For those of you who read about bird flu spreading to humans and think its
some new disease or problem that is just now occurring, I would like to set the
record straight.
Actually, the first signs of bird flu spreading to humans was in 1997. The
case occurred in Hong Kong and the seriousness was quickly realized. The
following is an article I found on News Bank from December 11, 1997
Paper: The Cincinnati Post
Title: Bird flu found in humans
Date: December 11, 1997
Doctors expressed concern this week that a rare bird flu discovered in
humans in Hong Kong could cause a widespread epidemic, but said it was too
early to tell how serious the threat was.“That’s what everybody is wondering about – whether this is the beginning
of another pandemic,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention in Atlanta. “That’s why we very much would like to
identify how this virus is transmitted, and whether there are additional
cases in the Hong Kong population,” Fukuda said in a news conference.A 3-year-old boy died in May after contracting the influenza A H5N1
virus, the first time the bird flu was found in humans.Three more cases have since been found. A 2-year-old boy was hospitalized
but recovered, a 54-year-old man died and a 13-year-old girl is in critical
condition. Copyright 1997 The Cincinnati Post
Article
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It sparked concern in Asia and around the world as scientists started working
on a cure for the deadly disease. There were no more real stories on it until
2000 when the Washington Post wrote about a study that was conducted on the flu
strain that caused the 1918 pandemic and its similarities between the current
H5N1 strain.
Scientists trying to understand the mysterious deadliness of the 1918
influenza virus announced yesterday they have further evidence the microbe
originated in birds. That fact alone, however, cannot explain the extreme
virulence of the “Spanish flu,” which infected one-third of the world’s
population and killed more than 20 million people in the fall of 1918 and
winter of 1919.“There are two $64 questions: Where did the virus come from? And why was
the virus so lethal? We are getting a better handle on the first one,” said
Jeffery K. Taubenberger, a molecular biologist at the Armed Forces Institute
of Pathology in Washington.
Full article
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Again there were no real reported outbreaks or cases of human infection since
the 1997 incident in Hong Kong.
In 2003, the world got acquainted to a new disease, SARS. SARS quickly took
over the headlines as numerous people around the globe became infected. It
overshadowed any talk of bird flu and reached around the globe.
As soon as the SARS fear was pretty much over, we again started hearing about
bird flu. In January of 2004, right when the SARS scare was coming to an end, a
new report came out of five children dying in Vietnam and two more being
infected by bird flu.
A virulent strain of Asian bird flu that can infect human beings and
killed five children in Vietnam has been diagnosed in two young boys in
Thailand, officials said Friday, heightening fears that it might begin
spreading from person to person.The disease, the H5N1 avian influenza virus, was also detected on a farm
in Cambodia on Friday, after being found in birds in Japan, South Korea,
Taiwan and Vietnam.The World Health Organization sounded the alarm on the outbreak, calling
its simultaneous appearance in bird populations across Asia “historically
unprecedented” and warning of a scenario in which human and avian influenzas
could combine in an infected person to create a highly contagious and deadly
new virus.“The spread of bird flu is taking on a large-scale regional dimension,”
the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN warned Friday.Officials in Thailand reported Friday that two children aged 6 and 7 from
different provinces west of Bangkok had been infected with bird flu and were
in critical but stable condition. Three other people were being tested, and
Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan appealed to anyone suffering from fever
and bronchitis after being around poultry to rush to the doctor.
Full article
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Now the world’s eyes were back on bird flu and the actual threat it can pose
to the entire world.
Since then over 400 articles have appeared in the United States press
discussing the possibility of a pandemic bird flu outbreak. Sadly it wasn’t
until last month that our President even acknowledged such a threat.
The day after George Bush nominated Harriett Miers to the Supreme Court, he
held a Rose Garden press conference. It was meant to be damage control from the
controversy already being aired about his latest pick to the high court. During
that time, he decided to start bringing up bird flu to the American people. He
had mentioned it once before at the United Nations summit, where he urged world
wide cooperation on handling an outbreak.
Since his Rose Garden conference, George Bush has been saying “bird flu” more
than he has been saying “war on terror”. He is trying to scare Americans into
following their leader again and acting like he is on top of the situation.
Sadly though, he is not. Our country is one of the last ones in the world to
prepare for this outbreak. This delay has cost us dearly. We can not get the
needed vaccines like we should because other countries are ahead of us on the
waiting lists.
If you want further proof of how George Bush is using his McCarthyism tactic
to lead the people, just look at his speech he gave on the disease this week. He
powerfully relayed the message of how severe this disease is and what a full
blown pandemic could cost our race.
Sadly though, we see people who are not listening to the warnings now.
Why is that? Because, they are so accustomed to George Bush trying to scare the
people of this country that they have started blowing it off as scare tactics.
We went through our two years of constant elevated terror warnings and threats
and his reelection campaign pounding the fear of terrorism into our head, when
in fact the truest terrorist is one that can not be seen to the naked eye. The
truest terrorist is in the form of a small virus that can kill more people than
all of al Qaeda combined.
Now that George Bush feels he has a new weapon to scare the people with, he
is trying to use it. If he was truly concerned about the bird flu, wouldn’t he
have been addressing it a year ago when all the other nations were? Nope because
at that time he had his other fear tool still in play – terror.
Bird flu is a true and great threat to mankind. It can not be used as a scare
tool but rather we need to work as a world to battle this deadly virus and
protect our citizens. Hopefully it won’t hit here because the leadership of this
country could not manage such an outbreak.