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Modelling Reveals Likely Spread of New H7N9 Avian Flu
ananyo writes "With Taiwan announcing the first case of H7N9 avian flu outside mainland China, researchers have revealed how the virus may spread in China — and beyond. The projections use risk maps developed for human infection by another, well-established avian flu — H5N1. Indeed, when human cases of H7N9 are overlaid on a risk map, they appear to fall within the highest risk areas for H5N1. The map suggests that high-risk areas for H7N9 might include Shandong province (where the first case was reported 23 April) and a belt extending around the Bohai sea to Liaoning province in the north. Though there has been no evidence of sustained human-to-human spread of H7N9 so far, researchers have analyzed airline passenger data for China. Eastern China — the epicenter of the current the H7N9 outbreak — is one of the world's busiest hubs for airline traffic. From the Nature story: 'A quarter of the global population outside of China lives within two hours of an airport with a direct flight from the outbreak regions, and 70% if a single connecting flight is included.'"
With all the crying wolf lately it's a wonder we still see these articles. What happened to SARS, did all five victims of the "pandemic" die without passing it on? H1N1 caused some sniffles. Donald Rumsfeld made a killing with his quack medicine while GSK fleeced the Brits out of a healthy chunk of their health budget during the swine flu hoax. Every year there's a new fake pandemic.
Almost makes you hope the promised pandemic finally arrives to take out the idiots who keep pump-and-dumping their antiviral stocks.
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It's probably because there are more mutagenic compounds floating around than in the past. The things that cause genetic damage (e.g. cancer) and whatnot in animals can accelerate mutation in single cell organisms, but with their short life cycles and higher populations, it increases the likelihood of something positive being blundered into (and then thriving).
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
The education standard on slashdot is falling.
"Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains..."
I was about to say something like that. Only less diplomatic.
People are remembering how previous, highly publicised breakouts turned out to be minor. At least globally.
They forget the immense effort by WHO and similar to prevent the outbreaks from becoming pandemics. SARS and N1H1 both were contained. Partially because they weren't as deadly as first thought, but definitely also due to enforced measures.
This new one, by all indications is no spring flu. This one kills, and if it does start spreading between humans directly, we are in trouble.
At least it'll probably help solve the global overpopulation problem rather efficiently.
Doesn't that violate the "no free lunch" theory, though? If it was genetically advantageous for a virus to mutate more than it normally does, why wouldn't it already be doing so?
I certainly hope that Sladhot has acquired "Independent.ie's express written consent" for linking to their article in the scoop, as stipulated in the newspaper's online edition's Terms & Conditions:
Hypertext links to this website by other users and websites are permitted provided that the link to this website is in a simple list of companies by pointing to Independent.ie's home page http://www.independent.ie. This limited licence entitles other users and websites to link to Independent.ie's home page only, and linking to other content on or information in this website is prohibited without Independent.ie's express written consent.
Yet we'll throw wheelbarrows of money and human capital at statistical non-events like terrorism, while seasonal flu alone kills 37K annually in the US. Spare me...
Modelling has a limited ability to help in Engineering. And modelling has no ability to provide data to any real scientific study.
It does not replace experimentation and real data. And its results should always be taken with a grain of salt. There is no way a model on the scale of human culture and global weather (or even local weather for that matter) can be trusted. The entropy cannot be accurately modelled by the system.
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
Well, the people that have been killed were old people, so it's not exactly a killer virus yet.
You ain't getting any younger, chucko. And just keep in mind, by the time you are 'old people', healthcare in the US will be limited to three generic aspirin tablets and a used bandaid per month.
You damn well hope we figure it out before then.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Sanitation doesn't have a goddam thing to do with the spread of influenza. It is spread by human breath - so unless you consider getting the entire population to wear N95 respirators as a sanitation advance, then there are no sanitation improvements that will matter a whit against an influenza pandemic. And our understanding of viruses, while it has progressed greatly, has still not yielded one measure other than vaccinations (which are not a possible solution should this one go pandemic any time soon) that will help staunch a pandemic. Sorry, you need to educate yourself before you continue to spout nonsense. And BTW, have you ever been to Shanghai, Mumbai, or even a housing project in the US? Overcrowded tenements! And lack of sewage has little to do with passing viruses that float in the air.
The normal flu is quite virulent, but outside of high risk groups, the mortality rate is also quite low. Not pleasant, but low mortality.
(IANAI - I Am Not An Immunologist) The dangers about these cross-over influenzas is that they tend have a higher-than-average kill rate for generally higher. With global transfer of diseases, a mortality rate of just 1% and infection rate of 10% of the global populate is still around 7 million people. Spanish flu in 1919 had a hit rate of between 2% and 20% (according to wikipedia). A *very* sobering number.
If we have a contagious, long incubation, high mortality virus hit the globe, we are in a very bad state. Any signal of a pandemic needs to be taken seriously.
Exactly like it in that it was adverted, barely, through hard work.
Every respiratory and er bad in Portland alone was completely full. If there has been literally 1 more case, they would have been turned away,and in all likely hood would have been another death..
Yes LITERALLY.
A lot of people died, but we cut it off. Yes jerkwads show up saying how it was nothing because they are ignorant SOBs.
Epidemic hits:"WHY DIDN'T YOU DO SOMETHING!!!"
epidemic averted through hard word: "YOU DID ALL THAT FOR NOTHING!!!!"
Fucking idiots.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You're an idiot. the worse kind of idiot, a loud mouth idiot.
"that's what they said about H5N1, "
yes, and a lot of people dies, nad hospitales were full, and portland rea was completly out of respirators.
It was bad, and it it had gone for another day, yes DAY, before starting to subside hospitals would have been turning people away.
100's of people at PAX alone got very ill, and several people died.
Dodged a bullet.
But you don't know that right? you don't read the numbers, look at morbidity rates do you? you don't run statistics and look at the impact from over use of JIT delivery systems DO YOU?
no, you don't. You just blow it off like nothing as if it's some scam. You are stupid. You are ignorant, you are a worthless piece of shit that needs to STFU.
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