Possible case of human transmission of bird flu

Although not definitely confirmed as a human transmission case yet, this incident in Indonesia looks very suspicious:

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/avianflu/news/may2306indo.html

Let's hope not.

there is not a lot of information there, but if you get enough of the virus coughed up into your own lungs from someone infected with it you can catch something even no through a new human/human vector.

That being said they do describe the place where they live as being a village. I dont know specifically about where it's from, but if it's a rural or even an urban setting people often keep birds and chickens and the entire family could be exposed to the same birds that they are keeping. They make no mention at all of where they think the original infection came from.

The more I read about this as time goes on the more it's turning out to be black market bird sales that are doing most of the spreading of this from place to place and not people to people or migratory wild birds. Seems that many of these governments that are killing off peoples chicken flocks when they become infected are not reimbursing the farmers in question, so that leads to them selling off as many birds as they can that are not obviously infected as quickly as possible. Spreading the infection must faster than if they just did nothing. Typical of government management in generally really.

Does pay to keep a close eye on this stuff though!

One article mentioned that one woman of this household worked in a market where poultry was sold. She could have picked up an infected bird and the whole family may have eaten it w/o it being property cooked...

We've got to wait and see that the analysis results are.

The media is Way to quick to hype this incident.

Aren't most experts saying that once (if) the bird flu mutated enough to transmit from human to human that it would drop in lethality to something akin to the run of the mill stomach flu??

ACMarina said:

Aren't most experts saying that once (if) the bird flu mutated enough to transmit from human to human that it would drop in lethality to something akin to the run of the mill stomach flu??

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Eventually. It could take months and months, though.

How 'bout those thirteen thousand people quarantined in Bucharest?

ACMarina said:

Aren't most experts saying that once (if) the bird flu mutated enough to transmit from human to human that it would drop in lethality to something akin to the run of the mill stomach flu??

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Yes. Any change to human-to-human transfer ability would result in an immediate lowering of the lethality/mortality rate. That's why a lot of the numbers you hear are too high and too hyped. That doesn't mean that it would necessarily drop to the level of a run of the mill stomach flu though.

If this does to go human-to-human it would still probably be pretty bad--even w/the lowered rate. However, it's also possible that this may never occur.

pretty scary...

" Those who shared the room with her that night in Kubu Sembelang village were her two sons, both of whom died of avian flu, and her 25-year-old brother, the only surviving member of the cluster. Other infected relatives, according to the WHO, lived in adjacent homes."

...Any change to human-to-human transfer ability would result in an immediate lowering of the lethality/mortality rate...

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That would be a moot point and only cold comfort to the millions it may kill. That would imply that while the Avian Flu has only killed less than 200 people worldwide to date it will be less lethal when it jumps human-to-human and potentially aquires the potential to kill tens of millions like the Spanish Flu did in the last century. I guess from my simple point of view a flu that kills 50,000,000 out of 1,000,000,000 infected is a far greater threat than a flu that is almost impossible to catch and kills 95 out of 100 infected. In practical terms I'd rather face the latter 'more lethal' model any day.

The Spanish Flu killed 50-100 milion people over the course of a year before it's lethality was moderated, according to Wikipedia.

This depends on how much the mortality rate drops and how contagious it is--if it ever goes human-to-human (there's no way to predict if and when this may happen).

It could potentially be only slightly worse than a common flu, or it could be worse than that, like the more recent 'Hong Kong' flu. The potential pandemic could also be much worse.

However, it will not be as bad as the 1918 flu for two reasons. First, half of all fatalities were due to secondary infections in the age just before penicillin was invented. Many of those fatalities would be mitigated by such antibiotic drugs (and we would have to produce more now in advance of any potential pandemic). Second, the 1918 flu became much worse and concentrated in the trenches of WW I where soldiers, weakened from battle had lowered immune systems at the same time they were living in close quarters. Those unique conditions do not exist anywhere today.

Finally, if it does go human-to-human in any type of potent form we will be in big trouble for one reason. This is because it takes around 6 months to develop a vaccine once a human-to-human form is identified and then it would take years to produce enough to cover any good portion of the populace. The epidemic would be over by then.

ACMarina said:

Aren't most experts saying that once (if) the bird flu mutated enough to transmit from human to human that it would drop in lethality to something akin to the run of the mill stomach flu??

Click to expand...

I hadn't heard this detail previously. Does anyone know why this would happen?

C4LED,

I don't know. While we do have antibiotics, they aren't as effective as they used to be. We also don't have access to antibiotics in anywhere near the quantities we may need (as you said.)

Another difference with the Spanish Flu would be the greater speed whith which we travel and how many, many more destinations may be reached almost effortlessly. If the Spanish Flu emerged today instead of 85 years ago it might explode in 100-150 cities almost simultainiously instead of taking a year to wreak it's havoc around the world.

You may be right, but I think that there are so many differences in the world today compared to then that meaningful comparisons are problematic.

Sub_Umbra,

I definitely agree about the travel. If this were to emerge as a pandemic, there'd be no stopping it by quarantine (as the health experts have said). I just think the issue has been over-hyped, but still deserves to be monitored closely.

For all the attention this issue has received I would have hoped that other issues, like port security, hurricane and general anti-terrorism efforts in general would get more focus and more resources.