Your area’s water supply might also be infected if a bird dropping contaminates the water reservoir. Consult with the water supply company on their safety and purifying measures to make sure the water is clean enough for human consumption.

Wearing respiratory masks may look too paranoid, but once another “outbreak” is announced, masks will be a great protection.

(source)

The main cases of those who have gotten this terrible bird flu are cases in which the people themselves were in contact with birds. Bird flu doe snot seem to be spreading from person to person at all so far so there is not as yet a huge demand for the bird flu vaccine. Especially not in most countries, Asia however could benefit largely from the use of an effective bird flu vaccine since this is where most people are catching bird flu.

The reason that scientist and the governments are so interested in developing a good and useful bird flu vaccine is because humans will not be able to stand up against the bird flu long when and if it starts being transferred from person to person. This is when we are going to really need the bird flu vaccine and that is why this vaccine is being worked on so much by the best minds in science.

Today, China informed the world that it had found its first two human cases of bird flu, including at least one fatality. The Chinese government is racing to vaccinate billions of chickens, ducks and other poultry in a massive effort to stop the spread of the virus. The government suspected a third case of bird flu in a 12-year-old girl who died, but her body was cremated before it could be tested.

Governments and businesses worldwide are gearing up for a potential deadly outbreak of the avian flu. U.S. President George Bush has already committed $7 Billion toward fighting the bird flu, while the world’s largest bank, Citigroup, has set up a bird flu taskforce to study prevention methods as well as the economic impact of an outbreak among humans. Some experts have estimated that the avian flu could have a negative economic impact of nearly $1 Trillion.

How is the threat affecting us currently? How will it affect society? Well, people in the non-European part of the world seem generally unconcerned so far. However, some companies, especially banks, seem to have adopted a proactive approach. U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers has held an off-site training session to prepare for bird flu, according to an undisclosed source familiar with the matter.

If a large-scale outbreak occurs, it would almost certainly affect the way the average person thinks about work, school, and social gatherings of any kind. Workplaces would be largely emtpy, as workers found ways to stay at home. Classrooms would also be non-existent, with children probably being considered ‘high-risk’ candidates to contract the flu. Sports leagues, which depend on ticket sales would be hit very hard. Even the trips to the supermarket would disappear as people find ways to lessen contact with each other.

In my experience, the more prepared we are for a catastrophe, the less likely it will occur. Thus, I believe that the bird flu will not amount to much (remember SARS?) and life will find a way to go on as normal. But, perhaps we should all be thinking now about how such an epidemic might change our lives, and even how we might look beyond what we see today, and try to envision what the world might look like years from now.

With so much concern being shown regarding the Bird Flu situation we are all asking if modern medicine can save us from what could become a human pandemic. Unfortunately it would appear that this is most unlikely, as the World Health Organization has explained that although modern day medicine has improved tremendously over the last decades a pandemic, such as bird flu, presently could result in 2 million to 7.4 million deaths globally.

It was expressed on their website, that huge demands would be made on local hospitals for many millions of outpatient visits and possibly 1.5 to 5.2 million hospital admissions in the high income countries alone which account for 15% of the worlds population.

It has been recorded that the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 to 1919 killed an estimated total of 40 million people from around the world and we are ever present of what possible tragedies can happen as highlighted by the 2002 to 2003 SARS scare which killed an astonishing 10% of those infected and was only barely prevented from becoming a global pandemic.

Unfortunately with the world becoming a smaller and more easily travelled place the possibilities of a world pandemic such as bird flu is becoming more than a possibility to occur in the coming years.

Unfortunately today the world has progressed to a situation that is ready to foster a global outbreak, such as a bird flu pandemic, and is quickly becoming virtually defenceless against such a tragedy becoming a real life situation.

The world seems to be ill prepared for such a tragedy, as bird flu, with no vaccines apparently available and no distribution network system in place for such an event.

It would appear that it would be in each person’s own interest to prepare individually to prevent their own weakness to catching such a virus, as bird flu, and an obvious solution would be to investigate natural anti-viral foods, nutritional supplements and herbs that may offer a powerful medicine to overcome these ever looming threats.

Scientists have gained ground and have come out with vaccines that used to be quite rare but have stepped up production making it more accessible to more people. The problem with viruses is their diverse and ever evolving genetic make-up that makes them hard to treat. Along with evolving bacteria known as MRSA which are not treatable with common antibiotics, they are a challenge indeed in the never ending battle within the human body.

Called BioMask, it is treated to kill and prevent the spread of the virus to and from infected sources. The costs of having to deal with outbreak are mounting and with better tools to help combat the disease, it is hoped that it will someday be as simple as the common cold.

Many in the developed world have received their vaccines but sadly, with most of the world’s population in developing countries a lot still needs to be done. Scientists and medical experts are now armed with better understanding of how the virus spreads and are better equipped than ever to tackle another outbreak should it occur.

Aside from avoiding contact with possibly contaminated birds and poultry, here are other ways to avoid getting infected:

- check for the latest travel advise from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  website or call their hotline at 1-888-246-2675 when traveling especially when it is an international trip
- when traveling to countries that are known to have bird flu outbreaks, avoid poultry farms and bird markets, and avoid contact with any surfaces that may have poultry feces or secretions
- wash hands frequently, or use alcohol based hand sanitizers
- make sure poultry dishes are cooked thoroughly, as the virus can be destroyed in high temperatures

I am often asked, “where did Bird flu come from.” There really isn’t a definitive answer, a variation of bird flu has probably been around since the dawn of humankind in one form or another. The first known avian influenza virus was identified in Italy in 1878 as a “serious disease of chickens”.

In Hong Kong 1997, the H5N1 strain of avian influenza virus was first documented, when it caused severe respiratory problems in 18 humans, of whom six died. A total culling of all chickens and removal of chicken meat from all markets in the area was supposed to put a stop to the virus, however less then 6 years later in February of 2003 another outbreak of H5N1 killed 1 person and sickened another in Hong Kong.

Recent research suggests that the Spanish flu of 1918 was a mutated form of the H1N1 virus, the name associated with the then current Bird Flu mutation. Two teams of scientists conducted this research.

One led by Sir John Skehel, director of the National Institute for Medical Research in London and another by Professor Ian Wilson of the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego.

They used a sample of lung tissue collected from the remains of an Inuit woman, in Alaska, who died during the 1918 Spanish flu and DNA samples from the remains of solders who died during world war two of the disease.

The two teams analyzed the structure of the gene and discovered how subtle alterations to the shape of a protein molecule had allowed it to move from birds to humans with such devastating effects.

Since the Hong Kong strain of the bird flu in 1997 was reported, tens of millions of birds have died of H5N1 influenza and hundreds of millions of birds were culled (slaughtered and disposed of).

All evidence suggests that if in fact the H5N1 virus were to mutate into a human transmittable disease, somewhere around 150,000,000 human deaths directly due to H5N1 infection (or two to three percent of the world’s human population) would occur.