Bird Flu Warning

[bina]

how come in the holy land of hypochondriachs we have not seen anything of the sort in any of the news.... the same country that made us walk around for weeks two years ago w/gas masks and atropine, just in case saddam did something stupid; the same country that has more people visiting the national health care facilities regardless if they are sick or not? ..........

the same populations will always die no matter if its a pandemic or not just wide spread; medical care is slightly better than in 1918 and our ability to identify secondary diseases such as occurred in that same influenza epidemic (encephatlitis, among others) has improved....

[waldwolf]

....I just ordered mine - paid by AMEX - $219.99 for 30 pills - enough for me, wife & son.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you can afford it and it gives you peace of mind, certainly well worth the cost.

.... the same country that made us walk around for weeks two years ago w/gas masks and atropine, just in case saddam did something stupid.....

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Or those in the US Homeland Security who told everone to go out and buy some plastic sheeting and duct tape, then build an air-tight room within a room of your home. My guess is, any family of 4 who did this would live about 1-2 hours before dieing from suffocation. (Perhaps we need a good pandemic to rid the world of these idots in govermnent. )

[Mr_C]

putting it in to perspective, if 12000-18000 die of flu every year, then 53000 does not seem like a a lot.....i think you should be prepared but there does seem to be a lot of scare tactics going on here.

my only personal concern is that these figures are based on British health care etc....and i will be in thailand, cambodia and vietnam may - august. if i were to get the old bird flu in cambodia, vietnam or thailand what would be my best course of action? who has the best health care?

[twix38]

putting it in to perspective, if 12000-18000 die of flu every year, then 53000 does not seem like a a lot.....i think you should be prepared but there does seem to be a lot of scare tactics going on here.

my only personal concern is that these figures are based on British health care etc....and i will be in thailand, cambodia and vietnam may - august. if i were to get the old bird flu in cambodia, vietnam or thailand what would be my best course of action? who has the best health care?

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53,000, I believe, is a conservative lower end forecast, which is still 3 times higher than normal and infections will be 10 fold the normal population infection rates when not in a Pandemic.

If it stays anywhere near as deadly when it makes the leap into Pandemic status it will be terrible. Mortality rate will hopefully come down from the approx. 75% by then, I hope!!

Edited March 10, 2005 by twix38

[toastwars]

Are you still banging on about bird flu? doom..doom..DOOM!! go out and enjoy life instead of chewing your nails fretting about something you have no control over, you will end up dead of an embolism

[xbusman]

Toastwars, you have a great sense of humor and a very easy attitude but in this case you dont have the foggiest clue. I am the last one to worry about tsunamis, earthquakes, terrorism or for that matter anything the press would like us to worry about, but the bird flu could unleash something so terrible that you obviously cant imagine the magnitude of the danger.

I will tell you this, having worked with FEMA, the Federal Emergency Response group in the US, they are not worried about nuclear bombs or poisonings, okay a few millions or tens of millions die and we lose half a state, what they are terrified of beyond articulation is.... small pox. Number one terror, number two is a nasty flu exactly along the lines of H5N1. What they described to me as the progress of either disease would keep you up at night. These are some pretty solid people with some very deep understanding of what they speak of. This was ten years ago before our Bird Flu raised its ugly head. Every account I read rings exactly along the lines they described to me.

I for one am going to go out and enjoy life even more understanding how ultimately fragile this technilogical society is that we live in. BUT TAKE IT FROM ME, A DOSE OF TAMIFLU IN YOUR MEDICINE KIT MIGHT BE THE BEST INVESTMENT YOU EVER MADE. We might not have any control over our demise but I wear a condom and have a dose of Tamiflu.

Good luck

[twix38]

Toastwars, you have a great sense of humor and a very easy attitude but in this case you dont have the foggiest clue.

Bless him, He has his head in the clouds and then once they lift, he buries it in the sand.

I am enjoying life and aim to try to take sensible safeguards to keep it that way, if I can

Good luck all and maybe it will never happen.

[toastwars]

it is exactly that attitude that got us here in the first place, stop running to the medicine cabinet for salvation and the human race could actually develop it's own immunities. We have made this bed by forcing viruses and bacterium to develop stronger and stronger strains, unless we lie in it now we are digging ourselves a grave. It is like being frightened of fire but continuing to stoke it, stop now and we might stand a chance. Tamilflu is part of the problem, not the solution

[slimdog]

Just a small word of caution..

World stocks of Tamiflu are pretty much exhausted, most if not all new batches are already spoken for, the majority by governments and world health authorities.

Because this medication has received world wide coverage recently, and is relatively expensive, there are high probabilities that counterfeit products will be on the market. Remember that Tamiflu like all medications will have suitable storage conditions,shelf life and cautions on who should and who shouldn't take the medication.

Roche has a website regarding this product at:

http://www.tamiflu.com/consumer_treatment.asp

Where further information can be obtained.

[twix38]

Call for urgent action on bird flu amid fears 2m could die

LOUISE GRAY

THE government must take urgent action to tackle an inevitable flu pandemic that could kill two million Britons, health experts and politicians warned yesterday.

Ministers have already warned that bird flu, currently at large in Asia, could mutate into a virus that would affect 50,000 people in the UK.

But even this stark estimate was branded "optimistic" by Professor Hugh Pennington, the country’s leading microbiologist, who said 3 per cent of the population could be wiped out.

The government has ordered 14.6 million vaccine doses, but they will take up to two years to arrive.

Edwina Currie, the former Tory health minister, said "urgent action" was needed.

Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, said the virus was a bigger threat than al-Qaeda. "We are more at risk of dying from bird flu than we are from being blown up by any terrorist," he said.

WHO warns of human bird flu mutation

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the bird flu virus may be changing into a form that humans can pass on.

The WHO is worried that bird flu, which has killed 47 people in Asia, could mutate into an easily spread form that sparks the next influenza pandemic.

The organisation has identified a cluster of human bird flu cases among relatives and possibly health workers in Vietnam.

"Such cases can provide the first signal that the virus is altering its behaviour in human populations and thus alert authorities to the need to intervene quickly," the WHO said in a statement.

The main concern of the WHO was a series of cases of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in a family in the northern Vietnam province of Thai Binh and the possible infection of two nurses who cared for one of the patients.

The WHO also says it has received confirmation of an additional 10 cases of human infections from Vietnam's Health Ministry.

The new cases were detected in early March or through re-examination of older cases, some of which dated back to late January and three of which had been fatal, the WHO said.

[Bizz]

Has anyone found a source to obtain Tamiflu, especially on-line?

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http://www.drugdelivery.ca/s4632-s-TAMIFLU.aspx

Shopping Cart

Quantity Product Price Total

TAMIFLU (OSELTAMIVIR) 75MG - NO PRESCRIPTION REQUIRED 10 CAPSULE(S) 79.99

* Shipping & Processing 30.00

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

$109.99

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

more

http://www.saveonpills.net/tamiflu/

[MikeWill]

From Yahoo News

March 10, 2005 09:18:12 PM PST

Thailand, a country on the frontline of the war against Asia's bird flu, is stockpiling Tamiflu and considering producing a generic version of the antiviral drug, health officials said.

Thailand, the latest country to increase stocks of the drug to meet World Health Organization (news - web sites) guidelines for fighting the deadly virus, began limited use of Tamiflu last year on patients suspected of contracting the H5N1 bird flu virus.

"We have started a stockpile of Tamiflu. This is just a backup measure," senior Health Ministry official Supamit Chunsutiwat told reporters late on Thursday.

see http://beta.health.yahoo.com/news/59495

Each TAMIFLU capsule (grey/light yellow) contains 75 mg of active drug and should be taken by mouth.

What is a dosage for 2-3 y.o. children? I've heart of 35 mg dosage, but didn't find such capsules.

Edited March 14, 2005 by Condo_bk

[bina]

still not a single word of any flue in this little middle eastern land of hypochondriacs. four children just died of mysterious staff or strep infection and whole nation is hysterical now, etc etc... came back wiht my daughter from her allergest and lung doctors and neither mentioned or asked if she'd been vaccinated for any flu etc and didnt mention avian flu and these are good young top of the line doctors....

my parents in the states have not sent me any emails of doom reminding me to get hold of vaccines (mother is ex nurse, father is ex gov't) and they usually send me letters of doom during wars, intifada,and every thing else....

the woman who runs the chicken houses here, a good hysterically sterile and pedantic swiss woman, has not mentioned anything to me other than that they had an outbreak of something else in the chicken houses so we couldnt come to take feed for our ducks etc at the park until two days ago, when vet approved.

ignorance is bliss

oh, and by the way, if u want dooms day i can list all the zoonoses u cant get just from daily exposure to several diffenent animals :

rabbits: tuleremia

mice/rats: plague, leptospirosis

bats: heptospirosis (cave fever)

dogs: rabies

goats/sheep/cows etc: brucellosis, mycoplasma, chlymidia

birds: psticosis, coccidiosis

asperigillus etc etcetc

ticks as vector: lymes, rocky mountain spotted, etc...

with the drought in thailand, i suspect most animals will move closer and closer to homes/farms were they can get water... beware...

[huski]

still not a single word of any flue in this little middle eastern land of hypochondriacs.  four children just  died of mysterious staff or strep infection and whole nation is hysterical now, etc etc... came back wiht my daughter from her allergest and lung doctors and neither mentioned or asked if she'd been vaccinated for any flu etc and didnt mention avian flu and these are good young top of the line doctors....

my parents in the states have not sent me any emails of doom reminding me to get hold of vaccines (mother is ex nurse, father is ex gov't) and they usually send me letters of doom during wars, intifada,and every thing else....

the woman who runs the chicken houses here, a good hysterically sterile and pedantic swiss woman, has not mentioned anything to me other than that they had an outbreak of something else in the chicken houses so we couldnt come to take feed for our ducks etc at the park until two days ago, when vet approved.

ignorance is bliss

oh, and by the way, if u want dooms day i can list all the zoonoses u cant get just from daily exposure to several diffenent animals :

rabbits: tuleremia

mice/rats: plague, leptospirosis

bats: heptospirosis (cave fever)

dogs: rabies

goats/sheep/cows etc: brucellosis, mycoplasma, chlymidia

birds: psticosis, coccidiosis

asperigillus etc etcetc

ticks as vector: lymes, rocky mountain spotted, etc...

with the drought in thailand, i suspect most animals will move closer and closer to homes/farms were they can get water... beware...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

i just came back from cambodia and the newspaper said the amount of actual bird flu deaths are not even close to correct. someone dies of pneumonia, then a few days later two other family members have bird flu. the test seems to be only diagnosing some individuals.

tamiflu is being sold in pharmacies for $20.00 for 75mg, 10 capsules...i bought 2 boxes.

[udon]

tamiflu is being sold in pharmacies for $20.00 for 75mg, 10 capsules...i bought 2 boxes.

G'day Huski,

how do you know it's not fake Tamiflu?

[huski]

tamiflu is being sold in pharmacies for $20.00 for 75mg, 10 capsules...i bought 2 boxes.

G'day Huski,

how do you know it's not fake Tamiflu? <_<

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

hopefully i will never have to find out...

[twix38]

Hopefully, you didn't just waste $40. I would expect that this is not the official Roche Tamiflu tablets.

If you want this as a safeguard in case of emergency, I think it would pay to make sure it is likely to work and do the job. Should be easy enough to confirm if it is the real thing

Edited March 18, 2005 by twix38