Something is brewing a half a world away

Bird Flu?

what is h5n1?

Quoted: what is h5n1?

Asian bird flu, I think...

It's coming...

It's one plane ride away from us.

It is not a matter of if a flu epidemic will occur in the U.S., it is a question of when.

The biggest known pandemic occurred in 1918-1919 killing 20 MILLION people. That was less than 100 years ago.

H5N1= bird flu strain of influenza A. The H5N1 identifies types of proteins used to identify different strains.

The real danger from this strain is if an animal (pig) gets infected with both the bird strain and a human strain at the same time. People in asia live in close proximity with farm animals (ducks, pigs) so this is an ideal place for this to occur. Anyway, when a pig gets infected with a bird and a human strain, the virus can mutate, taking attributes from the human and the duck strains and form a new strain never seen by the human immune system. This means that nobody has immunity to it, and no vaccinations will have immunized anyone for that new combination. This is the big risk from what is currently going on in Asia. And this is how they think the BIG DADDY pandemics start and is one reason why they are monitoring the situation there very closely.

A big pandemic in the U.S. could wipe out a large segment of the elderly population.

Is this a sequal to SARS?

Quoted: It's one plane ride away from us.   It is not a matter of if a flu fatal epidemic will occur in the U.S., it is a question of when.

1billion time agreed

Quoted: Is this a sequal to SARS?

More like a sequel to the great Spanish influenza that ended WW1 and killed millions, many in their prime (not infants or elderly).


ETA: Spanish Influenza

The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351. Known as "Spanish Flu" or "La Grippe" the influenza of 1918-1919 was a global disaster.

A lot of kid's grandparents come over from China all the time around here and they always, ALWAYS, bring deseases over. There are quite a bit of exotic diseases around my area (Border of San Jose, Cupertineo, and Sunnyvale, CA)

Read and be enlightened

Nasty stuff if it takes off...

Quoted: Read and be enlightened Nasty stuff if it takes off...

That was an excellent article and I strongly suggest everyone read it.

Asia is the perfect environment for the mutation to occur for this thing to go global.

Life as we know it will cease to exist and the focus will be on survival, not getting a latte at Starbucks.

And I can sure-as-shit tell you that you will be thankful for that black rifle if the SHTF.

Quoted: Quoted: Read and be enlightened Nasty stuff if it takes off... That was an excellent article and I strongly suggest everyone read it. Asia is the perfect environment for the mutation to occur for this thing to go global. Life as we know it will cease to exist and the focus will be on survival, not getting a latte at Starbucks. And I can sure-as-shit tell you that you will be thankful for that black rifle if the SHTF.

Other articles (on H5N1) in that edition of FA are also worthwhile (might still be on the news stands)

Quoted: Read and be enlightened Nasty stuff if it takes off...

Good read.

Bump.