Bird Flu
 

Following my last thread about Bird Flu (which got moved to Muppets :rolleyes: ) I see on the news this evening the government is finally acknowledging the threat by planning how to deal with an outbreak of a possible mutations H5N1 virus.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4091543.stm

Although they have looked at the bird to human and human to human aspects it seems they have so far overlooked the possibility of infection using a "middle-man" species.

For example, BSE only became infectious to humans AFTER it had become infectious to cows (from sheep). Bird flu, in its current form, will only infect between birds and from birds to humans, not human to human... yet.

Is it not just as likely to become infectious between other species and humans? As I already highlighted in my previous thread, cats can now catch it too so there is a second possible infection path already.

Then again maybe we need a good pandemic to weed out the sick and infirm. It will actually benefit our species in the long term.

Hello

Are you *really* sure you don't want an excuse to just cull all the cats?!

Something to read: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapc.../birdflu.wrap/

Steve.

Brining your hatred for cats into another thread, tut tut.

On a serious(ish) note maybe a benefit for the population to take a little dip "just thank god its them instead of us" .

I'm dismayed at your lack of confidence in my integrity. :( ;)

I'm just passing on the facts, along with my educated opinion on the matter. There are already established infection pathways between ourselves and cats in the case of toxoplasma gondii. H5N1 has always been a successful virus at mutating, all it needs to find is an achievable path in which it can gather the genes it needs for human-human infection. Even if it never achieves human-human infection, if it finds enough third party species the effect will be the same.

It doesn't have to be cats, its just they are the first species we come into significant contact with other than birds to be affected.

We have all but halted the evolution of our own immune systems through antibiotics and other modern treatments. People with lower immunity who should have died to remove unfavourable genes are no longer dieing, therefore those genes persist for the virus to exploit.

Have you not noticed that the more of us there are, the longer we live and defy nature's attempts to redress the balance the more contagions, viri, bacteria and genetic diseases we are helping to evolve along the way. For every cure we find, up pops 5 more pandemic hopefuls.

Looking further forward, some believe genetically modified food sources we share with other species may also assist microbes to find pathways between species via horizontal gene transfer. That could be another can of worms entirely. :eek:

Sleep well! ;)

Is it not so that all virii mutate when they pass betweens species? (distemper in dogs to measles in humans for instance) My point here is that whilst it may not currently be transmitted from human to human; that may not always be so as each infection involves a mutation.

Simon

Viri don't mutate at the point of infection as such, they mutate as they multiply in their hosts. But I think what you are saying actually agrees with my post above. It may mutate in one human such that it becomes infectious to other humans. It may also mutate in another species such that it gains the vital combination required to infect a human, and then further humans.

This is effectively what happened with HIV. It most probably started as virus affecting certain species of moneys. Chimpanzees exposed to these monkeys mutated or maybe even hybridised these viri to make a form that could attack the chimp called simian immunodeficiency virus. Being genetically closer to us than the original monkeys the chimpanzees provided the viri a bridge through mutation to eventually find a form that could infect humans. (put enough viri in enough monkeys ;) )

The fact that we are closely related to chimps made the jump relatively easy for the virus. The jump from bird to cat for H5N1 is not such an easy leap however, and just goes to show that the virus is a dab hand at mutating itself as most flu viri are. This is why you can catch flu over and over again, but things like measles usually only once.

This is why they are so worried as human-human infection is an almost eventual certainty, and when it happens the damage it causes will be proportional to how well we handle the outbreak and how quickly we can identify the path it used, because if it uses a third party species then that species will become a viable carrier.

This is my "informed layman" take on the situation, by the way. If anyone has any more accurate information I am always eager to learn about it! :D

i thought this was gonna be a thread about your girlfriend being ill.

LOL! Are you disappointed? If so why? :mad: ;)

I love cats, have 2, but agree they are dirty little feckers, despite being labbelled as clean pets. I was out in the garden the other day and one of my cats was mooching, there was something hanging out of its bottom, long and white :(.The cat did a runner when I went for a closer look, I caught up with it later when it had fallen asleep on the bed ( luckily on the girlfiends side ), anyway, this "worm" turned out to be a piece of string about 12" long, I started pulling and couldn't stop :eek:.

viri are scarey! I've got a friend doing a biology phd and she has some 'interesting' stories.

World War I ended because of flu...

It's vaguely possible that cats could be a intermediate host into humans for flu. More importantly, however, and a proven transmission method, is via pigs and water.

All except one flu epidemic has started in Asia (usually China). People in that area often keep ducks and pigs together in or near water they use for drinking etc. Ducks pass virus into the water via their cloaca (single orifice that ****s, fecks and can drink water - how cool is that?!). Pigs catch it, people catch it, all goes badly wrong and a pandemic commences.

Why am I saying this? Because there's sod all evidence to show that flu epidemics have ever had anything to do with cats - it's merely a hypothetical bit of nonsense on a quiet news day......

Gordo

(oh, and the flu epidemic that didn't start in Asia started near Germany in the second world war or something - Hitler playing with germ warfare allegedly)

"People with lower immunity who should have died to remove unfavourable genes are no longer dieing"

and those who can't spell...... :)

I'm not saying that cats ever have had anything to do with it. I am saying that they, or another species, might have something to do with it in the future. Granted I am putting the cat amongst the pigeons ;) somewhat and exploring a hypothetical, one cat owners are BOUND to get hysterical about! ;)

As you say, flu epidemics originating in Asia have done so due to proximity of livestock. Pigs are kept near to birds etc. What other animal spends its time trying to get as close to birds as possible? What other animal kills and eats birds? And, for that matter, what animal comes into contact with birds AND humans, eats birds and is itself eaten by humans at times in Asia? Yes, the cat. A species that is now already suseptable to the virus.

Unlikely? Maybe. Possible? Definately! :D

p.s. I think the pandemic you speak of was, as someone mentioned above, at the end of the First World War so Hitler would have had a job to cause that! ;)

Everyone is still bickering about where that came from. I believe the French called it Spanish flu and the Spanish called it French flu! :D

And it killed an estimated 20 million.

I've actually started sneezing with a cold today.....

its started! :eek:

;)

How serious is "Bird Flu'"?

Les

From new Scientist:

A 26-year-old Thai woman who died of acute pneumonia on 20 September was a “probable” case of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 bird flu virus, the Thai Ministry of Public Health confirmed on Tuesday.
All 40 previously confirmed human cases of the virus since 2003 were apparently caught from sick birds. But the World Health Organization fears the virus could cause a lethal pandemic if it gains the ability to pass easily from person to person.

The Thai ministry's statement stressed that the probable case of human-to-human transmission followed prolonged, close contact between the woman and her sick daughter, who also died from bird flu. The virus did not show an ability to spread easily, as human flu does, which is required for a pandemic.

But research on the virus’s recent evolution shows it has become steadily better at replicating in mammals in the past few years. It may now be learning to spread between them.


Destroying chickens


Eleven-year-old Sakuntala Premphasri fell ill with flu symptoms on 2 September, in a village in the northern Thai province of Kamphaeng Phet. She lived there with her aunt and a few days earlier had helped to destroy some dead chickens.

Her mother, Pranee Thongchan, who was working near Bangkok, came home to care for her daughter in hospital. But the girl died on 12 September. Pranee went back to Bangkok, also developed flu, and died eight days later.

Thai officials have now confirmed that her lungs contained H5 flu virus. The Thai ministry said it could not rule out her having somehow picked up the virus “in the environment” while in Kamphaeng Phet, but says it is “probable” that she got the virus from her daughter. Pranee had no known contact with sick birds.

The girl’s aunt got sick a day after Pranee, and more than two weeks after destroying the sick birds. This is much longer than flu’s incubation period, so she too might have acquired the virus from her relatives rather than the birds. She is in hospital, and confirmed to have H5.


Suspected cases


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Avian influenza, WHO
UN Food and Agriculture Organization
World Organization for Animal Health
http://www.newscientist.co.uk/img/shim.gif The aunt's three-year-old son has now recovered from suspected H5 flu, but nine more people in the province are suspected cases, including a 13-year-old who has died.

In a joint statement on Monday, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health called the avian influenza epidemic in Asia “a crisis of global importance”.

They stated that “recent outbreaks in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia show that the virus continues to circulate in the region, and will probably not be eradicated in the near future".

The two agencies called for more research into how wildlife, domestic ducks and pigs help spread the virus, as “a permanent threat to animal and human health continues to exist".

Well... there we go then! Brace yourselves!!! :eek: