Bird Flu Prevention

Prevention is better than cure! These words are too true. And countries around the world have taken to doing anything possible to prevent the outbreak of bird flu. Bird flu has killed more than 60 people thus far in South East Asia. This is since it was discovered in 2003. It also resulted in the deaths of millions of poultry.

This virus can be a serious threat if it develops the capacity of easy transmission from one person to another. Experts and decision-makers (400 of them!) had to gather recently for a three-day council of war on bird flu, which took place at the World Health Organisation headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

There is currently no vaccine available to protect humans against avian flu or bird flu ? also known as the H5N1 virus. But development is underway ? research began in 2005.

Personally, everyone should know what steps to take so as to keep risk at a minimum. Stay away from people who are coughing and sneezing, especially if you are visiting a country other than your own. Be especially careful if you do not know the bird flu status of that country. Try to avoid places with a lot of human traffic, such as movies, concerts or shopping malls. Try skip peak hour on busses or trains. But if you must travel in areas which are crowded, wear a mask or respirator. This will protect you against any airborne bird flu virus. These particles are released when people cough, sneeze and just talk.

There are so many measures that can take taken. Even in the work environment. Small things, such as using your own coffee mug and using disposable towels to open the toilet door, might just save your life. These things are not difficult to do ? personally I do most of them anyways. But if there is a serious risk then you may want to don your bird flu survival kit ? especially if you or a co-worker are coughing and sneezing.

Whether at home, work and out and about, try and pay attention to the small things. Do not share your cutlery or drink containers. What seems like sharing a cool drink may actually lead to contraction of the virus. Try not to touch things, such as the bathroom door or the handle of the shopping cart. Use towelling papers, or even wear gloves. If you saw all the germs on communal spots such as ATM machines anyways you would probably never take your gloves off in public again!

More questions answered with Bird Flu Q&A

Is A Bird Flu Vaccine Really Effective

Bird flu is still a hot subject at the World Health Organization meetings, due to the fact that is still considered a threat for humanity.

Scientists believe that the H5N1 virus could mutate and then transmit from human to human causing a global pandemic, for which humanity is not yet prepared.

We have not developed a drug or a vaccine that might kill this evil virus, and so we are exposed to it. Lately there have been debates about the usefulness of the annual flu vaccines. Some scientists declare that if you get annually a flu vaccine, you are making yourself more susceptible to the flu in subsequent years, by weakening your immune system, instead of enforcing it.

Dr. Haim Danenberg of Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem says that one who did not get annual flu shots is possible to poses a better immune system then the annually vaccinated ones.

Some even say that flu vaccines create a pattern of dependence and once you begin taking them you will need to take them every year because your immune system gets weaker every year.

Phyllis Balch, an author of herbs and health does not recommend flu shots and suggests that the solution of getting rid of flu is by strengthening the immune system.

Every year a new strain of virus develops and we can not be sure that the flu shot we took will match for this new virus too, and the antibody response will only be protective if we are luckily enough to get infected with the right virus.

A study from Netherlands made on elderly people concluded that flu shots only give you one percent lower chance of getting the flu after all, so we ask ourselves why doctors and governments make all this propaganda for flu shots if they are only1% helpful.

In the case of bird flu things might not be like this, because if a virus strain is isolated and used to manufacture a bird flu vaccine, it may turn out to be more effective than 1%. Studies have not concluded yet.

It seems that flu shots contain toxic substances too, like mercury which is connected with the Alzheimer disease and could contribute to a mercury poisoning.

There is a law that indemnifies vaccine manufacturers from the harm caused by their products in case of a viral pandemic, even if the vaccine kills people.

You could find more about this law at: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:s.01873:

So, the vaccine producers are protected in case of a mass murder, and they even get money for it (they sell their vaccine to health authorities). This proves that vaccines are not safe and that is why the vaccine companies have assured their legal protection.

Before getting a shot, people should first find out mere about the side effects given by the vaccines and to reconsider whether they want to risk taking it or try a different solution like the real anti-viral medicines.

So, if you want to find out more about bird flu prevention or even about symptoms of bird flu please click this link http://www.bird-flu-info-center.com

The Origins of the 1918 Flu and What It Means for How Much Bird Flu Endangers Us Now

What can the 1918 flu tell us about the current H5N1 strain of bird flu?

The 1918 flu was the most lethal disease pandemic in history -- killing 20 to 100 million people worldwide, most of them in the Fall of 1918.

It's now being examined and debated with new urgency, thanks to the threat of a bird flu pandemic.

According to evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald, author of Evolution of Infectious Disease and Plague Time: How Stealth Infections Cause Cancers, Heart Disease and Other Deadly Ailments (both great books well worth reading), the 1918 flu was so much more lethal than ordinary flu because it appeared and evolved at the Western Front of World War I Europe's brutal trench war.

The more advantageous it is for infections to keep us alive and feeling well enough to walk around, the safer they are. The common cold is irritating but we can still go to work with it -- the better to sneeze and spread cold germs to our co-workers.

The more advantageous it is for infections to disable and kill us, the more they will do so. Malaria makes us so sick because it spreads by mosquitoes -- who find it easier to bite people who're too sick to slap mosquitoes. Who then go spread the infection to a healthy person.

During the 1918 flu, soldiers in Europe lay sick in crowded trenches where they easily spread the flu to other soldiers even though they were too sick to walk and many soon died. When transported to medical care, they were crowded into trucks and train cars with other sick and wounded soldiers. And arrived at military hospitals crowded with more sick and wounded soldiers.

Therefore, the 1918 flu virus had every evolutionary incentive to evolve into a strain highly lethal to people.

But is that the whole story? According to Ewald, we are not in danger of a bird flu pandemic -- or at least, not one as deadly as 1918 -- because there is no similar war going on today.

So should we all forget about bird flu and start worrying about Iran and global warning?

Ewald uses sources from the 1940s that give France as the origin of the 1918 flu.

In The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History John M. Barry discusses the work of Dr. Edwin Johnson, editor of THE JOURNAL OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE, who studied the 1918 soon after it happened and published EPIDEMIC INFLUENZA in 1927.

Dr. Johnson also discards the theory (that some have given) that the 1918 flu originated in China and spread to Europe via imported laborers. Yet he also could not find evidence that it started in Europe.

In Haskell County, Kansas, the winter of 1917-1918 was hard. Many people came down with a flu that was unusually serious. We don't know exactly how many of Haskell County flu victims died that winter, but it was enough to alarm the local doctor. He was so concerned about the number of local and deadly cases of flu that he wrote an alert to the government.

Of course, that didn't stop the government from drafting young men from Haskell County -- who were sent to Camp Funston for training before shipping them off to France.

So it's quite possible that the 1918 flu first infected people in Haskell County, Kansas.

It appears that it did evolve once it was in Europe. The first wave of it hit the soldiers in the spring. It was known as the 3 day flu because large numbers of them caught it, were sick for 3 days and then recovered.

Then it went unnoticed until around September 1918 -- when it spread throughout the world and in 3 months killed many more people than the war itself. From at peace Spain (which was unfairly blamed for it) to the South Pacific to remote Eskimo villages in Alaska.

Perhaps the deadly 1918 flu had its deadly origins for BOTH reasons:

1. It was a mutated avian flu that people did not have any acquired immunity for.

2. Wartime conditions encouraged it to retain and/or increase its lethality, by rewarding it for disabling and killing soldiers so fast and easily.

What does this mean for bird flu today?

We already know it's a mutated avian flu we have no acquired immunity for. It kills over half of its human victims.

There is no major, intense war underway -- but many people in large megacities of the developing world from Rio to Calcutta live in extreme population density. One sick person lying in the corner of a corrugated iron hovel could infect many close family members and neighbors. If a pandemic struck, many would be transported to large and overcrowded medical centers.

In such conditions, a bird flu mutation would likely retain or evolve its extreme lethality.

And what if it was "only" as lethal as the virus that caused the 1968 "Hong Kong" virus?

According to the CDC, the 1968 virus would today kill 2 to 7 million people around the world. From 89,000 to 207,000 people just in the U.S. That would not be a worst case scenario but it would certainly cause a lot of fear and concern.

Therefore, bird flu does not have to evolve into a strain as deadly as 1918, to pose a threat to millions of people around the world. Even without a major world war, we are at risk from a bird flu pandemic.

c 2006 by Richard Stooker

Richard Stooker is the author of How to Protect Yourself and Your Family From Avian Flu and Avian Flu Blog