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Preparedness is a major issue
in the national discussion of bird flu
Highlight: USA Today provides a comprehensive look at
what experts are saying about bird flu and how to prepare your
family for a pandemic.
I
personally believe it will happen and make personal
preparations....Society just can't accept the idea that 50
percent of the population could die. And I think we have to face
that possibility....I'm sorry if I'm making people a little
frightened, but I feel it's my role." --
Robert G. Webster, world-renowned virologist at
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Source:
Renowned Bird Flu Expert Warns: Be Prepared, ABC News, March
14, 2006
"An
influenza pandemic of even moderate impact will result in the
biggest single human disaster ever - far greater than AIDS,
9/11, all wars in the 20th century and the recent tsunami
combined. It has the potential to redirect world history as the
Black Death redirected European history in the 14th century."
--
Michael T. Osterholm, Director,
Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the
University of Minnesota
Source: Bird Flu Could Kill Millions,
The Gazette (Montreal), Front Page, March 9, 2005
A Russian virus expert warned at
a news conference in
Moscow...."A human pandemic of the
bird flu virus is highly likely and I call on the government to
stock up on medicine and prepare hospital beds. No quarantine
measure can prevent the pandemic. It can only slow it for a few
days.
There is a 90 percent likelihood that the current form of the
H5N1 bird flu virus could mutate into a form easily
transmissible between humans." --
"
Dmitry Lvov,
Director, Virology
Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences
Source:
Today Online, March 8, 2006 (also see
Russian News & Information Agency)
"This is going to be the
most catastrophic thing in my lifetime. When this situation
unfolds, we will shut down global markets overnight. There will
not be movement of goods; there will not be movement of people.
This will last for at least a year, maybe two." --
Dr. Osterholm,
speaking to a conference of agricultural bankers
Source: Bird Flu Seen as the Next Pandemic
Star Tribune (Minneapolis), November 16, 2004 (reproduced at
Pathobiologics)
Summary:
-
A flu pandemic that scientists and public
health experts say in a worst-case scenario could cause
worldwide calamity, kill millions of people and disrupt the
global economy.
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So-far unstoppable spread of bird flu in
Southeast Asia and into Eastern Europe, the H5N1 virus has
infected 134 people, killing 69. It is one mutation
away from having the ability to spread easily from person to
person.
-
Threat of a flu pandemic has led
governments and public health ministries around the world to
make plans.
-
Risk assessments for engineering projects
is one of a focused minority of Americans, who are talking
to neighbors and relatives, making contingency plans and
discussing their concerns online at websites such as
www.fluwikie.com.
-
U.S. health officials and
infectious-disease specialists have discouraged individual
stockpiling, citing shortages and the risk of widespread
misuse leading to drug-resistant viruses, but some doctors
disagree with that advice.
-
In a disaster such as an earthquake or
hurricane, help can come from outside the region, but "when
we have a pandemic, there is no outside," Woodson says,
author of The Bird Flu Preparedness Planner (Health
Communications, $4.99).
Track news on pandemic at
BioDefense.com.
Track news on bird flu at
BioDefense.com.
Original source:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-12-06-bird-flu-prepare_x.htm
Important Links:
Preparing for the Coming Influenza Pandemic
Recombinomics Commentaries
Effect Measure
FluWikie
The Flu Clinic
Other
sites of Interest:
Recombinomics Commentary of Sept. 17, 2005
For face masks:
Allergy Be Gone / My
Respirators
Emergency Supplies: Nitro
Pak / Emergency
Preparedness Now
Generators and solar panels:
Northern Tool / 4
Generator
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