Zitat des Tages über Grippe / Influenza:
The avian influenza found in mainland British Columbia poses no significant threat to human health.
Based on assessment of all available information and following several expert consultations, I have decided to raise the current level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5.
Rising demand for animal products highlights microbiological risks, with animal-welfare measures sometimes creating new hazards. For example, open pens for poultry may increase the spread of communicable diseases like avian influenza.
There are environmental threats to health; there are internal threats to health - genetic conditions, viral threats, diseases like cancer and Parkinson's. And then there are societal and global ones, like poverty and lack of nutrition. And unknown viral threats - everything from a new kind of influenza to hemorrhagic fever.
It is perfectly obvious that no one nor any single country can save the world from the horrors of tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes and winged influenza.
The unique nature about the influenza virus is its great potential for changes, for mutation.
Influenza is a serious disease. Kids die of influenza, both in Japan and the United States, and if you give a drug to people who are at risk of dying, there will be people who die who got the drug,... There is no signal the drug is doing it as opposed to the disease.
You might be asking too much if you're looking for one vaccine for every conceivable influenza. If you have one or two that cover the vast majority of isolates, I wouldn't be ashamed to call that a 'universal vaccine.'
My father, who had previously been a civil engineer, died in the great influenza epidemic of 1918.
For the first time in history we can track the evolution of a pandemic in real time. Influenza viruses are notorious for their rapid mutation and unpredictable behaviour.
Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously, precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world.
When there is an influenza threat, drop everything and focus on risks from influenza pandemics. When SARS spreads, focus on unknown respiratory diseases. This approach helps to quell public concern, but it's a hugely inefficient way to deal with future risks.
Measles and TB evolved from diseases of our cattle, influenza from a disease of pigs, and smallpox possibly from a disease of camels. The Americas had very few native domesticated animal species from which humans could acquire such diseases.
The emergence and spread of virulent strains of avian influenza has been attributed by experts to the intensely overcrowded, unsanitary, and stressful conditions that often characterize large-scale factory farming in industrialized agriculture.