Eat to live!
Scotsman.com News – Latest News – Grandfather of Bird Flu Patients Also Infected Is anyone interpreting this the way I am? If you EAT bird flu infections, you get no symptoms. Then why are they killing and burying the dead chickens, ducks and geese instead of eating them? Just a thought that needs exploration. I have to assume here that the others got the disease before they ate the goose. Reaearch please!!
The grandfather of two siblings infected with bird flu in Vietnam has also has contracted the virus but has shown no symptoms of the disease that has killed 46 people in the region.
Health authorities suspect that the three family members, from northern Thai Binh province, caught the virus after eating an infected goose slaughtered by the grandfather a month ago, and there was no immediate indication that they had infected one another.
Test results at the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemology in Hanoi showed that the 80-year-old man was infected with the severe H5N1 strain of bird flu.
The man remains in good health at his home, without any of the disease%u2019s typical symptoms of high fever and breathing difficulties.
The H5N1 virus does not usually infect humans. In 1997, however, the first case of spread from a bird to a human was seen during an outbreak of bird flu in poultry in Hong Kong. The virus caused severe respiratory illness in 18 people, 6 of whom died. Since that time, there have been other cases of H5N1 infection among humans. Most recently, human cases of H5N1 infection have occurred in Thailand and Vietnam during large H5N1 outbreaks in poultry. The death rate for these reported cases has been about 70 percent. Most of these cases occurred from contact with infected poultry or contaminated surfaces; however, it is thought that a few cases of human-to-human spread of H5N1 have occurred.
So far, spread of H5N1 virus from person to person has been rare and spread has not continued beyond one person. However, because all influenza viruses have the ability to change, scientists are concerned that the H5N1 virus could one day be able to infect humans and spread easily from one person to another. Because these viruses do not commonly infect humans, there is little or no immune protection against them in the human population. If the H5N1 virus were able to infect people and spread easily from person to person, an “ influenza pandemic ” (worldwide outbreak of disease) could begin. No one can predict when a pandemic might occur. However, experts from around the world are watching the H5N1 situation in Asia very closely and are preparing for the possibility that the virus may begin to spread more easily and widely from person to person.
More people will die from starvation today than bird flu.
There currently is no vaccine to protect humans against the H5N1 virus that is being seen in Asia. However, vaccine development efforts are under way. Research studies to test a vaccine to protect humans against H5N1 virus are expected to begin in April 2005.
People are researching it John, so you can relax for now. Did you hear about Reed Elsevier yet?
The SCOTSMAN also worries about upsetting readers with cross-cultural details that might get folks on their case. The younger family members who got bird flu didn’t just “consume” the birds, John. One little treat not uncommon to many cultures, not just Asian — they drank the duck’s blood.
Some folks [and cuisines] consider it a health tonic. The grandfather probably didn’t get a taste of the good stuff.
In Scotland, and many other places, they would cook the blood after putting it into a sausage.
Hey,
In response to the proposal to eat the bird flu infected birds, instead of killing them: yes, the virus should be harmless if ingested after the animal is fully cooked, however, infected birds need to be killed in order to hamper the spread of the virus to other birds, animals and humans. As long as an infected creature is alive, the virus will continue to replicate within it.