I was just watching a small part of a news story about the possibility of a bird flu pandemic... a threat lingering as close as 6 months away (worst case scenario).

Our antiviral stockpile is at about 20 million, 60 million short of what we would need. We arent expected to be at the required 80 million until 2008. Those figures are also being calculated considering "an insufficient dosage of the antiviral" for each person.

Anyone else have any information about this to share other than the tidbit I caught from the newstory in the kitchen?

I really don't like seeing the endless cycle of fear and stocking up I see in the US.
Sorry to say, but I have been seeing it for the last 10 years I have been paying attention to such things.

Its always some small little thing that is blown out of propotion by the media. I am not saying that the threat isn't there, its just 20 million when your suppose to have 80 million? Does anyone actually think it will spread so fast that 60 million people will die?

I believe canada is working on the same deal, they are stocking up on such antivirals. However theres not a huge "if we don't get X amount more of this antivirus you're going to die" type of media attention.

We are talking about a flu right?
I have not had a chance to read into the whole bird flu, but from what I have heard from others its mostly a hard hitting case of the flu thats transmitted to humans from birds.
Kinda like Westnile.
I will go do some reading up on it now I guess.

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/n...re1/index.html
National Geographic did an extensive piece on the bird flu a few months ago. It is more from an educational view than from a hysterical-media view.

http://www.webmd.com/content/pages/23/111161.htm
WebMD has several articles on the bird flu, written by several experts.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/
Info from the Center for Disease Control about bird flu, pandemics, and seasonal flus.

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/en/
Some tech info from the World Health Organization about it.

And, as I write this, a news alert just popped up: they found it is Switzerland.

Actually when I did go read it I read the Web MD one. Made sense, only threat I see period is IF someone was infected with it while they had a normal flu and IF they had the viruses mix to create a new strain.
That would be a major pain in the butt. But as for the whole bird flu deal, its a bad case of the flu. What most people don't realize is that the flu kills tons and tons of people every year around the world. I have yet to die from the flu, I rarely hear people dying of the flu in North America or Europe. Yes it can be bad if your health isn't 100%. But this bird thing is getting out of hand as usual.

Whatever, its not like its anyones fault reading these boards.

From what I understand from the National Geographic article, and other sources:

The main problem isn't with the birds getting it right now... altho that is a problem. What everyone worries about is if it starts to pass from avians to humans. Now, there have been about 200 cases in which that has happened, last I checked. Roughly half those people have died. In a few instances, the flu has passed from the first human to catch it from a bird, to a second human, usually a caretaker. That's as far as it has gone so far tho. The flu hasn't made it past a 'second generation' yet.

If the flu mutates enough to be able to spread freely between humans, then basically we are screwed. Right now tho that hasn't happened. At the moment it seems like the media are basically trying to make a buck off hysteria.

I watched a show in it a few months ago (Canadian show obviously)...they said that here they are going to treat it like they did SARS. If they find a case, that province/area is going to be quarentined and they will try to isolated.

When our first case of SARS broke out in, Toronto I think it was...the country when crazy and freaked out. But really they were able to keep it and very few people contracted the disease. They "experts" think they can do the same thing.

If it is being spread from birds to humans tho, how can they effectively quarantine everyone and all the birds? Wild birds are the primary source of infection right now.

Aye, and that will be another problem if an infected avian comes into the country. I read that we have more chances of someone coming back from another country infected, then we do of playing with a Ravin that's become infected. We're more likely to get it from another human.

Personally, it's not something I've worried about...I did a while back...but the fear has seemed to fade. :/

Well that is partially due to the media. They run around yelling the sky is falling, and after a while, people just shrug it off as yet another case of hysterical journalism. I think that if the flu DOES start to spread, at the beginning that is going to be a large problem. People will just shrug it all off before they realize it has turned serious.

That is exactly why I try not to become complacent about stuff like this, Adri. I dont want to be one of those that is caught blindsided by it if it actually does happen.