Bird Flu

JuliusCaesar

What the 'ell happened Bird Flu? Not so long ago there were all these dire predictions of pandemics ("We're all going to dieeeeee!"); now, not a murmur.
Was it all hype?

GhostInTheRuins

That's the media for ya'

tallaght01

Yea the media are not particularly reliable as indicators of what illnesses are likely to be a global threat.

It's funny that there such a kerfuffle about bird flu when more babies in the world will die in this next hour of simple diarrhoea than are ever likely to die of bird flu. Kids and adults are being wiped out by TB, malaria and HIV (65 million sufferers of HIV in the world now apparently), and they don't get anything close to the coverage that bird flu and SARS got.

Dr Galen

to be fair, I think I had SARS at one point

Wibbs

tallaght01 wrote: »

It's funny that there such a kerfuffle about bird flu when more babies in the world will die in this next hour of simple diarrhoea than are ever likely to die of bird flu.

So true. It's a sad sad thing too that simple diarrhoea can be prevented or cured so simply and cheaply. While it would be incredibly helpful for world health if we could cure or immunise against something as currently destructive as HIV, we could already save millions outside the west with glorified salty water, or safe drinking water, yet we don't. All the sadder when we in the west gained one of the biggest extensions in life expectancy in the last 200 years with the provision of clean drinking water.

I think it's a human nature thing too. If you stand on a beach and scream "SHARK!" watch the reaction, but if you scream "BEE" people will think you a nutter(well more of a nutter ). Bee stings kill more people a year than sharks have eaten since records began and the deadliest animal on the planet is most likely the humble mosquito.

tallaght01

Mystik Monkey wrote: »

to be fair, I think I had SARS at one point

man i remember in the midst of the SARS madness I was sitting in a GP surgery doing my final year placement. A guy rocked in with respiratory symptoms, and he'd been on hols to india or somewhere. So, I immediately thought he had SARS. I called in my supervisor, and he got a bit caught up in it too. We phoned the local on-call infectious disease consultant, who listened to our story and told us the guy sounded like he had a cold. Oh the shame

Wibbs wrote: »

So true. It's a sad sad thing too that simple diarrhoea can be prevented or cured so simply and cheaply. While it would be incredibly helpful for world health if we could cure or immunise against something as currently destructive as HIV, we could already save millions outside the west with glorified salty water, or safe drinking water, yet we don't. All the sadder when we in the west gained one of the biggest extensions in life expectancy in the last 200 years with the provision of clean drinking water.

I think it's a human nature thing too. If you stand on a beach and scream "SHARK!" watch the reaction, but if you scream "BEE" people will think you a nutter(well more of a nutter ). Bee stings kill more people a year than sharks have eaten since records began and the deadliest animal on the planet is most likely the humble mosquito.

Too right Wibbs. Malaria is a killer in developing countries like we can't imagine. Remember during the peak of the bird flu madness there was a crazy rush for a vaccine. Yet there's been hardly any progress towards a malaria vaccine, or indeed improvements in malaria treatment that's accessible to those likely to be affected by it, in recent years.

Wibbs

tallaght01 wrote: »

man i remember in the midst of the SARS madness I was sitting in a GP surgery doing my final year placement. A guy rocked in with respiratory symptoms, and he'd been on hols to india or somewhere. So, I immediately thought he had SARS. I called in my supervisor, and he got a bit caught up in it too. We phoned the local on-call infectious disease consultant, who listened to our story and told us the guy sounded like he had a cold. Oh the shame

With respect Sir, that's nothing, every time I get the flu I am convinced it's bubonic plague. Fever, thumpin headaches, weakness and painful underarm glands, the lot. So far I seem to have beaten it. Hard man that I am. The joke is one of these days I will contract it and think it's the flu

Too right Wibbs. Malaria is a killer in developing countries like we can't imagine. Remember during the peak of the bird flu madness there was a crazy rush for a vaccine. Yet there's been hardly any progress towards a malaria vaccine, or indeed improvements in malaria treatment that's accessible to those likely to be affected by it, in recent years.

Funny enough my dad lived in africa in the 50's and contracted it. It was even worse than usual for him as it progressed into blackwater fever. Apparently so named as your urine goes black as your kidneys fail. Highly fatal I gather. He was actually sent home to die. He didn't though, lived well into his 80's. Then again it was kidney failure that got him in the end. Maybe a connection, who knows? He was very lucky that he got treatment in africa from a pair of doctors who were doing a lot of research on malaria in general. He knew quite a few people who died from malaria, european and african(especially kids). As he said himself it was a good indication even then of the disparity of care, as europeans didn't die of it to nearly the same extent as the locals. As he also pointed out you would expect the opposite as the locals would have some level of immunity going on, so you would expect the non locals to die at a much higher rate.

Am I right in thinking we had malaria here and in britain in years gone by? The ague I think it was called. I wonder why it disappeared. Maybe I'm a cynic but I suspect if malaria kicked off here in the west again a treatment would be far quicker in coming.

ZorbaTehZ

tallaght01 wrote:

Too right Wibbs. Malaria is a killer in developing countries like we can't imagine. Remember during the peak of the bird flu madness there was a crazy rush for a vaccine. Yet there's been hardly any progress towards a malaria vaccine, or indeed improvements in malaria treatment that's accessible to those likely to be affected by it, in recent years.

qft. Something that always stuck in my mind (and maddened me) was the amount of funding that goes into Cystic Fibrosis research versus that that goes into Malaria research.

Syke

How fondly I remember bird flu. Or "Avian Bird Flu" as I remember it being called by more than one news outlet.

I was working for the NDSC (now the HPSC) at the time and remember one particular farmer calling because his dog had killed a bird and brought it home. The dog was now lethargic and lazy. He wanted us to send people out.

It turned out the dog was 17 years old, was always lethargic and lazy and regularly killed birds and mice and brought them home. But of course because there was not just bird flu, but avian bird flu about, he was worried.

If I could have killed every person who called with a "Joe Duffy said...." type comment, the average Irish IQ would be up double figures.

SomeDose

Wibbs wrote: »

Am I right in thinking we had malaria here and in britain in years gone by? The ague I think it was called. I wonder why it disappeared. Maybe I'm a cynic but I suspect if malaria kicked off here in the west again a treatment would be far quicker in coming.

Not cynical at all. The fact is that developing treatments for acute illnesses endemic in poorer countries is simply a financial non-starter for pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Speaking of which, Roche made a killing off the whole bird flu situation (I think its share price spiked by over 60% back in 2005). Their treatment (Tamiflu) was stockpiled by over 50 countries, in fact they couldn't make it fast enough and a row broke out over why they wouldn't sub-licence it to generic manufacturers so that global demand could be met. Ironically, it was mostly wealthy countries that could afford to stockpile it and not the poorer countries i.e. those most likely to be hit hardest by a pandemic. Textbook case of global public health inequality.