Swine Flu for Grownups

Who Pays for Bird Flu?

PRINCETON No one knows how the swine flu (H1N1) pandemic will evolve. Will it keep spreading, or will it fizzle?

Some scientists today predict a repeat of an avian flu pandemic.

It appears that not only the flu virus is getting the Moroccan authorities unnerved.

Bird flu. I stand here as a representative of all terrible things this might be the worst.

(In 1918, avian flu killed more people than died in World War I).

Mexico s bad health is a symptom of problems that run deeper and are more widespread than swine flu.

Still in Lebanon, QifaNabki brushes off swine flu as a smaller concern, noting

At least 53 types of H5N1 bird flu viruses have appeared in chickens and people there, according to the World Health Organization.

The spectre of avian flu threatens parts of Asia and Europe and the disease could become a global pandemic.

And that simulation that I showed you that you thought was bird flu that was SARS. And SARS is the pandemic that did not occur.

Smart officials are planning for various swine flu pandemic scenarios, and expecting surprises that will force them to change their plans.

The vast majority of avian flu outbreaks in the past four years, in both humans and poultry, have occurred in Indonesia.

This is getting stranger and stranger. The Grand Mufti of Egypt is suggesting Muslim scholars issue a collective fatwa to postpone the hajj due to swine flu.

If all this turmoil weren t enough, the discovery of avian flu in the northern provinces further undermines political stability.

Worse, Indonesia is no longer providing the WHO with timely notification of bird flu outbreaks or human cases.

I went home from work early one day with what I thought was the flu and less than 24 hours later

In all likelihood, the 22 reported dead from swine flu reflect a social safety net falling to pieces due to lack of public investment and union recalcitrance.

And so if we can do that, then we can free up resources for buying drugs that you really do need for treating AIDS and HIV and malaria and for preventing avian flu. Thank you.

Belarus is prepared to join in the partnership initiated by the United States aimed at pooling international efforts for a rapid response in the event of an avian flu pandemic.

Every year millions of Muslims converge to Mecca to perform Hajj (pilgrimage), one of the five pillars of Islam. Is this year's Hajj season being threatened by the A H1N1 or Swine Flu virus?

Like swine flu, crony capitalism has migrated from corrupt Third World countries to America, once the citadel of sound public and private governance.

And if H1N1 becomes more severe, people (and communities) who have prepared for that possibility will probably fare better than those who have not. But hygiene recommendations like hand washing and cough covering help only a little.

Similar concerns were raised a few years ago, when bird flu (H5N1) was threatening. One Saudi scholar called for Haj to be canceled if there were a severe outbreak, but that proposal was shot down by others.

So far, a relatively small number of human beings have died from the current strain of avian influenza, and it appears that they have all been in contact with infected birds.

Indonesia s government has accused NAMRU 2 scientists of everything from profiting from its sovereign viruses to manufacturing the H5N1 bird flu as part of an alleged biological warfare scheme.

As University of Ottawa virologist Earl Brown put it after a Canadian outbreak of avian influenza, high intensity chicken rearing is a perfect environment for generating virulent avian flu viruses.

Bird flu has already shown that it can jump from fowl to humans, and now even to cats, which indicates that it might be the next global killer.

So here s a primer on the swine flu pandemic risk communication, framed in terms of what health officials shouldn t do when they re telling you about this new disease.

Recently, the US Senate approved spending 8 billion to stockpile vaccines and other drugs to help prevent a possible bird flu epidemic. Other governments have already spent tens of millions on vaccines and other preventive measures.

The motor has been used recently for media coverage in early 2009, news network Al Jazeera used it for reports on the war on Gaza and later an independent project used it for surveillance on swine flu.

And, according to Venter, if his team s new technology had been available last year, it would have been possible to produce a vaccine to protect ourselves against H1N1 influenza in 24 hours, rather than several weeks.

Taiwan should also be allowed to participate in the International Atomic Energy Agency in the area of nuclear safety, just as it became an observer at the World Health Organization during the SARS and avian flu pandemics of the 1990 s.

5. Don t fight the adjustment reaction. While panic is rare, it is natural for people to need some time to adjust to a new risk and this swine flu pandemic is new to us all.

In October 2005, a United Nations task force identified as one of the root causes of the bird flu epidemic, farming methods which crowd huge numbers of animals into small spaces.

Supporters of factory farming often point out that bird flu can be spread by free range flocks, or by wild ducks and other migrating birds, who may join the free range birds to feed with them or drop their feces while flying overhead.

It calls upon all countries to implement the revised International Health Regulations, expresses concern about a possible pandemic of human influenza arising from avian influenza and welcomes relevant responses by the United Nations and other appropriate international and national measures.

Now, what's really important is that, before there was GPHIN, 100 percent of all the world's reports of bad things whether you're talking about famine or you're talking about bird flu or you're talking about Ebola 100 percent of all those reports came from nations.

Indeed, the goal of the commemoration to help the world s citizens rediscover their place in the universe now has the incidental benefit of distracting us from nasty things nearer to home, like swine flu and the global financial crisis.

There is strong evidence from a variety of sources that forms of the bird flu virus circulating in Indonesia are more virulent than those elsewhere and that in a few cases they may have spread directly from one person to another. The WHO has tried for two years to accommodate Indonesia, without success.

That won t be easy to do, but we could make a start by imposing a tax on factory farm products until enough revenue is raised to pay for the precautions that governments now have to take against avian influenza.

And TED has flown Ron here from Ottawa, where GPHIN is located, because not only did GPHIN find SARS early, but you may have seen last week that Iran announced that they had bird flu in Iran, but GPHIN found the bird flu in Iran not February 14 but last September.

Other experts agree. In October 2005, a United Nations task force identified as one of the root causes of the bird flu epidemic, farming methods which crowd huge numbers of animals into small spaces.

So far, a relatively small number of human beings have died from the current strain of avian influenza, and it appears that they have all been in contact with infected birds. But if the virus mutates into a form that is transmissible between humans, the number of deaths could run into the hundreds of millions.