Bird Flu In Scotland

[ryan422]

You will know if you have the Bird Flu,

If you feel PECKISH.



Otherwise dont worry.

Ryan

 

[pica_nuttalli]

think of it this way... supposing that the flu does mutate into a milder, easier to catch version. suppose that it has a death rate of only 2%. sounds pretty small, right? it just two people dead out of every 100 people sick...

a pandemic wouldn't have to reach Black Plague proportions in order to severely disrupt everyday life. i'm with BoozyBears on this one.

 

[x_amanda_x]

A duck walks into a pharmacy and says

"Can I please have the strawberry lip balm"

The lady serving the duck replies: "Sure, is that all for today"....

the duck replies "Yes, just put it on my bill".

Ha.

Being spanish and all I HAVE to say the "Spanish flu" is infact not spanish. The spaniards just declared it first. Mmmkay kiddos?

xoxo

 

[black angel]

Cats are now being infected and theres a likelihood of it being caught by dogs. I dont know why people are making jokes out of it. I know theres no real danger YET of it being passed to humans as it lives way down in the lungs and human flu needs the upper airways to thrive but the threat is there.
Its only birds that scavenge from others such as crows and magpies and birds of prey and water fowl that are the likeliest of carriers around the country.

 

[kubora666]

if the deadly strain does develope ( if possible ) it has to combine with the aveerage flu, how often do you get the flu? once every few years ? you have the flu jab once a year, i had one a few weeks ago so i have no reason to worry about a non existant threat anyway! the public should be more worried about getting STD's or cancer before bird flu! even michael jackson stalking children in your neighborhood is more likely then getting bird flu! ( even though that kiddy fidler does get around... ) hes in the states!
dont worry guys at the end of the day its a flu for birds, possibly for small mamals like cats, for the moment its non human and our scientists are using this time to develope an antidote. there really is nothing to worry about unless you like ravaging the dead corpses of wild birds
kubora666

 

[x_amanda_x]

I could not agree more with you Kubora666. i guess that the public is just being made aware, IN CASE the strain does develop to be transmitted between humans. I would be extremly concerned about bird flu if I lived in Asia. They do some weird stuff there, such as eating chicken blood and so on...as well as cock fighting (shut up... ) In New Zealand I guess we are rather lucky considering that not many birds migrate here as well as, if a human strain of bird flu was to develop we could easily close ourselves off to the rest of the world.

Peace out guys

xoxo

Amanda

 

[Synirr]

kubora666, flu shots only protect against common annual flu strains, not bird flu.

See, when a virus enters your body, your immune system has to find out what antibodies to use against it. This is a process of trial and error, but once the correct antibody is found, your immune system will "remember" that antibody, so any time it detects the same antigen again it will automatically use the correct antibody against it. In this way, once you've had a certain virus, you will forever be immune to that kind. Vaccines work by injecting dead virus into you, causing an immune response so your immune system can identify the correct antibody ahead of time without you actually getting sick. The problem is that viruses are constantly evolving, so the structure of their antigens (proteins and/or polysaccharides on the surface of the virus) are constantly changing, making it unrecognisable to your immune system and the process of identifying the correct antibody has to start all over again -- this is why you have to get a new flu shot every year, to account for the changes in the virus. This is also why it would be impossible to make a highly effective vaccine for bird flu before the virus mutates into... well, whatever form we're afraid it's going to mutate into. We don't know what antigens to use in a vaccine to imitate the virus.

EDIT: BTW, the way vaccines work is also why it's impossible to make a vaccine for the common cold (like so many of us wish existed!) There are around 121 different viruses that can cause cold symptoms... imagine how hard it would be to create and keep current a vaccine that would protect you against all of them! As you catch them, though, you naturally become immune to them one by one, which is why younger people have more colds per year on average than older people do. Think about your grandma... she doesn't get colds much anymore.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

kubora666, flu shots only protect against common annual flu strains, not bird flu.

See, when a virus enters your body, your immune system has to find out what antibodies to use against it. This is a process of trial and error, but once the correct antibody is found, your immune system will "remember" that antibody, so any time it detects the same antigen again it will automatically use the correct antibody against it. In this way, once you've had a certain virus, you will forever be immune to that kind. Vaccines work by injecting dead virus into you, causing an immune response so your immune system can identify the correct antibody ahead of time without you actually getting sick. The problem is that viruses are constantly evolving, so the structure of their antigens (proteins and/or polysaccharides on the surface of the virus) are constantly changing, making it unrecognisable to your immune system and the process of identifying the correct antibody has to start all over again -- this is why you have to get a new flu shot every year, to account for the changes in the virus. This is also why it would be impossible to make a highly effective vaccine for bird flu before the virus mutates into... well, whatever form we're afraid it's going to mutate into. We don't know what antigens to use in a vaccine to imitate the virus.

EDIT: BTW, the way vaccines work is also why it's impossible to make a vaccine for the common cold (like so many of us wish existed!) There are around 121 different viruses that can cause cold symptoms... imagine how hard it would be to create and keep current a vaccine that would protect you against all of them! As you catch them, though, you naturally become immune to them one by one, which is why younger people have more colds per year on average than older people do. Think about your grandma... she doesn't get colds much anymore.

this is also part of why a virus can be far more deadly than a bacterial infection--ultimately your body has to fight it off on its own. you can treat the symptoms of a virus, but there's no medicine that can directly "cure it".

 

[Synirr]

Actually, there are antiviral medicines out there, such as Tamiflu. Usually they can't completely get rid of the virus, but they can certainly reduce the numbers of virii in your system dramatically, which helps with the symptoms of the illness and makes it easier for your immune system to fight off the disease... this is essentially how antibiotics function as well, but against bacteria instead of virii. Antivirals are what keep AIDS patients alive for years nowadays by keeping viral numbers low... there have actually been rare cases where patients (usually young kids) were cured of HIV by antiviral treatments.

 

[x_amanda_x]

This is too technical to be informative now *sigh*...Wish i was a science person.

adios

xoxo

 

[boozybears]

I'm surprised at the lack of knowledge a lot of people seem to have about the 'pandemic flu' and what it could mean for the world as a whole. Over here in Canada we've been learning alot about it, even having to develop emergency plans for how to carry on services should this one.. or any major crisis for that matter.. ever hit that depletes our workforce.

They say history is the best predicter of the future... sooooo.......

 

[kubora666]

here we had months to prepare and we knew it was coming but the government are retards and decided to do NOTHING.!

 

[Saedcantas]

here we had months to prepare and we knew it was coming but the government are retards and decided to do NOTHING.!

Months to prepare for what exactly? Do you know? No I dont think you do or you wouldnt say anything quite so silly as the above

The Government have actually done all that they could do in this kind of situation, made up some plans of what everyone should do to retain order if it did happen and stockpiled 14 million courses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu (which as already mentioned does not cure flu but helps...)

As people in the know have tried to state 10,000 times already, until this supposed mutation into a human to human transmissible form occurs there is nothing you can do. Even if it does occur, there is just as much likelihood of it being a weak or non-viable strain as there is of it being a super deadly killer strain.

Why worry unless it actually happens if there are no real precautions that you can take?

 

[Erised]

The 'bird flu' the way we're talking now (H5N1) has been around since at least 1997. Since then tens of millions of birds have died from it. I honestly don't think more birds are dying because of it right now, the only difference is that for some reason we're all scared right now and every case is reported and brought to the medias attention. It's true that in Europe it's been less common, but here too it has been around since at least 2003.

Who knows what the death count is up to right now? The last death count I found was taken in Jan and was thought to have been at 82. That's 82 deaths in 3 years time (--edit-- I just realised that this will include the deaths in Asia and all before 2003, since 1997 when it was first reported. So that's in 9 years time.) Now lightning in the USA alone takes the life of (on average) 93 persons a year. I couldn't find the stats for 'world deaths', but I'm sure it's obvious that the change of getting killed by lightning is still a lot higher than getting killed by the bird flu.

Personally I don't see how it's so much more deadly than the normal flu. It's mostly the very old, very young or already ill and weakened persons that are dying because of it. In an average year 20.000 people die because of the flu in just the USA alone. Now, I don't see everyone talking about that, or the media writing about it nearly every day. We've simply gotten used to the fact that so many people die because of it each year, I don't think the bird flu will be any different.

--Edit-- again
I was just informed that the death count is at 108 now. 108 Deaths in 9 years time.

 

[x_amanda_x]

Erised it is obvious that you have done some research. For that, Kudos.

Who ever was laughing about "ha, apparently we will die form the common cold"...do you know how many children in Africa die each year from diarrhea? It is disgusting.
Let's face it, if bird flu is ANYWHERE near as bad as the media say it will be...then we're all screwed.

To be honest with you, although my dad is a scientist I do not know much about what is happening. Call me ignorant, but i seem to have shut off long time ago.

Toodle pip!