Up to one billion dead-predicted in Avian Pandemic

This is one of the best articles I have seen in a broad sweep of Avian Flu information, past, present, and CFR predictions. It finally addresses low numbers as well as high in what will come during the Pandemic Flu Pandemic. In my writing - the final number is close is what is referred to as the final high number or Black Rabbit. It is a worst case scenario.

It is important that we consider the entire range of predictions and preparations for all ranges from the greater numbers in this link to the highest - 1 billion deaths from Avian Flu. Considering the current 63% WHO rate of CFR this is not impossible in a true Pandemic. And the majority of humanity will survive. But in all seriousness we must still hope for the best... and continue to prepare for the worst.

Medclinician

http://********/mutated-avian-influenza-virus-h5n1.php
 or
http://tinyurl.com/cp9arf

picture link will not insert correctly so here is the link in tiny


http://tinyurl.com/d5awbv

Colorized transmission electron micrograph of H5N1 (golden) grown in Madin-Darby canine kidney cells (green). (Source: C. Goldsmith, J. Katz and S. Zaki. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention Public Health Image Library. Image #1841.).

Worst case scenario

The worst case scenario for a H5N1 pandemic is somewhere around 150,000,000 human deaths directly due to H5N1 infection (or two to three percent of the world's human population). No one knows what the chances are for this worst case scenario.

"Influenza viruses keep changing. They mutate. And they exchange genetic material with other flu viruses, a process called reassortment. All that's needed is a mutation or reassortment that produces a new variant of H5N1 one that's as deadly as the current strain but as easily transmitted from human to human as lots of other flu strains. Most virologists believe something like this will happen sooner or later, and many believe it will happen soon. When it does, H5N1 will inevitably spread throughout the world. Worldwide mortality estimates range all the way from 2-7.4 million deaths (the "conservatively low" pandemic influenza calculation of a flu modeling expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) to 1 billion deaths (the avian influenza pandemic prediction of one Russian virologist). The estimates of most H5N1 experts range less widely but still widely. In an H5N1 pandemic, the experts guess that somewhere between a quarter of us and half of us would get sick, and somewhere between one percent and five percent of those who got sick would die the young and frail as well as the old and frail.

comment: at 3-5% the Infrastructure, as we know it, collapses.

If it's a quarter and one percent, that's 16 million dead; if it's a half and five percent, it's 160 million dead. Either way it's a big number." Pandemic Influenza Risk