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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.'"
And out of the 30,000-60,000 deaths that normally result from the flu, 773 is a very small number (1.25%-2.5%). Given that there are about 4-5 major strains of "active" flu every year, that means the "normal" flus each took out about 5,000-10,000 people and SARS only took out 773. So yeah, he may be using hyperbole, but he is accurate in his snide remarks.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Thank you so much for your uninformed opinions. A pandemic, if you could be bothered to look it up, is a disease that spreads across large areas. It has nothing to do with how many die. SARS, H1N1, Swine Flu, et al are all pandemics.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
All of the pounding noises in your respective heads don't come from the researchers. It comes from all the Mountain Dew and Cheetos you are are mainlining.
The newspaper article was hardly inflammatory. The Nature summary was actually pretty balanced. What it is showing is that bird flu variants with bird - human transmission seem to be following a pattern. A pattern we might be able to use to our advantage should a real, virulent, pandemic strain show up. Like it did in the 1920's.
Time to lay off the stimulants, guys.
I like the fun fact that a significant population of the world is at contact risk should that occur through air travel. Six degrees of separation my ass....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
And the reason that number is so small is due in no small part because effective planning on the part of WHO. I won't side with the ridiculous media on their stupid panic-ridden publications about disease, but modern social health programs are a miracle.
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.