Bird Flu now in UK

[The Doctor]

U.K. Confirms H5 Bird Flu Virus Found in Dead Swan in Scotland

April 5 (Bloomberg) -- Preliminary findings on a dead swan found in Fife, Scotland, show it had H5 avian flu, the U.K. government said.

The tests ``have found highly pathogenic H5 avian flu in a sample from a swan,'' the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said in a statement on its Web site.

``The exact strain of the virus is not yet known. Tests are continuing and a further result is expected tomorrow,'' the Defra statement said.

The dead swan was found on the shoreline near Cellardyke, in Fife, the British broadcasting Corp. reported.

No infections have been reported in U.K. birds of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, according to Defra.

The Scottish Executive said it would set up a three kilometers radius protection zone around where the swan was found, and there will be a 10-kilometer surveillance zone.

Bird keepers in the protection area are being advised to take birds indoors and to keep them separate from wild birds and the movement of poultry, eggs and poultry products from the areas will be restricted, the Scottish Executive said in a statement.

Scotland's Chief Veterinary Officer Charles Milne said whilst the disease ``has yet to be confirmed, this is an important development.''

Debby Reynolds the U.K.'s chief veterinary officer said ``all our resources'' will be brought to bear on this situation. ``We are already in a high state of readiness and I have every confidence that officials north and south of the border will work together to manage this incident successfully,'' Reynolds said in a statement.

link

Thats not far from where I live.

[Uversa]

What this article doesn't mention is that the Swan had been dead for a week, giving seagulls etc a chance to have a good nibble on it and contract the virus

[The Doctor]

What this article doesn't mention is that the Swan had been dead for a week, giving seagulls etc a chance to have a good nibble on it and contract the virus

But they don't know for sure if it's the deadly strain yet, so it might not be that much of a danger. After all it is still just a bird virus just now.

[RedEyeJedi]

Thank God. Luckily, I'm not a swan.

[Sanjuro]

If virus will mutate to "people to people" like virus , millions will die.

[The Doctor]

If virus will mutate to "people to people" like virus , millions will die.

But for that to happen humans would have to be in contact with infected birds for a period of time for it to mutate.

[Talon]

I don't see why everyone is panicking at this. The virus is already present in tons of countries with massive populations, weak health technology and large rural communities in constant contact with birds. Scotland's population is 5 million, in health technology we're as advanced as any other western nation, and our rural population is tiny. If third world Asian haven't been decimated yet, I doubt Scotland is going to be.

[dantheman2435]

If virus will mutate to "people to people" like virus , millions will die.

Good, we need a culling, we are growing too much, we need a major decrease in population if we are to survive.

[RedEyeJedi]

I don't see why everyone is panicking at this. The virus is already present in tons of countries with massive populations, weak health technology and large rural communities in constant contact with birds. Scotland's population is 5 million, in health technology we're as advanced as any other western nation, and our rural population is tiny. If third world Asian haven't been decimated yet, I doubt Scotland is going to be.

That was the point I was trying to make. Saying lucky I am not a Swan. The Birdflu Pandemic is a hoax to make billions on Tamiflu, for some including Rumsfeld.

What gets me is that long before the birdflu craze was on everyones lips, I read about scientists trying to create a human-human form in labs. Why do that!! In the name of research they try to create a disease that doesn't exist. possibly risking a pandemic. It's all fearmongering and BS.

Good, we need a culling, we are growing too much, we need a major decrease in population if we are to survive.

I just agreed with you on another thread, but I totally disagree with you on this. There is more than enough to go round, on this planet of ours. To think that we can't sustain ourselves is ridiculous. What needs to change are the levels of greed and that can only happen with a spiritual awakening, like the one predicted with the coming with the age of aquarius.

[Talon]

The Birdflu Pandemic is a hoax to make billions on Tamiflu, for some including Rumsfeld.

... yeah right, I'm sure the nWo and medical companies are behind all this

[The Doctor]

That was the point I was trying to make. Saying lucky I am not a Swan. The Birdflu Pandemic is a hoax to make billions on Tamiflu

But I thought some people in Asia who had been in close contact with the birds had caught it and died.

[RedEyeJedi]

But I thought some people in Asia who had been in close contact with the birds had caught it and died.

I'm not saying that the disease is a hoax. I meant the threat of a pandemic. Donald Rumsfeld is a shareholder of the company that makes the vaccine. Last time I checked which was a while ago now - the American taxpayers had paid for something like $2 billion worth of Tamiflu.

The people that have died from Birdflu have either been eating dried birds blood, or working a lot with birds. The only way a pandemic will break out is if those lab tests were successful and the virus gets accidently released.

I think the number of people who have died from Bird flu worldwide is 107. Harldy anything to worry about. I'm sure more people die each year from sexually related vacuum-cleaner injuries.

Edited April 6, 2006 by RedEyeJedi

[The Doctor]

But it is in the nature of a virus that if enough humans contract it then it will become a pandemic.

[RedEyeJedi]

But it is in the nature of a virus that if enough humans contract it then it will become a pandemic.

There is no form of Bird Flu that can be transferred between humans. Humans can only get it from birds. You are only gonna get it if you do depraved things with birds.

[Michelle]

Forgive me for laughing, RedEye, but I would like to see your evidence for that last statement. Edited April 6, 2006 by Michelle

[RedEyeJedi]

Forgive me for laughing, RedEye.

[Alfaman]

This birdflu is nothing but scaremongering by the press, anyone remember SARS from a few years ago, that was supposed to kill tousands and nothing came of that and that was transferable from human to human to start with. They all keep going on about how it killed millions in 1918, but that was nearly 90 years ago, I would think that disease and illness treatment would have moved on substaitially by now! I was watching the news last night and they said that, in total, bird flu has affected 190 people worlwide and 100 or so of them have died, this in the last 5 years, if it hasn't mutated by now why is it going to this year or next year! I would be more worried about the changes in our climate or the growing unease and tension in the Middle East.

[thebarman]

The Birdflu Pandemic is a hoax to make billions on Tamiflu, for some including Rumsfeld.

For once, I actually agree with you. It's stupid to manufacture tons of this stuff for a pandemic that doesn't even exist yet. While I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a hoax, or that the NWO have anything to do with it, drug companies seem especially keen to bulk produce a vaccine when we don't need one, and the reason for that is not to save lives, but to make cash.

What needs to change are the levels of greed and that can only happen with a spiritual awakening, like the one predicted with the coming with the age of aquarius.

Well I knew it wouldn't last, we're back off in the world of cuckoo land.

[Dowdy]

There is no form of Bird Flu that can be transferred between humans. Humans can only get it from birds. You are only gonna get it if you do depraved things with birds.

Not yet but you should probably read this to understand it more

One reason you generally get over the flu after a few days' discomfort is that your immune system has seen it before and knows how to respond. This year's bug won't be a carbon copy of last year's, because the virus mutates constantly. But it will look similar enough that your body can almost always keep it in check.

Every so often, though, something new comes along from the animal world—a vast preserve of type A flu viruses, the ones that cause the most serious illness in humans. In far-flung studies in the late 1960s and 1970s, from Australia's Great Barrier Reef to lakes in northern Canada, Robert Webster and his colleagues tracked flu to its source. "Where do flu viruses come from?" he asks. "From the wild birds of the world, the wild aquatic birds—the waterfowl, the ducks, the shorebirds."

Dozens of flu subtypes inhabit the birds' guts, mostly harmless to their hosts or to any other creature. But occasionally one infects domestic poultry. Even more rarely, a bird virus or some of its genes slip into the much smaller pool of type A viruses that infect humans.

Normally a flu virus good at infecting birds can't attack humans because it isn't equipped to invade and grow in human cells. Until recently scientists thought avian viruses could gain that ability only by indulging in the viral equivalent of sex. Because flu viruses carry their genetic information on eight separate RNA segments, it's easy for different subtypes to swap genes if they happen to meet. The result: offspring with new abilities.

For an avian flu and a human flu to mix it up, they have to infect the same animal. Scientists have long considered the pig a likely mixing vessel, because pig cells have surface molecules that allow entry to both kinds of virus. A pig could conceivably catch a human flu from a farmer and a bird virus from, say, ducks at the same farm. The two viruses could then "reassort," creating a hybrid that—in the worst case—would now be able to infect human cells while still carrying bird-virus genes that would make it radically new to the immune system of the people who catch it, and unusually virulent.

Reassortment explains the two lesser flu pandemics of the 20th century, in 1957 and 1968. In each year a new flu subtype appeared, combining genes from the human virus that had been causing mild outbreaks in prior years with new genes from a bird virus. The new pandemic viruses raced around the world, together killing about two million people.

But in 1918, Taubenberger now believes, something different happened. "We think it's pretty likely that the virus was not derived from a previously circulating human virus," he says. All of its genes mark it as an animal virus, pure and simple, that somehow crossed to people without the help of genes from a previous human strain.

Now H5N1 is doing the same thing. So far, its steps across the species barrier are tentative, which is why it has caused tens of deaths, not millions. But as in 1918, doctors who have seen its effects close up are shaken.

Source

[The Doctor]

Apparently if it does develop into a pandemic in the UK then they are planning mass graves

[Guest Lottie]

^^^ Where did you hear this ?

[frogfish]

Like it said, it is only known as a H5 virus...The strain people fear is the H5N1 strain.

Edited April 7, 2006 by frogfish

[The Doctor]

^^^ Where did you hear this ?

I'm sure I saw it on the ITV news, but I didn't mean it as though they've already started digging them, from what I gathered the plans for the graves were if the virus was to mutate and become a pandemic. It was simply because there would be so many people dying in such a short time period.

Here's a LINK

[wunarmdscissor]

yeah lottie was on the news, but i wouldnt panic.

[crystal sage]

Bird flu and SARS -- what's the difference?

In order to better understand the differences between SARS and bird flu, let’s first look at the ways in which the diseases are similar:

Both are potentially fatal viruses.

Both are respiratory infections.

Both have first affected animals and then made the jump to humans.

Both have similar symptoms, including fever and difficulty breathing.

At present, there is no known cure for either virus.

Despite these similarities, there are very significant differences between avian flu and SARS. These differences include:

http://www.wikibirdflu.org/page/Relationsh...lu######and######SARS

Bird flu is caused by a flu virus while the SARS virus is more closely related to the common cold.

SARS can be transmitted from person to person. So far, bird flu has only been transmitted from birds to humans.

Preventing bird flu and SARS

Although SARS and bird flu come from different sources, they both enter the body through mucus membranes. Therefore, they are preventable in the same ways:

When traveling in affected areas, avoid touching surfaces that may have been contaminated by infected humans or birds.

If you suspect you have come in contact with an infected person or bird, or touched a contaminated surface, wash your hands.

Avoid touching your face, especially your nose and eyes.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health...h-bird-flu.html

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BIRD flu can be fatal in humans, but it is also quite hard to catch - and the reason for both lies deep in our lungs.

Bird flu infects birds, and human flu infects humans, when the virus binds to a sugar molecule on the surface of the host's cells - a different sugar for the two kinds of viruses. This week Yoshihiro Kawaoka and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison report that while cells in our noses, throats and lungs have only the sugar that matches human flu, we also have the "bird" sugar on cells in the alveoli, the delicate air sacs in our lungs.

It is the alveoli that are destroyed in the lethal pneumonia caused by H5N1 bird flu, which is why it is fatal to humans. H5N1 is hard for us to catch because it doesn't bind readily to human noses and throats, where flu viruses usually enter and exit the body (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/440435a).

To become a human pandemic, H5N1 must learn to bind to the "human" sugars. A team led by James Stevens at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, reports that some mutations in the H3 flu family do make this possible. Such a mutation in H5N1 might allow it to spread rapidly between humans (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1124513).

I was wondering if all those new nasal sprays for allergies etc... affect the suger in the nose and lungs and would make the virus easier to bind?????