Comments

You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name

Your e-mail (optional)

Website (optional)

	My Original Nic Pic-a-Nic Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Foto

Submit your comments on this article

Science & Technology

Bird flu outbreak spreading

2006-07-31

Mass killings of up to 300,000 chickens are underway in tambon Ban Klang in Nakhon Phanom's Muang district after a laboratory test confirmed the area had been hit by the bird flu outbreak. The province has mobilised 1,500 health officials to carry out the cull on 70 farms.

The Public Health Ministry yesterday put the number of patients suspected of having bird flu at 80, from 19 provinces nationwide. The number has fallen from the 113 suspected cases reported on Saturday.

This will be the second cull in Nakhon Phanom in as many days. Late last week, 40,000 chickens were slaughtered as a precautionary measure, after poultry died mysteriously.

Posted by:Anonymoose

#4 There have been several H2H confirmed transmissions, and an entire family wiped out, except, oddly enough, two spouses of family members who didn't get sick, implying that the family was unusually sensitive.

The reason is that avian flu, unlike typical flu, is concentrated in the lower trachea, instead of the upper trachea and sinuses. Thus it is harder to spread through coughing and sneezing. This minor difference is the only thing keeping it from becoming easily H2H.

Other oddities include its maintaining an unusually high mortality rate, around 60%, which is three times deadlier than the Spanish flu. It is also much easier to transmit than typical flu, needing only a fraction of the normal amount of contagion (in ppb) to establish a foothold in a new host.

This is why even third and fourth world nations have been stimulated by their own medical communities to take it as serious as war.

Unofficial estimates of worldwide mortality, all else being equal, range from 300M to 1B, with perhaps that number again suffering from severe permanent lung damage. The plague could last from 1-3 years.

Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-07-31 09:39

#3 Don't you just love that some people dumped the dead chickens in the river ?
Next, we'll have fish flu.

Posted by: wxjames 2006-07-31 07:53

#2 Road Kill is best served with nuoc mam JOE.

Posted by: RD 2006-07-31 05:17

#1 Thus far, it appears that those humans whom had gotten sick or died from bird flu did so after cooking andor eating already dead birds, i.e. ate CARRION = ROAD KILL?; or it has NOT yet been absolutely determined iff they did or didn't eat same, at least by current reports.

Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-07-31 01:03

00:00