Bird Flu
The Bird Flu isn’t Gone, it’s Just out of the Spotlight
During the warm summer months, we tend to forget that Avian Influenza, commonly known as the bird flu, is still out there. The media isn’t covering new cases in Asia like they do in the winter, and most people won’t worry about it until this flu season, but that doesn’t mean the virus is slowing down. In fact, its spread appears to be speeding up as it moves from Asia into Europe and Africa.
Government officals have stated that they expect the Bird Flu to reach U.S. shores this year. One reason is that as U.S. birds migrate north in the spring, they intermingle with birds from Asia and Europe, picking up viruses such as the H5N1 influenza virus.
Meanwhile, bird flu continues to spread in paces like China, Vietnam and Indonesia, with new samples of the deadly H5N1 flu virus found in ducks sold in the Hanoi market and in new human subjects in Jakarta. The diseas has already spread to India, where
An Epidemic in the Making
Experts agree that the U.S. and the rest of the developed world have been lucky to have gone so long without a major epidemic. But with increased intercontinental travel, crowded conditions in major cities, and Chinese farmers living in close proximity to their animals, it could just be a matter of time before Avian Influenza becomes a human-to-human transmissible disease and causes a pandemic. Will it happen this winter? Maybe next? Or possibly never? No one knows, and that’s what has so many people worried.
Many respiratory diseases will start with symptoms similar to a cold or the flu, so an epidemic could start before anyone really knows it. In fact, experts believe there are far more cases in China and the Far East that are not being reported.
Most of us have active antibodies that help fight off the flu virus, so that the flu is only deadly to the old, infirm, very young or others with impaired immune functions. The H5N1 influenza virus, however, is a new variation, and one which the vast majority of the human population has no immunity or antibodies. That puts us in the position of the Native Americans when they were exposed to European diseases such as small pox. In other words, and epidemic or pandemic could kill tens of millions of people, possibly more.
Un-prepared
Despite warnings, the formation of task forces and the development of plans, there isn’t a single government that’s ready for a bird flu epidemic. The U.S. is no exception because much of the activity has to take place at the local level where politicians are more worried about filling potholes than preventing a pandemic.
U.S. hospitals are under-prepared and don't have enough isolation wards. Most scary are "super spreaders," people who contaminate dozens of others without even knowing it. People riding in an elevator in a Hong Kong hotel caught SARS from a doctor who stayed there. From that single point, it roared across much of Asia and into Toronto. The same could happen with a future illness such as Avian Influenza. The Centers for Disease control has recommended strict quarantine in the case of an outbreak, including travel restrictions, closing work places and schools, shutting down mass transit and setting aside entire hospitals for SARS patients. They would adopt similar precautions in the event of another highly contagious disease.
The vast majority of Americans are woefully unprepared for Bird Flu.
Are you prepared for bird flu and the many repercussions it would have on our society? Do you know what basic precautions to take? Do you know how to treat an infected person? These and other topics are covered in our Bird Flu Survival Primer.
Why so Many Experts are Worried about the Bird Flu
Captain Dave believes that Avian Influenza, also known as Bird Flu, and specifically H5N1, is a serious long term threat. While he things there is a less than 25 percent chance that it will become a pandemic this winter, smart people should begin preparing today. When the flu evolves to the point that it can easily transfer from human-to-human, it will be too late to make preparations – needed supplies will sell out in days or even hours.
One of the reasons Bird Flu is so scary is that we don’t know much about it. While there are plenty of facts -- and scientests and researchers discover more every day -- there are still too many questions. Chief among them is how the virus might behave once it evolves. For example, will a it retain the current mortality rate once it evolves to be easily transmissable from human-to-human? How much of a genetic shift will there be?
A definite threat can be assessed and addressed, but the unknown creates fear, uncertainty and doubt. The only way to prepare for the unknown is to imagine a worst-case scenario. Here are just a few of the unknowns to consider when developing your plans and preparations:
- We don't know when it will mutate to the point it can be transferred from human to human as other flu viruses are. We do know that it is transmitted from bird-to-bird easily (and spread by migratory wild birds) and from bird to humans much more rarely. We do know that it has infected the wild birds of Asia in just five years and is now making its way into Europe. The migratory bird population in North America is expected to carry it within the next year. After that, it is only a question of when it will infect commercial birds, pets and people.
- We don’t know how deadly it will be after it mutates to infect humans, only that today it has a death rate of approximately 50%, and that many of the dead in Asia are young, healthy people. Traditional flu viruses that do not kill the recipient make them vulnerable to pneumonia and other bacterial infections that can often lead to death.
- We don’t know when it will strike. Experts say we should look out for warning signs, such as pockets of disease that are clearly transferred from human-to-human. Once one of these is discovered, it could theoretically be anywhere in the world within two weeks.
- We don’t have a cure or foolproof way to prevent it, only the knowledge that a vaccine is required. We don’t have a vaccine, and it will take time to develop, manufacture and test one. Until then, we can only wash our hands, keep our immune systems functioning at a high level and avoid sick people.
- We don’t know how quickly it will spread or how contagious it will be, only that traditional flu viruses tend to spread easily because people who are infected shed the virus for approximately two days before they exhibit symptoms and for several days after they are feeling well. This makes it very hard to contain. Historical models for the 1918 flu pandemic are out of date and may not apply. We do know that the normal flu virus spreads easily and rapidly.
- We don’t now how many people will get it. Projections call for up to one quarter of the U.S. population to be infected in a broad pandemic.
- We do not know how long an epidemic or pandemic would last. The flu will likely continue to mutate, so it could go from difficult to spread among humans one year, and the next have evolved to where it is quickly and easily spread.
- We don’t think most people have any antibodies to H5N1. Most flu variants have been around for years, so we all have antibodies to them. That’s why the flu gets you sick, but usually is deadly only to the elderly or others with compromised immune systems. Because H5N1 is a new variant of the flu, experts believe that most humans have no antibodies and no resistance. Introducing it to humanity would be like introducing European diseases (such as Small Pox) to the Indians, a population with no resistance. It could run through us like a California wildfire after a summer drought.
- We don’t know how the government will react, whether they will declare martial law and halt transportation. We don’t know if they will halt imports from Asia or other countries with bird flu. We do know what happened with Hurricane Katrina, and how difficult it was to get supplies to people in one region of the country, and we can only imagine how tough it will be to keep the country fed, policed and quarantined if there is a massive outbreak.
- We don’t know how our health care system will react to the flu, or how many health care providers will become sick or die. We do know that with SARS, doctors and nurses caught it from their patients in alarming numbers. We also know that because of the emphasis on profits, our healthcare system operates on the thin line; it doesn’t take much to push it beyond its capacity. It is already swamped during normal flu season or any other outbreak. We would hate to see what happens to our health care system in a real deadly epidemic.
- We don’t know how people will react to an epidemic. We can expect panic, and panicked buying, but we don’t know if people will be willing quarantine themselves, or if less savory elements of our society will see it as an opportunity for a crime wave. Before a hurricane, batteries, bottled water and gasoline sell like crazy. Before a blizzards, stores sell out of milk and bread. What will sell out in a flu epidemic? Everything. And those without will be angry and potentially violent.
It's these unknowns that are causing the current panic. The Bird flu could strike next moht, or it could fail to materialize for a decade or two. It could mutate into something relatively mild or very serious. But we've always preached that it is best to prepare for the worst and home for the best. That mantra remains true today.
