Nbadan
09-14-2005, 02:11 PM
In addition, many officials believe the federal government has been slow to recognize a new and potentially greater threat, a rare and deadly strain of flu. Currently found in Asia, it is threatening to become a global epidemic and hit the United States.
"We could be dealing with a situation where 1,500 people a day could be dying of influenza, with a large number of those people being children," says Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disease Preparedness.
There is no vaccine for the avian bird flu. The United States has been well behind most industrialized countries in obtaining supplies of the one medicine that works against the rare flu. No deliveries of the medicine are expected until after this winter's flu season.
According to Redlener, "We are not even close to being prepared for this country."
ABC News (http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1123285&page=1)
Mayors and Governors of U.S. cities should start planning now.
The only vaccine that works on the avian flu by the way is from a Donald Rumsfeld owned company, the drug is called Tamiflu, and the rich in the USA have bought all of it for their own personal well-being. You cannot now get it anywhere in the U.S..
At least one of the strains required a higher than usual dose of Tamiflu for a longer period of time than expected to reduce (not eliminate) the mortality rate. By the time H5N1 morphs into a strain that's highly contagious among humans, it could be that even Tamiflu won't help.
There is a vaccine in the works. Anybody's guess as to how close that will be to the dominant strain in the now-apparently-inevitably pandemic.
Our best defense in an outbreak? A rapid, coordinated response that includes indentifying and quarantining those who have been exposed to H5N1.
Given the events of the past two weeks, do you see that happening?
"We could be dealing with a situation where 1,500 people a day could be dying of influenza, with a large number of those people being children," says Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disease Preparedness.
There is no vaccine for the avian bird flu. The United States has been well behind most industrialized countries in obtaining supplies of the one medicine that works against the rare flu. No deliveries of the medicine are expected until after this winter's flu season.
According to Redlener, "We are not even close to being prepared for this country."
ABC News (http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1123285&page=1)
Mayors and Governors of U.S. cities should start planning now.
The only vaccine that works on the avian flu by the way is from a Donald Rumsfeld owned company, the drug is called Tamiflu, and the rich in the USA have bought all of it for their own personal well-being. You cannot now get it anywhere in the U.S..
At least one of the strains required a higher than usual dose of Tamiflu for a longer period of time than expected to reduce (not eliminate) the mortality rate. By the time H5N1 morphs into a strain that's highly contagious among humans, it could be that even Tamiflu won't help.
There is a vaccine in the works. Anybody's guess as to how close that will be to the dominant strain in the now-apparently-inevitably pandemic.
Our best defense in an outbreak? A rapid, coordinated response that includes indentifying and quarantining those who have been exposed to H5N1.
Given the events of the past two weeks, do you see that happening?