H5N1 flu is just as dangerous as feared
"Seroepidemiologic studies that have examined the exposure of various
groups of people to H5N1 viruses only from 2004 onward indicate that
only a small segment of the population has ever been exposed to H5N1,
and that among those that have been exposed, many become seriously ill
or die.
"The available seroepidemiologic data for human H5N1 infection support the current WHO reported case-fatality rates of 30% to 80%," Osterholm says. In the event of an H5N1 pandemic, they point
out, if the virus is even one tenth or one twentieth as virulent as has
been documented in these smaller outbreaks, the resulting fatality rate
would be worse than in the 1918 pandemic, in which 2% of infected
individuals died.
Vaccines will not head off an H5N1 pandemic either, the authors say,
since the time required to develop and manufacture an influenza vaccine
specific to new outbreak strain has resulted in "too little, too late"
vaccine responses for the 1957, 1968, and 2009 influenza pandemics, and not much in the process has changed since 2009."
Given the much larger population of the world and the considerably increased population density in many megacities, transmission of a lethal flu virus would be easy.
Go get some sleep now, kid -- if you can.
Monday, February 27, 2012
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