What Shoden's trying to say is that doing nothing's not going to help.
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What Shoden's trying to say is that doing nothing's not going to help.
okay lets geta few things correct here.
there is no human-to-human virius. not in china. not anywhere. avian flu right now is passing between bird and human. that is all. what can happen though is if avian flu infects someone with normal human flu the virus's can mix. kinda like paint. in which case you may end up with a virus with the 50% death count of avian flu and the ease of passing as human flu. about then we are screwed.
tamiflu protects against normal flu in the same way any other vaccine does. it exposes your immune system to a small amount of the virus so that the human system remembers it can react against it. this does not mean you can not not be infected by the virus you are immunise against. it means it will be dealt with quickly by the body and you probably won't show any symptoms. but your body will still carry the virus for the infected time. also while you are being immunised you will have the virus in your system.
tamiflu has not been tested against avian flu. we don't know if it will vaccinate against it. or if it will be a massive waste of money. we have no idea. but it is the only defence. and we are not vaccinating people now to prevent viral mixes. we will vaccinate certain people when the virus hits. it is not being used to prevent the mutation.
Not yet, there's still a year for scientists to develop something else, not exeactly a full vaccine but probably tablets or medicines that reduce the effects, that's what'll come before the cures or vaccines (and what I've been trying to say for the whole thread)
yeah cos 50 years of research into simple stuff like the cold has done that.......
we don't have a real cure for a whole wealth of nasty diseases. and we've been looking into them for years and years now.
the spanish flu wiped out about 40 million people in a year. it's fast and horribly effecient. more so than any scientist group.
but back then there wasn't half as many things such as drugs, medicine and stuff.
I'm not saying there's going to vaccines or cures in a years time but there'll probably be drugs to reduce the effects.
back when? the common cold is being researched now, same with aids. there's experiments on all kinds of diseases like yellow fever, whooping cough. this is now. not 50 years ago. we do not have any idea how to cure many diseases that we have tried for decades. we are not going to suddenly come up with a new research method when this strikes to make the process than the slow trial and error approach that is used today.
Fact is, Cloud is right. Unless a miracle occurs (And they have occured, but they're not common enough for us to put any stock in them.), if this mutates into a human-to-human transmittable virus it's going to hit us hard. We're not going to find a cure for it unless we're very, very lucky. AIDS and HIV have taken a good couple of decades, and we've still not cured them; we merely are able to mitigate their effects somewhat nowadays. Same goes for cancer, which we're slowly working towards. Diabetes, same story. We would almost certanly get a cure or vaccine given enough time; a year is not enough time. Twenty years might be. Fifty, or even a hundred, would be a safer bet.
All we have now are Tylenol and anti-nausea tablets. Better than nothing, yes. A cure, far from it.
even if we were faced with spanish flu right now. given we know more about that virus (not alot as we never get a specimen and the one we do have is from a dug up body). we would still be royally screwed. we are talking a highly infectious, rapid and deadly disease.
normal human flu spreads fast and very effectively. avian flu holds a 50% mortality rate.
think about how many of your friends caught flu after you did. half of them would die. that is the serverity of this. it's not contanible like sars.
Yipee! Perhaps I have a chance. Guess a weak immune system isn't always a bad thing... but why would that be is my primary question?Quote:
Originally Posted by udsuna
As for the cure finding issue... I aggree with Cloud, MILF, and Udsuna(cheer! when else do we all aggree on something?).
a few facts about sars, spanish flu and h5n1.
sars as a disease was crap. it wasn't highly contagious compared to flu. it wasn't massively deadly. in fact normal pneumonia has a mortality rate of 70%. sars had a rate of 15%. normal flu is 0.6%. it was however resistant to all treatments. it infected 8069 of whom 779 died.
spanish flu was an absolute bitch by comparison. spanish flu infected 20% of the worlds population. it killed between an eighth and a quarter of them. that's between 2.5% and 5% of the worlds population. it wiped out entire communities and villages in some parts. in 6 months it killed 25 million. it is thought it could be 4x that amount. 17 million died in india alone with a mortality rate there of 5%. the indian army lost 22% of it's troops. 28% of the us population was infected. between 500,0o0 and 675,000 died there. 200,000 in britain and 400,000 in france. fiji had 14% of it's population wiped out in 2 weeks. and 22% of western samoa.
quarantines and restrictions on public gatherings were put in place and failed. even were mortality was low life was brought to a standstill as many were sick.
it killed more people in 25 weeks than aids killed in 25 years. it vanished within 18 months and it's cause was not determined until a few years ago.
avian flu. has a mortality rate of 50%. and it now infects pigs. this is important as pigs can carry the human flu so allowing mutation in pigs as well as humans. it can then be past from the pig to human and then out from there. it also infects lions and tigers but that isn't important. the fact that it now infects pigs is.
h5n1 is the same virus that appeared in hong kong in 1997 and killed 6 out of 18 people. the new strain appears to be stronger than that. it is reported that up to 125 may have been killed in china but the government denies this. but they denied sars ever happened too. if this is true the death rate could be about 75%.
it is thought right now that the only way to catch the disease is by contact with infected chickens or infected surfaces. cats are thought to be able to carry it too. it is spreading very fact among poultry in asia. it is thought human to human cases have been found in vietnam and jakarta. the people infected in some cases have had no contact with chickens. a family and nurses who cared for them died in thailand.
it would seem that a human-to-human virus does now exist. whether it has been contained or is in the migrating birds is yet to be seen.
it has developed some odd traits. it's mortality rate in vietnam has dropped from 65% to 35%. this is actually bad. dead people don't spread disease too well. the longer and more people survive then the higher chances of further infection. spanish flu only had a 5% mortality rate yet was an absolute bitch.
it seems i was wrong about tamiflu. it is not the flu vaccine. it is an anti-viral.
avin flu is a problem for one reason. we have never really had it before. out bodies aren't used to it and so can't fight it effectively.
Thank you people. Getting tired of being accused of being alarmist, so it's nice to see independent verification. As if the CDC and all medical experts who know anything about this subject and stated an opinion weren't good enough a basis for my statements. Never mind the fact that I'm quoting and stating the most conservative of estimates. READ about Spanish Influenza, then remember Avian is even more deadly.
Oh, and I have ABSOLUTELY no idea why Spanish Influenza tended to kill healthier victims. People smarter and more educated than I have studied the disease for years, and not answered that question. No other virus I've ever heard of works like that. But there's every reason to believe that this Avian flu (a close genetic relative) would have the same tendancy.
I'm leaving this thread, before morelike that is made.
You're all so negative and face what you think from facts to make up the future.
Who knows Past present future. There could be a breakthrough any second and don't go round giving odds or anything but a chance is a chance.
Who knows it might flop or we could all die as cloud 9 is saying.
some of you are sounding like you WANT to die and everyone else too.
I hope I don't get it TT_TT I really hope they find a cure soon
Its probably hard to accept, the main West has not had such a dangerous outbreak in a long time and its hard to accept, moreso among the young, we may have money, technology, but we are still at risk, people smarter then we have been following this for some time.
Shoden it isn't so much that I am an alarmist or want to die. It is that I like to face the facts. The fact is it is highly unlikely that a cure will be developed in any quick amount of time. In other words if it hits it will hit before the cure(unless we are lucky). However, statistics I have seen go against that. Not impossible just unlikely.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShodenI'm leaving this thread, before morelike that is made.
You're all so negative and face what you think from facts to make up the future.
Who knows Past present future. There could be a breakthrough any second and don't go round giving odds or anything but a chance is a chance.
Who knows it might flop or we could all die as cloud 9 is saying.
some of you are sounding like you WANT to die and everyone else too.
I actually am not super worried about it. I, myself, can't do much to help. However, I don't like it when people are too hopeful. There are TWO extremes. not just one. Your side and the side where we experience worldwide trauma and that our population goes *splat* are both extreme sides. Likely it will fall somewhere inbetween, though personally if one of the extremes happens I see it as slightly more likely for the nasty one to occur... medical science isn't well known to be super fast in coming up with cures.