Bird Flu Clusters May Signal Virus Change - WHO(Reuters)

[RedEarth]

Bird Flu Clusters May Signal Virus Change - WHO

Mon Mar 14, 1:05 AM ET


HANOI (Reuters) - A cluster of human bird flu cases among relatives and possibly health workers in Vietnam may show the virus is changing into a form that can be passed on by humans, the World Health Organization (news - web sites) said.


The WHO is worried that bird flu, which has killed 47 people in Asia, could mutate into an easily spread form that sparks the next influenza pandemic, killing millions.


"Such cases can provide the first signal that the virus is altering its behavior in human populations and thus alert authorities to the need to intervene quickly," the WHO said in a statement seen on Monday.


The main concern of the WHO was a series of cases of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in a family in the northern Vietnam province of Thai Binh and the possible infection of two nurses who cared for one of the patients.


It also said it had received confirmation of an additional 10 cases of human infections from Vietnam's Health Ministry. "Full information on new cases, including those that may be closely related in time and place, is critical to ongoing assessment of the pandemic risk posed by the H5N1 virus," the U.N health agency said in a statement.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=571&u=/nm/20050314/hl_nm/birdflu_vietnam_dc_3&printer=1

[pandemic_1918]

1. Wall Street Journal Agrees - Worse Than 1918

This morning's Wall Street Journal has a commentary on looming flu pandemic. They acknowledged that it is quite serious and say that it could be worse than 1918

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=nn&ie=UTF-8&q=bird+flu+thai+binh+clusters+pandemic

[ugarte]

2. Too bad HSN1 isn't a member of the Axis of Evil

Bush might lift a finger to fight it.

[Delphinus]

3. Ha ha ha, ugarte!

Sadly, you may be right.

[Hoping4Change]

4. LOL. Brilliant. Thanks for the elaugh.

:bounce:

[LeftHander]

5. Always wondered if human population was going to crash....

It certainly looks like we can't naturally plateau like many species. We will no doubt suffer a crash of somekind. Maybe not with virus. Maybe in combiniation with war will diminsh the population enought to stabilize for another generation or two.

the plague, 1918, WWI, WWII....all killed millions upon million of people.

We may have probably reached that osilating plateu. Every few generations a war of epidemic wipes out enough people to keep us progressing...

Certainoly the earth is reacting to our heavy hand. (global warming)

And so are we. As we pressure to change to stabilize and preserve the earth the regressionists will clamour for "end times" and rapture as it is "God's will."