Man-made Super-flu Could Kill Half Of Humanity

[Winter Warmer]

http://rt.com/news/b...ler-strain-119/

"I can't think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one," Paul Keim, a microbial geneticist who has worked on anthrax for many years, told Science Insider. "I don't think anthrax is scary at all compared to this."

:unsure:

Edited November 28, 2011 by willkani

[lfcdude]

A virus with the potential to kill up to half the world’s population has been made in a lab. Now academics and bioterrorism experts are arguing over whether to publish the recipe, and whether the research should have been done in the first place.

Wait publish the recipe? the mind does seem to think.. yes lets give everyone a recipe........

Thing is i dont think things like this should be looked into..as we all know how info gets leeked, as everyone knows.. our worse enemy is our selfs, one day we will Lettuce our selfs up.

[Crepuscular Ray]

http://rt.com/news/b...ler-strain-119/

"I can't think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one," Paul Keim, a microbial geneticist who has worked on anthrax for many years, told Science Insider. "I don't think anthrax is scary at all compared to this."

:unsure:

Does look like a bit of a conspiracy website tbh...

[Aaron]

Scientists have actually tweaked the Bird Flu, so it can pass from human to human incredibly easily, which could easily result in the death of millions as over half of all Bird Flu cases in humans resulted in death.. the worry is that if they publish how they did it, it could fall into the hands of bio-terrorism.

[Gray-Wolf]

Having followed the current H5N1 since it first started killing folk I think I'd better throw in my 5p's worth.

Death rates, though nearly 60% in Asia you have to bare in mind that most folk do not go to hospitals with illness in the way we can (and do!). In Indonesia it can be quite an effort to get off the island you're on to access the hospital. As such cases that present are in the final stages of the disease and ,basically ,un treatable.

This said the 'Spanish Flu' had a kill rate of 3% of those infected. At present H5N1 has a long way to fall before it becomes as deadly as our 'worst' pandemic? Even at 1/10th it's current kill rate it would be twice as deadly as the worst we've seen!!!

You do not need a lab to have the changes occur that make it easily transmittable in humans. In sept we had another 'cluster of two siblings and their mother who died from the virus. the son first ,daughter 3 days afterwards (Flu take 2-4 days to present once you catch it) and Mum a week later. Mum must have been at the hospital for 8 days watching her children die so when was she exposed to bird blood/fecal matter??. We have also had a cluster of co-infection of the easily transmittable H1N1 (swine flu) and H5N1. Any natural 'recombination' of both strains could lead to (but did not in this cluster) an H5N1 strain as 'catchy' as H1N1 (my worst fear). With so much H5N1 in the bird population in the far east, and winter migrations now ongoing, there is a real chance for this recombination to occur this winter.

W.H.O. had a monthly update on cases of H5N1 but you'll need to read between the lines should any recombination occur as they will not spread Panic by announcing until efforts to control it have failed.;

http://www.who.int/i...e/en/index.html

The other aspect of this Virus is that it has , as did H1N1, formed a sub clave that is not impacted by our current anti-Virals so we can only treat the symptoms and not halt the Virus as it infects.

It can take up to 3 months for a Jab to be developed so any outbreak would be able to run , unchecked , for this time period. Unless you are one of the first few to be infected I would be trying my best to keep clean until we can be inoculated against the strain! I do not think many folk can imagine the impacts of such a frightening thing upon society.

Lets look at our workforce. If you knew that a virus, with a 1 in 2 chance of killing you if you caught it, was in the community would you risk your family and friends by going out and maybe catching it? Would you risk yourself with such a high mortality?

Hospitals. With high levels of infection hospitals would be swamped. I imagine high absenteeism of staff not wishing to catch the virus adding to the woes of the units. As such Hospitals would no longer function

Bodies. Such high mortality would swamp our current mortuaries leading to schools etc being used as makeshift morgues.

With high worker absenteeism deliveries of food/fuel would become sporadic. Water pumping facilities/Sewage facilities/power stations may fail to be run/repaired/maintained due to to staff absenteeism.

You can start to see how much a simple virus could quickly dismantle our current way of life? Unlike the U.S. we are not advised to keep emergency supplies in our homes (water ,dried food , batteries etc) so what would you do if it started to look as though you had a 6 week period of societal breakdown ahead?

We had a little 'dry run' with The Recent 'Swine Flu' but I think any major pandemic with a high mortality rate would lead to societal disruptions that would be very unpleasant to live through.

As with anything it is hard to remove 'sensationalism' from reports we read but H5N1 , in it's present form, is not just a scare story but a real threat to our planet. If you think the impacts on the developed world are scary then just imagine the impacts on the developing world??? How would the planet cope if we lost 1/3 of the current population? Is it something that would bring Benefits or could it spell the end of our current advanced society (for a period of years?)?

Edited November 29, 2011 by Gray-Wolf

[Coast]

I'd be more worried about the oysters.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15927426

[Aaron]

Glad I don't touch fish food.

[Gray-Wolf]

The other thing to remember about a virus is that it is in it's own best interest not to kill the host.

Over time the mortality rate would drop off to a level that allowed the virus to pass on ( and continue to evolve) to other people. As such you would imagine that the current version of H5N1 would reduce in potency over time.

As with H1N1 every person on the planet will , at some point, be exposed to it (it's the nature of a virus) so it is just a matter of chosing when you wish to be exposed. It would appear that the folk who have suffered with H1N1 now have a limited immunity to the H5N1 strain so there may be an up side to the yeuk we suffered whilst we had it!!!

[Gray-Wolf]

From looking around a bit it seems that the 5 mutations it took to have the virus become an airbourne pathogen have already occured in nature just not in the same 'host' all at once?

The research proves , beyond doubt, that earlier assurances that it would be 'extremely difficult' for such a change to occur in nature are plain wrong and it is just a matter of time before they do occur.

As such the more folk that can work with this new strain the better as the quicker we can find a defense to it.

We just have to hope that the Labs working on it do not have an accidental escape!

[snoangel]

As a scientist who works in a lab, I can see the benefit of working on these pathogens. As gw said, these mutations occur naturally anyway, so it would make sense to 'encourage' these mutations in a controlled environment (lab) so we can get a head start on developing a vaccine before the mutation occurs naturally. In fact you could argue that not attempting this is just sticking our head in the sand and waiting to see what nature throws at us and then reacting.

The other side of this is of course that equipment malfunctions and human nature mean there is a risk that lab grown pathogens escape into the environment. This could happen by accident if equipment fails or a scientist doesn't follow procedures properly (as there will be numerous safety procedures in place) or intentionally where people want a biological weapon.

There lies the problem. Should we use our knowledge to position ourselves well in a new outbreak, or do we stop this research in case it causes an outbreak?

[Gray-Wolf]

Whichever way it goes the longer we work with the virus the closer we are to an effective cure. If we are looking at 3 months to develop a vacine then if we wait for 'nature' to make the changes the first swathe of casualtie will have no hope of a cure (and this could amount to many millions world wide).

Better to avoid that cost and the cost of disruption within Society.

I say keep up the good work! With flu epidemics happening 3 times a century we will face another so the better we are at dealing with such (Be it H5N1 or H3N2 or another bout of H1N1) then the better the outcome.

We have more people in close contact with livestock these days (Esp. across the developing world) and so the chances of 'crossover' into the Human population are also greater. Modern transport means that a global pandemic travels very fast. The sooner we have a shot to deal with all the Flu virus' the better!

[Azores Hi]

I wonder about this 3 month lead time to produce a vaccine and how much of this lead time is due to scalling up volumes to treat large numbers of the general population.

It's all very well getting a head start on developing a vaccine by accelerating mutation posibilities in a lab, but if it still takes the larger part of 3 months before we can treat large numbers of people then is it really worth the risk?

Edited December 8, 2011 by Azores Hi