Old-fashioned hygiene will help fight bird flu
Oct 25, 2005
<b>HEALTH ALERT:</b>The deadly viral strain of bird flu (H5N1) is extremely contagious among birds and deadly in domestic fowls. Wild birds, however, carry the virus in their intestines and don’t usually get sick. The virus has also spread to tigers and domestic cats.
The deadly viral strain of bird flu (H5N1) is extremely contagious among birds and deadly in domestic fowls. Wild birds, however, carry the virus in their intestines and don’t usually get sick. The virus has also spread to tigers and domestic cats.
Bird flu has infected 120 human beings, killing 63 people in southeast Asia.It’s spread is blamed on migrating birds and live poultry trade.
It causes coughing, fever, muscle pain and headaches. But the main attack is usually on the lungs causing massive inflammation as the immune system fights back. An autopsy on a child who died of avian flu in Thailand revealed that his lungs had been “torn apartâ€, according to one report.
As bird culls to control probable new outbreaks of avian flu started on farms in Russia and Macedonia last week, United Nations (UN) officials say their larger concern is that the virus is on the way to East Africa, where the disease could be nearly impossible to control.
“One of our major concerns is now the potential spread of avian influenza through migratory birds to north and eastern Africa,†said Dr. Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary officer at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, which monitors the flu’s spread in animals.
Farmers in East Africa are completely unprepared, lacking the money and scientific infrastructure to control outbreaks of the virus, a UN official said.
“The close proximity between people and animals and insufficient surveillance and disease control capability in eastern African countries create an ideal breeding ground for the virus,†Domenech said.
Uganda and Tanzania have responded to the bird flu alert by banning importation of poultry in to their countries.
Little can be done to prevent an outbreak of bird flu if it comes in the next year or so before vaccine production can get started, health experts caution, but they say common sense measures can help individuals protect themselves.
Number one is hand-washing. It is an effective way to prevent all sorts of diseases, including ordinary influenza and the H5N1 virus that everyone now fears may jump into humans and cause a catastrophic pandemic.
Also, do not try to buy your own personal supplies of Tamiflu, one of two drugs shown to work against avian influenza.
If you do get sick, stay home.
Old-fashioned hygiene works very well, experts agree. “You wash your hands and you cut the transmission of a bunch of diseases,†said Dr. Jeffrey Griffiths of Tufts University School of Medicine in Massachusetts.
This is because any type of influenza is mostly passed hand to mouth. People sneeze and wipe their noses, then touch a microwave button. Or particles from a cough land on a tabletop, only to be picked up on someone else’s finger.
While viruses can be suspended in the air in droplets, doctors agree they are much more commonly spread on the hands. Alcohol-based gel or foam hand sanitizers also work well to destroy viruses and bacteria.
Once someone is infected, two drugs are effective -- Roche and Gilead Sciences’ Tamiflu, and GlaxoSmithKline’s inhaled powder Relenza. Countries are stockpiling them now.
But Dr. D.A. Henderson, who helped lead the effort that wiped out smallpox and who founded the Centre for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh, said it would be a mistake for individuals to try to buy the drugs now.
Agencies
Bird flu has infected 120 human beings, killing 63 people in southeast Asia.It’s spread is blamed on migrating birds and live poultry trade.
It causes coughing, fever, muscle pain and headaches. But the main attack is usually on the lungs causing massive inflammation as the immune system fights back. An autopsy on a child who died of avian flu in Thailand revealed that his lungs had been “torn apartâ€, according to one report.
As bird culls to control probable new outbreaks of avian flu started on farms in Russia and Macedonia last week, United Nations (UN) officials say their larger concern is that the virus is on the way to East Africa, where the disease could be nearly impossible to control.
“One of our major concerns is now the potential spread of avian influenza through migratory birds to north and eastern Africa,†said Dr. Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary officer at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, which monitors the flu’s spread in animals.
Farmers in East Africa are completely unprepared, lacking the money and scientific infrastructure to control outbreaks of the virus, a UN official said.
“The close proximity between people and animals and insufficient surveillance and disease control capability in eastern African countries create an ideal breeding ground for the virus,†Domenech said.
Uganda and Tanzania have responded to the bird flu alert by banning importation of poultry in to their countries.
Little can be done to prevent an outbreak of bird flu if it comes in the next year or so before vaccine production can get started, health experts caution, but they say common sense measures can help individuals protect themselves.
Number one is hand-washing. It is an effective way to prevent all sorts of diseases, including ordinary influenza and the H5N1 virus that everyone now fears may jump into humans and cause a catastrophic pandemic.
Also, do not try to buy your own personal supplies of Tamiflu, one of two drugs shown to work against avian influenza.
If you do get sick, stay home.
Old-fashioned hygiene works very well, experts agree. “You wash your hands and you cut the transmission of a bunch of diseases,†said Dr. Jeffrey Griffiths of Tufts University School of Medicine in Massachusetts.
This is because any type of influenza is mostly passed hand to mouth. People sneeze and wipe their noses, then touch a microwave button. Or particles from a cough land on a tabletop, only to be picked up on someone else’s finger.
While viruses can be suspended in the air in droplets, doctors agree they are much more commonly spread on the hands. Alcohol-based gel or foam hand sanitizers also work well to destroy viruses and bacteria.
Once someone is infected, two drugs are effective -- Roche
But Dr. D.A. Henderson, who helped lead the effort that wiped out smallpox and who founded the Centre for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh, said it would be a mistake for individuals to try to buy the drugs now.
Agencies