Man colds and avian flu.
Standing at the bus station of health, I miss the good bus and get on the bad. Yes, despite a year long period of excellent health, the colds have all come along at once. Yet again I have set up a quarantine about my room to restrict the deadly spread of my ‘man cold’. Never mind.
A friend at work is finally about to live out his dream and travel to Brisbane, Australia, for three months. But this will be no mere holiday, oh no. He plans to rent out a flat there, and hopefully find permanent employment. The guy has serious guts to go out to a completely new country and try a new life from scratch, and I wish him the very best. Leaving in November he stands a chance of avoiding what the papers here describe as an ‘inevitable’ pandemic of avian flu. Yes, for those of you who haven’t heard a new strain of bird flu is spreading Westwards through Eastern Europe and has just hit Britain from South America.
I have to agree that stopping the spread will be nigh on impossible, not just in this age of trade and travel globalisation, but also the simple ease with which birds migrate across borders. What is annoying however is the extent of scaremongering occurring in the press; depending on who you listen to, the H5N1 strain could kill fifty million people, globally. However they fail to comprehend how difficult it is to catch the H5 or H7 strain – you have to inhale the dust of infected bird’s faeces. So far only one bird has been found to have flu, but tests are still underway to ascertain whether it is the deadly strain or not. Nevertheless, all of those who were in contact with the bird have been given Tamiflu, the only known medicine that can reduce the chance of death.
Personally I’m not too frightened of it – yet. No doubt my worries will increase as it draws closer, but plans are already underway by the EU to close the import of poultry, which should certainly slow down the rate of contagion. Interestingly, if you observe the situation from a historical viewpoint, you can see that bird flu acts in a similar way to a pendulum; coming and going as time progresses. Whilst then it appears to be a natural event we are seeing caused by a random mutation of a virus (perhaps accelerated by globalisation and the use of antibiotics), the realisation that the last outbreak in 1918 killed almost fifty million i.e. the current estimate today, it is no less perturbing.
A map of the spread of avian flue can be seen, here.
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