Re: [Futurework] FYF Experts fear avian flu in Africa

[Darryl and Natalia]

All mail scanned by NAV   Two considerations: 1) Culling will remove the strong and therefore resistant birds from which healthy, resistant stock can be raised as well as removing a pool from which to create a vaccine . 2) The mutations of influenza viruses are more likely to come from swine accepting the avian influenza, combining it with their own which is more easily accepted by humans or from our own (human) infectives that have already had the disease.   Even on the CDC website the link of bird/swine/human is there. They just prefer to ignore it!??? These swine influenzas will continue at this (approximately 10 year cycle) to be changed about every 75 to 80 years (avian) if the Asian system of farming is not addressed. Pork is unclean as 2 or more ancient religious philosophies expound and perhaps this is what they were trying to tell our so much more intelligent scientists and doctors.   The vaccines they currently have or are currently making will not work. They are the wrong combination of proteins. Constantly culling birds that show the antibodies reduces the chance of finding a source of anti-bodies that will work. And who benefits from all this? the pharmaceutical corporations and the genetic corporations. Who will suffer from this idiocy? All humanity.   Stock up on lots of garlic and build a zapper. You may even want to keep a 26er of your favourite hard liquor and when the pandemic hits, take 1oz per day for 26 days. It may not keep the flu away, but it may be more enjoyable.   Seriously, garlic (organic) and liver cleanse herbs will do more to maintain one's health than any mediocre but expensive "Tamiflu" concoction from the pharmacy.   Darryl ----- Original Message ----- From: Karen Watters Cole To: futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2005 6:40 AM Subject: [Futurework] FYF Experts fear avian flu in Africa Conditions there – difficulty in quickly learning about infestations and enforcing culling, quarantines - are a ripe breeding ground for the pandemic to mutate to a human virus. - kwc Bird Flu Going to East Africa, United Nations Officials Fear By Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times International, October 19, 2005   ROME - As bird culls to control probable new outbreaks of avian flu started on farms in Russia and Macedonia on Wednesday, United Nations officials here warned that their far larger concern was that the virus was on its way to East Africa, where the disease could be nearly impossible to control.   As bird flu has jumped this year from Southeast Asia to China, Russia, Kazakhstan and - more recently - into the Balkan region of Europe, scientists have become somewhat belatedly convinced that wild migratory birds are one of the main carriers of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza.   Although there is widespread anxiety about the arrival of bird flu in Europe - European Union health ministers will convene a special session on Thursday to discuss the problem - the next stops on bird migratory paths are not in Western Europe, but in the Middle East, North Africa and East Africa, United Nations officials here say.   Countries and farmers in these parts of the world, particularly in East Africa, are completely unprepared, lacking the money and the scientific infrastructure to control outbreaks of the virus, the United Nations officials said.  "One of our major concerns is now the potential spread of avian influenza through migratory birds to north and eastern Africa," said Dr. Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary officer at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which monitors the flu's spread in animals.   If the disease touches down there, it could become widespread in the environment and on farms before it is even detected, he said.   Also, because in poorer African nations people live in proximity with animals, such a situation would provide a dangerous crucible for the mixing of the bird and human viruses, vastly increasing the risk that the avian virus could gain the ability to readily spread among humans.  "The close proximity between people and animals and insufficient surveillance and disease control capability in eastern African countries create an ideal breeding ground for the virus," Dr. Domenech said.   While the H5N1 strain does not readily infect humans or spread between them, scientists fear that it could acquire that ability through biological mixing processes by which viruses can exchange genes if they are close together. If the H5N1 strain was capable of spreading from human to human, they say, it could be the source of a human flu pandemic.   In developed nations, bird flu outbreaks are controlled by aggressive public health measures. Once the virus is suspected - usually signaled by unusual bird deaths - it is then stamped out by preventive culls and quarantines, even before its presence is confirmed. In Macedonia, for example, health authorities were killing 10,000 birds in a small southern village today as they waited for tests in Britain, to confirm that the H5N1 strain was involved. Another possible outbreak was reported in the Tula region in Russian. In the first large bird flu outbreak, in Hong Kong in 1997, one million birds were killed in a day to stop the disease.   But such a procedure, which is extremely effective at controlling bird flu, would be difficult in Africa, United Nations officials said. Farmers have to report suspicious deaths quickly to health authorities, who need to be poised for immediate investigation and killing.   Mandatory culls are problematic in poor countries, where a family's chickens are often not just a commercial product, but also a crucial source of food.  "In birds this is a disease of biblical proportions and it is difficult to control in a setting where people depend on poultry as a major source of protein for growing children," said Dr. Mike Ryan, director of surveillance and response at the World Health Organization in Geneva.   The deadly strain of avian influenza is widespread in Southeast Asia. But compliance with culls has been sometimes difficult in poorer areas. Poor farmers may choose not to report deaths for fear of losing their birds. Worse, they may slaughter sick birds before health authorities confiscate them, to eat the birds or to sell them at local markets.   Eating meat from birds infected with the virus is not dangerous, because it is not a food-borne illness and dies with cooking. But touching the birds may infect humans.   http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/20/international/africa/20flu.html   _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework

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