I am happy to see that our country is adequately concerned about the threats of bird flu and government and nongovernmental sectors are joining hands in at least pretending to be prepared for bird flu.
Definitely Bird flu is the smart thing to talk about now a day. All of the developed world is drenched in bird flu horror paranoia. People of all sort of life are waiting in deep fear, when the bad guy called h5N1 will go through the necessary genetic shifting and drifting to be able to attack mankind.
Apparently this Asian bird flu virus and the fear is being spread for at least 8-10 years. Here is 1998 Time magazine cover story picture on bird flu.
If you ask me, I am not so sure about the potential of bird flu to be the next big catastrophe. As you just saw the 1998 Time cover picture, the bird flu virus and the associated fear is wandering around for quite a long time. What happened? Isn’t 10 year enough long a window to complete the cycle?
Per May 8 estimate by WHO, so far there are 115 confirmed worldwide casualty of bird flu. Yes that is worldwide.
And do you know how many people die each year in USA alone by flu, not by bird flu, but the Human influenza, the real flu? In USA alone, in conservative estimate, about 36,000 people die each year of flu, the human flu. And this number is 36,000 after USA being the country which has the most elaborate, effective and extensive annual flu vaccination program and most advanced critical care system in the world. The annual human influenza epidemics are thought to result in between three and five million cases of severe illness and between 250 000 and 500 000 deaths every year around the world..
And Bangladesh!!! Nobody knows how many hundreds of thousands of children, elderly, adult die of flu related complication each year. Who cares? This is not bird flu! While flu shot supply crisis may cause a government to fall in USA, Bangladesh does not have any clue of the Influenza vaccination thing. Even the elderly or the sick won’t be able to get the life saving vaccine.
Will it be an attack against humanity if I ask the government and non government agencies to divert some of their attention on bird flu to help develop some human flu vaccine , at least for the sick?
May 10, 2006 at 2:09 pm
Brother Rumi, I’ve been talking to my nephew Joglu in Dhaka, and he informs me that most people he’s talked to seem to have resigned their fate to the will of Allah.
It would be interesting to know how aware the countryside of Banladesh is on this matter.
May 22, 2006 at 8:23 pm
With due respect — if the brid flu virus turns out to be capable of jumping from human to human and thus has a potentiality of causing epidemic – than the level of catastrophe will be much much more intense than that we can imagine. Yes – in the US 36,000 people die each year of flu, the human flu – but out of 300 million this number is a fragment. But in case of a Bird Flu epidemic the numbers we are talking are in millions within a short period of time. And covering the whole world the number possibily will end up in billions.
And Bangladesh – the normal influenza is not a killer problem yet(sorry not data back up – just assumption from my working experience in Bangladesh). Probably the normal human flu is not killer yet because of natural herd immunization of Bangladeshi people. But in case of Bird Flu epidemic the densely populated residential structure (human-human and human – animal)creates suitable environment for this epidemic. Bad sanitation, malnutrition also will have added effect. Some more in case of epidemic – sudden load on the fragile health system of our country may cause a break down in it, causing a chaos. Unpreparedness for crisis management will make things worse. In Bangladesh mass people cannot afford to avail the anti viral drugs or vaccination against this epidemic.
Bird Flu epidemic is a possibility and some says strong possibility – now the truth is that – it may come or might not. Normal flu is there and will be there, the threat of its getting out of control is not high – but Bird Flu epidemic has a real threat (still did not but possibility for future) of getting out of hand. While we may not have problems like SE Asia now, our problems will overwhelm if we are hit.
May 22, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Sorry to differ from your statement that our country is adequately concerned about the threats of bird flu and government and nongovernmental sectors are joining hands in at least pretending to be prepared for bird flu. But bad luck for us that our Government (the political and institutional both) is busy with more important (?!?) issues like coming election, making easy money and other things in comparison to people’s health (in general) let alone disaster preparedness. Some NGOs are trying sporadically but the Government is the best institution to take the initiatives. The private sector can be of secondary help.
It is very much like us to have resigned our fate to the will of Allah. And really let’s hope for the best that there will be no epidemic – because we are always totally unprepared for any type of epidemic/disaster situation and we really survive on heavenly blessings.
May 23, 2006 at 10:51 pm
The picture in the blog entry has a 1998 time cover. What was it about? Scare. Bird Flu is coming! And this scare is going on for last ten years. Bird Flu didn’t come yet. The plausible scietific probability of a perfectly matching series of genetic shifts and drifts are quite low in many scientists point of view.
The number of a billion dead is quite dramatic and not based on sound science. We have to remember that the world is not same as it was during the spanish flu epidemic after world war one.
The notion that there is not data to backup the fact that no one dies in Bangladesh due to flu complication speaks for itself.
Pneumonia is one of the major killer diseases in Bangladesh. Overwhelming majority of pneumonia is of unknown microbial etiology. We don’t know what portion of these deaths are from influenza complications.
Per WHO estimate 500,000 die of human flu every year. So in last ten years while we kept on focusing our resources on bird flu, 500,000 X 10, i.e 5 million people is already dead due to human flu.
And we are talking about bird flu, which MAY kill oneday, and we are ignoring diseases which are already killing.
Bird flu is a poultry industry problem. I have no problem working to curb it’s spread. Public health is west is worried about bird flu because they can afford to worry. They have established and advanced their primary care to it’s peak and now they need to seal the smallest posible breach that may be caused by bird flu.
But for us, when we have no roof over us, we don’t have the luxury to worry about the possibility of a future crack in the floor tile.
Yes bird flu epidemic is a possibility,
so is elimination of life by an asteroid,
or stronger possibility is a 9.0 richter scale earthquake destroying our beloved Dhaka, killing millions.
I don’t see any reason to worry about bird flu because west talks about it. I already have a lot to worry about, those are my problems only, not west’s. If I don’t worry about these, nobody would.