Bird Flu - remember the panic?

whiskeyman

Anyone heard anything about Bird Flu in the news over the past week or so?
Remeber the panic?
No Turkeys for Christmas...
Vaccines shortages....

Seems the media are more worried about a bird with a fractured rib in Australia...

flogen

Yeah, I don't think the threat has lessened at all, but at the same time I think the media overhyped it to begin with.
The fact is, unless a pandemic had have occoured during the media panics the public was going to get bored, towards the end of the issue you could already hear the common joe say it was a red herring, and that nothing had happened so it wasn't going to.
I think it raises an interesting debate though, did the media coverage serve to cause un-needed panic, did it miseducate people but most interestingly did the over saturation of the issue just lead people to think they had nothing to worry about?

JimmySmith

flogen wrote:

Yeah, I don't think the threat has lessened at all, but at the same time I think the media overhyped it to begin with.
The fact is, unless a pandemic had have occoured during the media panics the public was going to get bored, towards the end of the issue you could already hear the common joe say it was a red herring, and that nothing had happened so it wasn't going to.
I think it raises an interesting debate though, did the media coverage serve to cause un-needed panic, did it miseducate people but most interestingly did the over saturation of the issue just lead people to think they had nothing to worry about?

I think you're dead right. The risk is always there, but the media are a problem here. They will only serve to bore people and make them forget that this can happen.

edanto

I think the worry was justified - but not the overwhelming coverage that Sky gave it, with monster maps of migrating birds.

There's no doubt, scientifically, that bird flu will be caught by people and spread amongst us. There is no way to predict WHEN that'll happen or what the outcome will be.

It's only eight years since the first recorded case of this flu variant, H5N1, going from bird -> human. It could be eight years before it spreads from person to person, it could be eight weeks.

I think that was the element missing from the coverage - the headline news seemed to be looking for certainty and 'news', whereas the bird flu story is steeped in doubt and uncertainty. It takes a lot of talent to report issues like that, and I don't think Sky are in the business of giving in-depth nuanced coverage to stories.

As I remember the coverage on the beeb, it was less alarmist, still giving the same facts, but without the end-is-nigh undercurrent.

Flogen, your question is an interesting one. My impression would be that people would have related the bird flu story to SARS, have seen two very different outcomes (so far) and that this might have damaged the trust between science correspondents and watchers.

flogen

It's not that Bird Flu will hit humans, and travel human to human, it's just a possible form of flu, and given that we (the human race) are due another flu pandemic it was/is a likely candidate.

The SARS thing is another example, while that was a big issue, it was not something that we in the West had to deal with too much, but we were warned that it was coming etc., I think there's a chance that the next big threat won't be taken as seriously if it gets similar coverage. People are tired of projections and graphs showing what could happen if the virus spread to humans, while it's less exciting a doctor or medical expert explaining the chances and threats is much more worthwhile

Brendan552004

The current bird flu H5N1 is roughly following the same path as the Spanish flu of 1918/19. The Spanish flu or great flu as it was known hit people in the 20/40 year age bracket. My grandfather died November 1918, he was a doctor in Waterville, Co. Kerry, he was 33 years of age when he died.

96 people have contacted H5N1 in Vietnam, 42 have died, the latest a 3 year old little girl yesterday. All these people have been in direct contact with poultry. H5N1 was first detected in Vietnam in 2003.

As long as H5N1 has poultry to infect it will not try to seriously mutate, when it runs out of poultry/birds it will mutate to survive, it will spread to other species like humans.

In Vietnam they have already discovered that the virus has become immune to "Tamiflu" Why are our Government wasting money on a drug that will not be effective. They should wait to see how the virus mutates and what new immunisation the WHO come up with.

The great flu killed in excess of 50 million people worldwide. Experts are predicting 800,000 deaths in Britain alone for H5N1.

RobEire

A lot is going on behind the scenes to contain the risk. The spread of the disease appears to have halted around the Eastern Mediterranean for the time being, but assume it will continue to spread next year.

whiskeyman

Breaking news that the 3 children died from the H5N1 bird flu strain in Turkey (now confirmed).


Can we expect the hype to grow now?

Anyone else think it a lovely coincidence any hype of the bird-flu threat died down over the most commercially profitable time for poultry farmers?

flogen

The hype will only return when it hits western civilisation, perticularly Ireland or the UK. Right now it's a problem those people over there have to worry about, just like it was when it hit the headlines first.
The hype, in my opinion, died down because people had had enough of it and saw nothing coming from the scare mongering. The media had reported the same stuff again and again and got tired, started looking for something else to cover.

ek942

I have bird flu.I know its bird flu because Ive started talking sh*te,and I can't reverse the car anymore.

simu

lollzers

bonkey

flogen wrote:

Yeah, I don't think the threat has lessened at all, but at the same time I think the media overhyped it to begin with.

Goodness....the media would never overhype a global threat to our health, would they?

I mean...just look how responsibly they acted with SARS - that deadliest of killers that could have made AIDS look like a walk in the park.

It seems to me that the media seems to have two major stances, at least one of which will be a major news item in any given year:

1) New Killer disease/outbreak/drug-resistant strain found which could make the Spanish flu of '16 look like a walk in the park.
2) Its been X years since the killer outbreak of '16, and experts fear we're overdue for another epidemic of something which will wreak havoc.

I mean...seriously....when its not Ebola emerging from the jungles to wipe us out, its a new drug-resistant strain of Hep, or a new flu, or something.

And you know what...every time, we hear the same thing:

1) This new (or previously never-much-studied for whatever reason) threat doesn't have a cure.
2) We need to invest gazillions right now into finding a cure before it kills us all.
3) Drugs are expensive to make, and take far too long. (Why have I heard almost annually for the last 10 years at least that the methodology for manufacture needs to be modernised)
4) What do you mean we could have spent that money wiping out known diseases which are established mass-killers? Thats foolish. Only poor people die from those any more. This new threat could hit rich folks too.

jc

luckat

Well, a girl has now died of it in Iraq... wonder if it'll infect the US army and be brought back to America, and then... and then...

flogen

luckat wrote:

Well, a girl has now died of it in Iraq... wonder if it'll infect the US army and be brought back to America, and then... and then...

Interesting to see this happen; I'd imagine the above is unlikely though as it would need to be a case where either the mutation happens in Iraq or a soldier comes into contact with an infected bird, catches the strain, just happens to be returning home shortly afterwards and when he gets there he comes into contact with other birds... I'm not even sure if the disease has been shown to travel human - bird, rather than bird - human.
I'd hope all precautions are being taken nonetheless.

edanto

There has been another significant development in this story. A case has been reported that seems to show human to human contact. Seven people from the same Indonesian family died earlier this month and there aren't any signs of infected chickens.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5011210.stm

This is not the end of the world, the WHO are on the case and are monitoring the situation carefully. You can be sure that everybody in the immediate area will be under scrutiny. Early news from the lab is that the H5N1 virus hasn't mutated or crossed with a human strain; which is good news but doesn't explain why it spread from person to person.

What does this mean for us and our health? No immediate impact unless you were planning to go to Indonesia and spend some time in the villages.