With news that the bird flu has spread to Russia, the Dutch have responded by locking up all their free-range and backyard flocks of poultry. I guess free range chicken & eggs are not going to be available there anymore.
UK officials expect that the bird flu will be transported there by wild birds but have not taken the step to lock up their outside poultry yet. more....
The big worry is, of course, that the bird flu - which people can catch & which so far has killed about 50% of the infected people - will mutate and become much more infectious.
Since the bird flu began spreading around Asia several years ago, 112 human cases of bird flu have been reported, including 57 deaths in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia. more....
There is also some suggestion that human to human transmission of bird flu is possible.
There is a drug for treatment of flu (Tamiflu). The problem is that in the event of a pandemic, there will not be enough of it to go around. Health authorities and governments are stockpiling it to use for their frontline medical workers. There is also work on a vaccine but again, there will not be enough.
Some physicians have been stockpiling the medicine for their families. Is that ethical?
more....
What do you think? Are you stocking up on Tamiflu now?
I'm tempted.
4 comments:
I'm a bit concerned as well. I remember hearing about it this spring, listening to a show on NPR about it and what scientist/public health type guys thought about it. Kind of frightening how quickly it has spread,hopefully it will not turn out to be a pandemic as was the 1919 'flu. When I heard the report, the scientist guy was saying that at that time,the human cases were quite few and were those who had close contact with birds, but that the time to watch would be when human to human contact passed the virus. Then there would be trouble. Yikes!
I have heard about this but I don't really feel like it is too big of a threat yet. I suppose I will fall victim to the media-induced hysteria when the time comes and then will rush out and buy the Tamiflu. Although it will probably be too late by then!
I try not to think too much about this type of stuff- there are so many things out there that could kill me tomorrow, I could go crazy with worry.
Yup. And probably more so since chickens are a big reality around here. Last year, with the outbreak in BC, we decided against getting any broilers for our own meat supply. We didn't want to spend the money and time if they were going to end up getting killed and our farm quarantined.
When these things spread, they spread fast. Better to think about it now.
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