Are we doing enough to prepare for a possible BirdFlu pandemic?

[CallumM]

I was wondering what you guys think about the current situation of the Bird Flu threat - it has been a while since the media was wrife with worry and it seems to have subsided slightly. Do you think we are doing enough to prepare, do you think we can prepare?

 

My answer is:

Yes, to a certain extent I do think that we should prepare, however there are some fundimental problems with this:

 

• When is it going to hit?
  
• Where is it going to start?
  
• What will be the main carrier?
  
• What will the new strain be?
  
• How much money can we afford to spend?
  
• Are we putting all of our eggs in one basket by "relying" in a BirdFlu pandemic?
  

 

I feel the first two questions should be easy to narrow down if we just keep a look out, if you remember that dead swan which had AvianFlu and the quick response we had to that. We must assimilate that the areas most at risk will be innercities, in particular Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool, and London. There are huge amounts of Pigeons and a huge amount of droppings; these are all present in the major areas of pedestrian traffic and are attracted to people due to the food and litter being dropped. If there was a couple of these Pigeons that had an AvianFlu, whether this was HN51 or any other, it would spread very, very rapidly - droppings coming into contact with people, people cleaning up dead birds outside or even inside people's offices, fluids coming into contact with man, contaminated water supplies from dead Pigeons falling into precipitation roof collectors (our science labs use roof water). This would therefore mean we'd have to erradicate the birds with a mass cull. How would we do this? We cannot catch the birds, they can fly, we cannot. Shooting isn't an appropriate option as there are too many birds. Poisoning their food as potential for an environmental misfire which kills other creatures (such as the small numbers of Parakeet in London and the South of England). We should tackle the Pigeon problem right now!

 

What though, if there isn't a pandemic of BirdFlu, what if it is Measles (this is just as bigger problem as parents have been stupidly refusing the MMR vaccine due to Autism scares) outbreak? Measles is just as bigger killer, and nastier in most cases. Tuberculosis is certainly a disease you don't want to get - it is on the increase.

 

How are we supposed to know what chain of BirdFlu will hit - of course with the warning of other countries (particularly the Far East) - but this still will not leave time for new drugs to be developed, trialed, and certificated.

 

That's my take on it anyhow

[herpguy]

I was wondering what you guys think about the current situation of the Bird Flu threat - it has been a while since the media was wrife with worry and it seems to have subsided slightly. Do you think we are doing enough to prepare, do you think we can prepare?

 

It looks as if the bird flu threat is waning, so my simple answer:

 

Yes, we are doing enough.

 

However, with colder weather approaching, I think we should be prepared to take more action on the bird flu. Still, the chances of a pandemic look to be shrinking.