by the Night Writer Greg Marmalard: Remain calm! All is well! D-Day: Ramming speed! Flu pandemics have become kind of a hobby of mine, not out of morbid interest but because I work in an industry that has to anticipate and model the potential impact of such things and also because I’m part of [...]
I’m resolved to be brighter and more bubbly this week, but I’ll pass this on from last Saturday’s The Writer’s Almanac for historical perspective: It was on this day in 1918 that the first cases of what would become the influenza pandemic were reported in the U.S. when 107 soldiers got sick at Fort Riley, [...]
A normal but nasty strain of flu is circulating (see here and here ). It appears to run its course in a couple of days but with flu there is also a risk of getting a secondary streptococcal infection leading to pneumonia, bloodstream infections or meningitis, which can be deadly. In fact, with concerns about [...]
Three people have died and 12 others have been infected in an outbreak of avian flu in Turkey this week; the dead, all children from the same family, are the first bird flu deaths outside of Asia. While the relationship between the dead children has raised concern that the virus may be transmmitted from human-to-human, [...]
Details here. The key element in the proposal, in my mind, is the emphasis on developing a vaccine through the use of cell-based cultures rather than in millions of chicken eggs, which has been the standard since the 1950s. The egg process takes nearly a year, as I understand it, while the cell culture method [...]
British say dead parrot had bird flu strain that has migrated from Asia to Europe There doesn’t appear to be any doubt that this particular parrot contracted the H5N1 virus, but consensus hasn’t always been easy to reach with the British. You may recall the classic Monty Python “Dead Parrot” sketch where Mr. Praline tried [...]
I’ve posted several times with updates on the risk of an avian flu pandemic. My goal has been to promote awareness, not panic, and I hope regular readers have found these to be informative. I know my efforts have had nothing to do with it, but the MSM is starting to pay more attention to [...]
From the Washington Times: President Bush said yesterday that he was concerned about the potential for an avian flu outbreak and suggested empowering the Pentagon to quarantine parts of the nation should they become infected. “If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country, [...]
Could the outbreak of the H5N1 virus (avian flu or bird flu) in 57 people in Indonesia be the harbinger of the global pandemic that has had experts throughout the world very concerned for years? Let’s hope not, but this community of scientists, researchers and doctors is watching developments very closely and holding their breath. [...]
