chrisisasavage
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Pakistan may have had human-to-human bird flu transmission
| Quote From Source: | Islamabad - Health officials on Friday were investigating a possible human-to-human transmission of bird flu among four brothers in north-west Pakistan, two of whom later died. Khushnood Akhtar, secretary in Pakistan's Ministry of Health, said the bird flu cases occurred last month in Manshera, North-West Frontier Province, when a man contracted the H5N1 virus while working on a poultry farm and helping to cull sick birds.
Human-to-human transmissions are extremely rare, with only 3 previous cases in Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
Source URL: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/158727.html
It's not true there's only been 3 cases of Human to human transmission. It's happened quite a bit. It's not the efficient pandemic super killer yet, but there has been many cases over the year where 2-5+ day gaps have appeared between relatives.
http://www.recombinomics.com/whats_new.html
The archives on Nimans website only go back a year, but he was starting to show evidence of H2H in 2005 when the Qinghai Strain first appeared with the PB2 E627K mutation.
I'm not getting out the tin foil yet, but it's concerning to see new clusters. |
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chrisisasavage
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I hope people don't take me for a Bird Flu alarmist. I won't worry about a pandemic until bodies are in the street. I do think it's concerning, but it's one of those things, there's nothing you can do, and a lot of times these things seem to fizzle out. If it does go big, well, since we're due for it, whatcha gonna do? These things mutate so fast, they may not have time to respond w/ a vaccine. Maybe we could use a little purging. |
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DanG
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WHO confirms human-to-human birdflu case
| Quote From Source: | he World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Thursday a single case of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 bird flu virus in a family in Pakistan but said there was no apparent risk of it spreading wider.
A statement from the U.N. agency said tests in its special laboratories in Cairo and London had established the "human infection" through presence of the virus "collected from one case in an affected family."
t was the first human-to-human case of H5N1 transmission in Pakistan, while others have been confirmed in Indonesia and Thailand in similar circumstances of what the WHO calls close contacts in a very circumscribed area.
Global health experts fear the virus -- which has killed 211 people out of 343 infections reported since 2003 -- could mutate into a form that spreads easily from one person to another, possibly triggering a pandemic that could kill millions.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/2...AhZo8mTuIgt7RdHlHzS6u_es0NUE |
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chrisisasavage
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It's not even close to the first case of H2H. There's been far more H2H transmission than the WHO would like to admit. There's quite often a gap in onset dates in families. |
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chrisisasavage
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I recommend that any one who is interested read this site up and down: http://www.recombinomics.com/whats_new.html
Niman can be quite the alarmist, and despite preaching doom for years, H5N1 actually slowed down in human populations this year. Until recently that is. |
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chrisisasavage
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I don't think it's a matter of "if" with H5N1, but "when" and "how bad". |
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posted on 12/14/2007 at 12:33
