News Reports For April 28

Published Saturday, April 28, 2007
By Sarah Bruyn Jones
Staff Writer
http://www.tuscaloos...

TUSCALOOSA | A doomsday scenario of a flu pandemic that might never happen is driving a sweeping review of what states should do to minimize the potential impact. Closing schools has been determined to be one of the best defenses to slow the spread of a flu outbreak, but the implications of long-term school closings are staggering. A flu outbreak of huge proportions would force school doors shut for weeks, if not months. School administrators, health officials, law enforcement officers and business executives gathered Thursday to discuss how to handle closing schools for such an extended time. They also received a lesson on the realities of a flu pandemic.

One scenario being discussed is a widespread outbreak that would come in three waves, each lasting eight weeks. That's more than half a year. "The cycle we depend on to work would be completely disrupted," said Andy Rucks, an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham's School of Public Health.

Rucks, who works with the South Central Public Health Partnership, led Thursday's tabletop exercise on school closings as a way to counter pandemic influenza. He and others are conducting similar exercises across the state. "It could disrupt the school-year cycle permanently, so much that we will have to rethink how graduation or education will continue to work," Rucks said.

The scenarios are grim. Most involve multiple deaths and about half the population being ill. A PowerPoint presentation noted the likelihood that "Illness rates [will be] highest among school-aged children."

With kindergarten through 12th grades closed indefinitely, the balance of the community work force and life would come unhinged. Schools, after all, provide a form of day care for working parents. From there the effects would spiral. Without a full work force, the local economy would be disrupted.

[snip]

Last updated: 28-Apr-07 12:22 BST
http://edinburghnews...

A TEAM of vets from zoos and wildlife attractions around the world will be discussing how to deal with the threat of bird flu when they meet at Edinburgh Zoo next month. More than 300 vets are expected at the zoo for the 43rd Annual Symposium on Diseases of Zoo and Wild Animals. High on their agenda will be the continued threat avian influenza poses to animal parks and zoos, with European vets hoping to learn all they can from Asian vets who have dealt with the virus first hand.

Gidona Goodman, who works at the Royal Dick Veterinary School's exotic animals service and is one of the head vets for the zoo, said bird flu would be the main topic of discussion. She said: "Obviously with the scare we had close by recently this is a big concern for us and, like everyone else, we will be looking to discover what other zoos are doing. "One of the big problems is that the recommended advice is to keep wild birds indoors, but with animals such as penguins we cannot do that."

The symposium will take place from May 16 to 20.

United States
1pm EST
Tues, 1 May 2007
Open to the public

Request registration information  [but the form on that link asks for your membership number, so how open is it?]

"International SOS, the world leader for emergency evacuation"  The cost for 12 months of insurance coverage for a student abroad ($1 million evacuation and repatriation coverage and 24 hour medical and travel assistance) is $325. 

http://www.internati...

Eastern Michigan Univ. uses them for dental care abroad.  The State Department has them in their resource list on an extensive page about caring for elderly parents!

http://www.state.gov...

So maybe they're reliable.

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."  Flannery O'Connor

But until we know different, I assume the bear is sleeping, not dead. 

It will not necessarily follow a well organized, consistent course.  It is hard, but remember that we will see fits and starts along with  periods of quiet that may mean no more than some of the periods of frequent outbreaks. 

We seem to be in a lull.  Enjoy it. 

But don't assume quiet means its gone. 

Sometimes a quiet newsday is just a quiet newsday.

Misconceptions about bird flu and pandemic influenza
...
If H5N1 could spark a pandemic, it would have happened by now.

Though the Asian strain of H5N1 emerged nearly ten years ago in 1997, evidence suggests that the 1918 flu virus-which triggered the greatest medical disaster in history-was "smouldering" for at least 11 years before it went pandemic. [11] We simply don't know enough about the ecology of these viruses to accurately estimate a timeline. H3N8, for example, circulated in horses in North America for nearly 40 years before jumping into dog populations and triggering the canine flu that grabbed headlines last fall.[12] With regard to H5N1, a World Health Organization (WHO) and USDA research team has concluded that "[i]t is probably dangerous to rely on the `if it were going to happen it already would have' argument'" [13]