pace this year for the most confirmed human cases. Looks like we're at about 22 cases so far with a CFR of 89%. The CFR has increased by almost 10%, which isn't good. We could be seeing the first signs of Tamiflu resistance.
Could be an interesting year ahead.
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4=laro
Valued Member Joined: April 18 2007 Status: Offline Points: 731 |
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As a young boy back in the 50's (in a large family and a very low family income) I remember how my father handled the influenza problem. He put onions in all the windows, and everyone wore garlic necklaces. Sounds crazy, but one thing - none of us got sick. Anyone else have any home remedies?
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coyote
Admin Group Joined: April 25 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 8395 |
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Ya Albert. I agree. Glad you posted that.
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Long time lurker since day one to Member.
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waterboy
Valued Member Joined: January 21 2008 Status: Offline Points: 8170 |
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CFR?
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Albert
Admin Joined: April 24 2006 Status: Offline Points: 47746 |
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It's the "Case Fatality Rate". Also known as the Death Rate or Mortality Rate. So far this year, 89% of the human cases have been fatal.
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waterboy
Valued Member Joined: January 21 2008 Status: Offline Points: 8170 |
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Thanks,and "WOW" thats alot of deaths.Very sad.
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jacksdad
Executive Admin Joined: September 08 2007 Location: San Diego Status: Offline Points: 47251 |
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That's especially scary when you consider that the CFR of 89% is in spite of the best we've got in terms of medical intervention. I believe H5N1 was running at about a 50% CFR when it first appeared in 1997. Eleven years later, with a better understanding of the virus and most likely the use of respirators and Tamiflu in the majority of cases, we're doing worse. Kind of makes you wonder how we'd cope in a pandemic with only an overwhelmed healthcare system to turn to, even if an H2H strain did indeed turn out to be less lethal.
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Albert
Admin Joined: April 24 2006 Status: Offline Points: 47746 |
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When H1N1 made the jump in 1918, it did not recombine with another human flu, and the virus "evolved" through natural human adaptive pressure. What makes H5N1 unique like H1N1 is that it can naturally evolve and it does not need to recombine with a human flu. The mild pandemics of '57 and '68 did recombine, but h1 did not, nor does h5n1 need to.
H1n1 also became more lethal to humans "after" it mutated. H5N1 will most likely become more lethal as well if it makes the jump. Some suggested that it could become less lethal, but all indications say otherwise.
Here is an old article from 2005:
Scientists have decoded the genetic structure of the influenza virus that killed tens of millions of people soon after World War I. The research fulfills more than a mere historical curiosity. With fears about an impending pandemic from avian flu, the work provides insight into the structure of killer flu viruses that might lead to better medicines against them.
The head of the U.S. government's disease tracking agency, Julie Gerberding of the Centers for Disease Control, says hardest hit were the young and productive between 20 and 40 years old. "The 1918 influenza virus that caused such global global disease spread very rapidly, particularly among healthy people, was very, very virulent, and certainly circled the globe in record time," she said. U.S. government and private scientists have finished a 10-year project to determine the virus' genetic makeup. They recreated a live virus in a high-security laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) by combining fragments from the organism's eight genes. Researcher Jeffrey Taubenberger of the Armed Forces Pathology Institute says the genetic scraps were gathered from well preserved lung tissue samples taken from victims during autopsies 87 years ago or, in one case, from a victim exhumed from Alaskan permafrost. "Because influenza viruses were not known to exist in 1918, there were no isolates made of this strain of the virus, and so there was actually no way for medical scientists to directly study this influenza virus," he explained. The scientists tested the virus by inserting it into mice, chicken embryos, and human lung cells. They found that by substituting genes from other flu viruses, they could make it less lethal. The research, published in the weekly journals Science and Nature, shows that the 1918 flu virus is more closely related to bird flus than human flus. It has several of the same genetic mutations found in the bird flu strain now spreading in Asia, mutations believed to help the virus replicate more efficiently.
"We now think that the 1918 virus was an entirely avian-like virus that adapted to humans," said Mr. Taubenberger. This is a different situation than the last two pandemics we had, the Asian flu in 1957 and the Hong Kong flu in 1968, which are mixtures in which a human-adapted influenza virus acquired two or three new genes from an avian influenza source. So it suggests that pandemics can form in more than one way, and this is a very important point." He says it also suggests that the current Asian bird flu, known by its scientific designation H5N1, could evolve into a human killer with just a few more mutations that allow it to jump more efficiently among people. "It suggests to us the possibility that these H5 viruses are actually being exposed to some human adaptive pressures and that they might be acquiring some of these same changes," he added. "In a sense, they might be going down a similar path that ultimately led to 1918." Mr. Taubenberger says if researchers can identify virus components that are important in the process of adapting to humans, they could make a list of molecules to look for in emerging bird flus that threaten people.
"It is revealing to us some of the secrets that will help us predict and prepare for the next pandemic," she said. Dr. Gerberding says it is comforting to know that the 1918 virus, now that it has been reconstructed, is susceptible to a new vaccine U.S. researchers have developed against bird flu. This means it should work against the bird flu, too, if production can be expanded should a pandemic occur. http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-10/2005-10-05-voa30.cfm?CFID=24360684&CFTOKEN=54982953 |
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Lets look at it from a different perspective. If Avian does goes pandemic and takes out 89% of the population that that will be an end to man made global warming. Avian flu can be an environmentalist blessing.
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roni3470
Adviser Group Joined: August 30 2006 Location: Colorado Status: Offline Points: 5390 |
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Albert,
Can you tell me how far ahead with overal cases (not fatalities) we are this year compared to last year? YOu had once said that if it didn't mutate into an easily human trasmissable disease last year that you thought it would not ever, do you still hold that view? Just wondering.
Thanks, Roni
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NOW is the Season to Know
that Everything you Do is Sacred |
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Albert
Admin Joined: April 24 2006 Status: Offline Points: 47746 |
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Hi Roni, we are only up 2 or 3 cases as compared to 2005, so that could obviously change. The CFR is up, but that could also change. However, to get the CFR number down, it would probably take a sizeable outbreak in the near future similar to what we saw in Turkey and Pakistan. So either the virus has become more lethal, or we will see a localized outbreak of around 10 - 15 people sometime this year.
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Albert
Admin Joined: April 24 2006 Status: Offline Points: 47746 |
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I'm not sure Roni. Given the history of flu pandemics and how often they occur (one no later than every 40 years), we should have probably had "a pandemic" of some sort by now. Not necessarily an h5n1 panflu, but any pandemic. Since we have not had any panflu whatsoever, we have to ask ourselves, what has changed, or what has possibly effected the timeline? The only thing that has changed over the last 130 years is the mass culling that has taken place over the last few years. So because of the "timeline", and where we're at now with no other type of Panflu, my guess is that h5n1 was in fact meant to be the next panflu. This is just my opinion, but the mass culling has probably been effective in slowing down the evolution of h5n1 and without the culling, it would have already made the jump by now. The question is, how long can we delay nature from evolving? Are we fighting a battle that we can't win, but can only delay? The bottom line appears to be, if we ever let up on the mass culling at any point, that's all it would probably take. Anyway, have said all of that, the culling will probably delay it by 3-5 years as of 2005.
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ShaRenKa
Valued Member Joined: May 17 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 301 |
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I again agree with you Bo..something has to break somewhere! Between all these diseases,Global warming, Global market not looking good, food shortages, oil shortages ect...it's a forsure thing something has to give. And it will be us, the people of this great planet. Those who are blessed enough to survive it all will have to pick up the pieces, and hopefuly will have learned from the mistakes made and not repeat them. But I doubt it ..... |
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Sha Ren Ka
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PandemicsHappen
Valued Member Joined: December 11 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 183 |
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Here is a graph of the Cumulative Number
of Confirmed Human Cases of Avian Influenza A/(H5N1) Reported to W.H.O. per Country as of February 15th, 2008: Calculated that we are 25% through the year 2008, we are below last years numbers for cases and fatalities: Source: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/country/cases_table_2008_02_15/en/index.html |
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