Re: avian flu spreading fast, was changes in food

The message <4355d9d3$0$28028$5a62ac22@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
from "Farm1" <please@askifyouwannaknow> contains these words:

> "Janet Baraclough" <janet.and.john@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message


> > Last week we heard the HN15 strain of Asian bird flu had been found in
> > Turkey (the country at the far end of Europe from mine, for the
> > geographically challenged) and this week it's been confirmed in Greece
> > Bulgaria and Rumania, even closer. It's spreading into commercial flocks
> > from migrating wildbirds. West Europe is just at the start of autumn's
> > mass long-range bird migrations.

> I've been thinking of you as I've heard how close it's getting.

> Our Health Minister has just announced a scheme to vaccinate the whole
> country if need be:
> http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SYD106789.htm

> However gfven that trials of the vaccine haven't even commenced yet, it's
> probably an empty promise.

Our govt has stockpiled a grossly inadequate number of vaccine shots
for humans, the plan being to vaccinate all healthworkers. However, the
variant of flu in birds is mutating and the chances are that the vaccine
which was supposedly protective in Asia, no longer will be by the time
a later- mutated version gets here.There's a rumour it's becoming
resistant to the vaccine we have.

Atm the worldwide risk of direct human infection from birds is small,
unless you handle poultry, and there's still hope that if (or when) the
virus mutates into a form transmissible between humnas, it will also
lose potency in our species. People with weakened immune systems are
most at risk. I was horribly ill with Asian flu in 57, in the epidemic
that killed a lot of people, but many more survived it like me. I'm not
so much worried about catching bird flu, more about the social impact
of losing yet another tranche of our home food-producing capability.

Janet.
.

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