Thursday, October 06, 2005

Bird flu update

NYT reports that a paper says it was bird flu, not a mutation of the usual Pig virus that causes most influenza...

This is why there is so much hysteria about Bird flu in Asia...Indonesia, the fourth country to suffer human cases of H5N1 flu, reported a seventh death yesterday, of a 23-year-old man, though only three of these are confirmed to have been caused by the virus.

LINK The Aussies are worried about flu in nearby Indonesia, since like the philippines, birds from there fly to here...
A team of Australian emergency and medical experts has been sent to Indonesia to help fight the outbreak there.

Mr Downer, announcing that a regional summit would be held in Brisbane on October 31 to devise a strategy to combat bird flu, said he did not want to speculate on how Australia would respond to a "worst-case scenario". "(But) obviously all steps would be taken to ensure the virus didn't spread into Australia, because if it mutates and it's transmissable between human beings, it could spread very quickly, including into our country, with devastating consequences," he said.
Mr Downer said the summit with representatives of 21 countries would aim to come up with contingency plans to aid each other and respond promptly in the event of an outbreak.