Hong Kong Confirms Human Bird Flu Case

So this is a slow news day story from last week and nothing to shout about:

She was hospitalized in stable condition. Local health authorities said on Monday that she did not appear to have infected anyone, and no virus was found in bird markets or on poultry farms.
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Source
 
Castiel said:
Tell that to the millions that died in the 1918 outbreak of H1N1.

H5N1 has a very unreliable mortality rate as a significant number of infected only have very mild symptoms and do not report their sickness thus giving a false high mortality rate for H5N1. Around half of those with serious symptomatic onset die, which is cause for some concern regardless.

H5N1 has killed 309 people globally since it was first recognised in 2003.

I expect Hong Kong, who have a history of Avian Flu will start culling poultry if there is more than one case.
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Spanish flu and swine flu aren't the same thing, get over it, and the Spanish flu wouldn't have killed nearly as many people if it didn't hit during war time where ration's were low, hygiene was non existant and most of the deaths occured during an outbreak during winter, spread by troops moving all over europe who were malnurished, ill and spreading it along lines that normally wouldn't have happened.

Either way the reason its not a problem as I said was you need something both highly contagious and with a high mortality to cause a real problem, one or the other on their own has happened with loads of strains of flu for thousands of years, thats life. High mortality but no one catching it isn't going to kill many people, everyone catching something with a very low mortality isn't going to be an issue either, though its going to be worse than the other way around simple because high infectious but low mortality virus's will infect many people who already have a weakened immune system and finish them off.
 
drunkenmaster said:
Spanish flu and swine flu aren't the same thing, get over it, and the Spanish flu wouldn't have killed nearly as many people if it didn't hit during war time where ration's were low, hygiene was non existant and most of the deaths occured during an outbreak during winter, spread by troops moving all over europe who were malnurished, ill and spreading it along lines that normally wouldn't have happened.
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Same subtype H1N1, different strain as all outbreaks generally are. The similarity between the 1918 and 2009 subtypes/strains are fully accepted so get over it yourself.

You don't think that modern global travel would spread an especially virulent strain of type A influenza somewhat more effectively than the aftermath of WW1?

Modern medicine may be more effective at combating infection rates, but if something like Spanish Flu were to rear up again the results may well be similar, especially outside US/Europe where medical/hygiene provision is still below ideal.

Most 'flu outbreaks have low communicability or low mortality so are not really too much to worry about. However, vaccines take months to develop, and antivirals like Tamiflu are largely ineffective so precautions should always be taken just in case.
 
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