As a follow-up to the policy piece I wrote Friday pointing out that the H5N1 story was not over, there are three new cases in a single family being reported today in Egypt. Update [2006-12-25 14:58:52 by DemFromCT]:: as of Christmas Day, two of the three have died.
Egypt has detected a third new case of the H5N1 bird flu virus, just hours after confirming two new cases in a brother and sister, a World Health Organization official said on Sunday.
Hassan el-Bushra, regional adviser for communicable diseases surveillance at the WHO said the three cases were from the same household, which houses an extended family of 33 people living together in a village in Egypt's Gharbiya province.
Bushra said the family raised ducks, and had slaughtered the flock after a number of ducks had become sick and died.
Almost all human cases are from bird exposure (we think), though there are other hosts including mammals that are under suspicion. cats, especially are getting a lot of attention as a potential intermediary host, as is the (unrelated) civet cat.
In any case, with new bird cases in Nigeria, and with pigs and chickens being culled in S Korea after a recent outbreak, end-of-year stories about bird flu disappearing seem a tad premature. Smoldering cases seem especially prevalent to flare in the colder months of Jan-March, as has happened in recent years.
Worldwide, we still only have 258 confirmed cases (and add 3 for Egypt for a new total of 18, all in 2006, seven nine deaths). But as John Oxford (University of London) states in his review of a recent book on the topic by Michael Greger:
Fortunately, the world has woken up to the threat of H5N1. The US government has thrown $9 billion at the problem, much more than against smallpox and polio combined. Every related research programme in the United States will benefit. The ripples have even reached Britain. There is now an axis of flu research, but will we join it? Yes please!
However, the book fails to confront the question I am asked daily: "Why are you so worried about 151 deaths from H5N1?" Well, go back to 1916, to Etaples in northern France, where a form of flu causing heliotrope cyanosis (a characteristic lavender coloration of the face) with a case fatality of 60% was beginning to spread. There were 145 cases. At some point in the next two years it mutated to become more infectious and 30 times less virulent. Then it killed 50 million people. Doesn't this ring a nasty bell?
Remember, surveillance and basic preparation are not hype and alarmism. Keeping a supply of food and water in your home is as prudent for a Pacific Northwest windstorm as for a New England ice storm.
Man proposes, nature disposes. Same as it ever was. So, put your tin-foil hats away and acknowledge that Rummy's connections with tamiflu has nothing to do with new cases of H5N1. The 3 positive cases are from an extrended family of 33 in Egypt, who will be more than happy to take their tamiflu as prophylaxis, if they can get any.