New strain of 'deadly' bird flu

[Neil]

Experts are concerned about the spread of a new strain of bird flu that has already killed one woman in China. The 73-year-old from Nanchang City caught the H10N8 virus after visiting a live poultry market, although it is not known for sure if this was the source of infection. A second person has since become infected in China's Jiangxi province. Scientists told The Lancet the potential for it to become a pandemic "should not be underestimated". http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26020015

[AcesandEights]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26020015 This just made me google "worst case bird flu scenarios".

[Neil]

This just made me google "worst case bird flu scenarios". Can you imagine a serious outbreak today? * High density population * Lots of people moving vast distances * A lot of food supplied on a just-in-time basis The moment the outbreak got a foothold people would panic. Shops would sell out and not fill up. Within a few days, people are short on food and getting desperate!

[MoonSylver]

And the thing is, it doesn't even take a bird flu. Look no further than the 1918 global pandemic... It infected 500 million people across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and killed 50 to 100 million of them—three to five percent of the world's population —making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. So even a deadly outbreak of human flu (which would be more probable) could be catastrophic.

[Legion2213]

Unfortunately, because we have one of these potential "captain trips" incidents practically every year (lovingly nurtured by the media), nobody will really take any notice until maybe the lights start going out or the local asda no longer stocks actual food items.

[Neil]

And the thing is, it doesn't even take a bird flu. Look no further than the 1918 global pandemic... Ummm... That was a bird flu...

[MoonSylver]

Ummm... That was a bird flu... Ah. Did not realize. Even the article on the subject doesn't make note of that fact. Only by going to the H1N1 article & THEN reading about the Spanish flu there did I find mention of that fact... The Spanish flu, also known as la grippe, La Gripe Española, or La Pesadilla, was an unusually severe and deadly strain of avian influenza, a viral infectious disease, that killed some 50 to 100 million people worldwide over about a year in 1918 and 1919. It is thought to be one of the most deadly pandemics in human history. The 1918 flu caused an unusual number of deaths, possibly due to it causing a cytokine storm in the body. (The current H5N1 bird flu, also an Influenza A virus, has a similar effect.) The Spanish flu virus infected lung cells, leading to overstimulation of the immune system via release of cytokines into the lung tissue. This leads to extensive leukocyte migration towards the lungs, causing destruction of lung tissue and secretion of liquid into the organ. This makes it difficult for the patient to breathe. In contrast to other pandemics, which mostly kill the old and the very young, the 1918 pandemic killed unusual numbers of young adults, which may have been due to their healthy immune systems mounting a too-strong and damaging response to the infection. The term "Spanish" flu was coined because Spain was at the time the only European country where the press were printing reports of the outbreak, which had killed thousands in the armies fighting World War I. Other countries suppressed the news in order to protect morale.