Rural Living and the Bird Flu Pandemic

[Melensdad]

I've not seen any posts on the Bird Flu so I figured I'd start one and try to make it relevant.

Most people I know are not worried about the bird flu. Currently the bird flu is limited to some isolated areas and is spread by direct contact with infected birds. There is no current way to spread the bird flu by human-to-human contact. However, the way the bird flu works is that it mutates when a human gets it. Each time it mutates, the chances of human-to-human transmission increase, making it inevitable for an outbreak to occur at some point.

As most of us live in rural areas, we are actually more likely to contract the bird flu than city dwellers via migratory birds infecting our flocks, or our neighbors flocks of chickens, ducks, swans, etc.

Now I don't have birds, nor do my neighbors, but I do fly frequently and that is another problem. Given our transportable society, travelers are going to have a higher incidence of catching the bird flue and bringing it back home.

Anyone have concerns about this? Does your school have a plan in case of a flu outbreak? (any type of flu outbreak because they won't know if it is bird flu until people start to die).

 

[DaveNay]

Anyone have concerns about this?

No.

Less than 100 documented deaths in the last three years WORLDWIDE. As far as I know, all of them also located in areas with social and personal hygene much much lower than that found in the US/UK/AUS, etc.

Just more media hype and crap.

 

[Melensdad]

FWIW . . . Last time a similar flu hit the USA was in this century and 500,000 Americans died. Doctors are suggesting that it will happen again, and the results are likely to be worse because we are a more mobile society.

Now I'm not saying I'm buying into all this, I'm just passing on what I read.

Even it the 'alarmist' talk is discounted, there is no question that we could be looking at a problem the likes of which we will have a hard time dealing with, and which could affect 25% of the population.

 

[DaveNay]

I believe Bob is refering to the Spanish Flu of the early 20th century.

 

[Melensdad]

Dave, that is correct. The Spanish Flu is blamed for roughly a half-million deaths in the US. It is currently being studied because the flu is apparently related to the bird flu.

This week the US said it would project 2,000,000 deaths in the US alone from the Bird Flu.

The likelyhood is that childern would be very suseptible because they often put their hands in their mouths after touching things. It would then spread from child to child and child to adult. This is one reason why it would be important to have an action plan at the school level to halt contact if an outbreak of any type of flu were to hit a school. It is also just as likely to induce irrational panic.

 

[Junkman]

I am not really concerned with the bird flu, however we cancelled Big Birds invitation to Thanksgiving dinner and are planning on serving a ham instead of turkey. Even then, I am not certain that the ham is safe since there is the chance of the Swine Flu epidemic making a come back. Possibly beef might be the better choice, but even that has its problems with mad cow disease. Then I was thinking of lamb, but Mith might get upset if I were to slaughter one of his loves.