Jun. 24, 2006 - 21:05 MDT

CLOSER

In this morning's Rocky Mountain News is an article by Elisabeth Rosenthal of The New York Times, dealing with the latest on the bird flu. Herein quoted in full:

HUMAN-TO-HUMAN BIRD FLU CONFIRMED IN INDONESIA

ROME -- "An Indonesian who died afer catching the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus from his 10 year old son represents the first confirmed case of human-to-human transmission of the disease, The World Health Organization said Friday."

"But experts said Friday the genetic change does not increase the threat of a pandemic."

"The WHO investigators also discovered that the virus had mutated slilghtly when the son had the disease, although not in any way that would allow the virus to pass more readily among people."

"Yes, is is slightly altered, but in a way that viruses commonly mutate," said Dick Thompson, a WHO spokesman. "But that didn't make it more transmissible or cause more severe disease."

"The greater importance of the slightly modified virus is that it allowed researchers from the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States to document that the virus almost certainly was passed from person to person."

"In previous cases where human-to-human transmission was suspected, researchers could not test samples from the patients, or the virus in the patients was the same as that in poultry in the area."

"Scientists have long said the H5N1 virus, which has killed hundreds of millions of birds worldwide, does not spread easily to humans or among them, but they have worried that it might mutate to acquire that ability, setting off a devastating pandemic. More than 200 people have contracted bird flu worldwide, almost all of them after very close contact with infected birds."

"International health officials have been in Indonesia for much of the past month, investigating an outbreak that affected seven relatives in Kubu Sembilang, a remote village in the mountainous Karo district of Sumatra. Six of the seven died, and one is still hospitalized."

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I remember the back-slapping that went on when Polio became something we could be given immunization against, the period of optimism lasted for a while. Then came HIV, which in the beginning was shrugged off as something that only "gays" could get and the sooner they all died off the better. Didn't work that way and it seems to me that I have read that it is practically endemic in Africa and other parts of the world now.

Now we are faced with this bird flu thing, I pray that all of medical science can be concentrated on it without political wrangling and obstructive actions.

Humanity in this world has been very lucky so far, but can it be that the world will end with a whimper by those expiring from bird flu ? Looks like it is getting CLOSER . . . . . . . . . . .

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