Bird Flu Alert, Don't Panic! New Discoveries For Your Protection!
How might the bird flu affect you? Health experts have been monitoring the H5N1 virus since 1997, when it spread to humans in Hong Kong. So far over 100 human cases have been laboratory confirmed in four Asian countries - Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. More than half of those people died. Since mid-2003, this virus has caused severe outbreaks in poultry. Although the bird flu virus does not spread easily to humanS, H5N1 does have the ability to evolve into something as contagious as the flu. If that happens a pandemic could begin. ** Even though this virus now meets 2 of the 3 conditions needed for a pandemic, some experts say there is no need to panic. ** Yes, when transmitted from very sick individuals, there is cause for worry because of the predicted tendency to affect the young -- adults from age 20 to 40 -- and shut down multiple organs; because THE BIRD FLU CAN KILL IN DAYS; and that the fatality rate of humans infected by this virus is as high as 60 per cent.
Assessing Risk To Humans: New Eng. J. of Medicine
Senior officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) say that the avian flu is the “most serious known health threat the world is facing today.”
W.H.O. Bird Flu Updates
Avian Flu Hotline:
Centers for Disease Control;
Bird Flu Blog
Don't Count on Antiviral Drugs or Vaccines
There are some surprising things you should you know about how best to protect yourself against the avian flu. ANTIVIRAL DRUGS such as zanamivir and oseltamivir (Relenza by GlaxoSmithKline and Tamiflu by Roche) don't cure influenza, but they do mitigate the damage done by the disease. Both cut the time to recovery by an average of about a day and a half. That seemingly modest benefit, plus the relatively high price tag for both drugs has in the past led to harsh criticism and limited acceptance by doctors. By treating infected people with these drugs, officials might be able to slow the virus' spread, giving companies time to produce a protective vaccine. By even the most optimistic time frame, it would take 4 to 6 months to make enough vaccines for the U.S. alone.
Vaccine Technology Hopelessly Out of Date
Yes, You CAN Protect Yourself!
1) USE SOAP! According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the avian influenza virus is easier to destroy than other influenza viruses.
It appears that it is very sensitive to detergents — i.e., soap — which destroy the outer fat-containing layer of the virus. This layer is needed to enter cells of animals and, therefore, destroys the infectivity. In other words, when you have been in public places, use soap to wash your hands before touching your face.
2) DON'T PANIC! says evolutionary biology expert Dr. Paul Ewald from Louisville Kentucky. An expert in cell evolution and mutation, Dr. Ewald explains that in order to become easily transmitted, the virus will become less dangerous.
Why? In the initial stages of becoming transmissible, the flu H5N1 virus can only be caught from very sick people because it is a "LOWER respiratory" virus.
BUT, FOR THE VIRUS TO EVOLVE TO BECOME MORE TRANSMISSIBLE, e.g. through coughing and sneezing, it has to make a shift to infect THE UPPER tissues of the lungs. This very shift DECREASES the harmfulness of a virus, says Dr. Ewald, who understands the nature of cellular evolution and mutation! See his book:
Plague Time : The New Germ Theory of Disease
3) PROTECT YOURSELF and ENHANCE your ability to fight off viral threats!
Researchers have shown that the body has a protective molecule called glutathione (GSH), that can be enhanced to block influenza viral infections such as the avian flu H5N1 virus.
For Free E-BOOK, see:
What Doctors say about enhancing glutathione as a NATURAL solution to chronic illnesses, and “natural vaccine for the immune.”
Nature's Own Defense
Dr. Bounous, a McGill University researcher, determined how best to raise the body’s glutathione levels by providing “food for the immune.”
Find out more about nature's own best protection:
1) How glutathione blocks viral infections;
2) Best Protection Against Infectious Diseases
3) The Biggest Medical Discovery Since Penicillin
What Are Other Scientists Predicting?
Scientists can’t predict when the bird flu will explode into a pandemic, but Dr Lee Jong-wook, the previous director-general of the World Health Organization, said that mutation is inevitable and "just an issue of timing".
ALL THAT IS NOW REQUIRED FOR IT TO BE TRANSMITTED FROM PERSON TO PERSON, IS FOR SOMEONE WHO ALREADY HAS THE FLU, TO CATCH THE BIRD FLU!! It would then mutate to be able to spread from person to person.
There are estimates that suggest that a flu pandemic could cause 20 per cent of the world's population to become ill. Within a few months, almost 30 million people would need to be hospitalized, and a quarter of them would die.
The influential journal Foreign Affairs has a special July/August 2005 issue on “The Next Pandemic” including an article by Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the book:
THE COMING PLAGUE
which says,
“The entire world would experience similar levels of viral carnage... in a pandemic unlike any ever witnessed. In response, some countries might impose useless but highly disruptive quarantines or close borders and airports perhaps for months. Such closures would disrupt trade, travel, and productivity. No doubt the world’s stock markets would teeter and perhaps fall precipitously. Aside from economics, the disease would likely directly affect global security, reducing troop strength and capacity for all armed forces, and police worldwide.”
The prestigious journal Nature, published 10 articles on the subject in its May 2005 issue.
How Prepared Are We?
"We are not prepared," says Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. "It is critical to scale up preparations on the home front, but equally urgent ... to prevent the start of a new pandemic."
The key, say the experts, is detecting an outbreak early and rushing antiviral drugs to the source to throttle a pandemic at birth before it can break out, carrying sickness and death around the globe.
"It is the first time in the history of mankind that anyone has thought about keeping a worldwide pandemic at bay," says William Aldis, the top World Health Organization (WHO) official in Thailand.
But the window of opportunity could close quickly, and the world is not yet prepared to take advantage of it, researchers say. Rich countries are stockpiling antiviral drugs, but there is little available in the impoverished backwaters of Southeast Asia where an outbreak is likely to begin.
"The world is not dealing with this with sufficient attention," says Supamit Chunsuttiwat, disease control expert at the Thai Ministry of Public Health. "If we join hands, we might be able to stop the pandemic."
Will Governments Protect Us?
The United States still has no licensed vaccine to prevent avian flu and has nowhere near enough drugs on hand to treat the sick if there is a bird flu epidemic, experts recently told Congress.Hospitals have too little capacity to deal with the huge numbers of people who would become sick and the U.S. Health and Human Services Department does not even have a plan for dealing with a bird flu epidemic, the experts said. “Although many levels of government are paying increased attention to the problem of the bird flu, the United States remains woefully unprepared for an influenza pandemic that could kill millions of Americans,” said Dr. Andrew Pavia, chairman of the Infectious Disease Society of America’s Pandemic Influenza Task Force.
How Do Scientists Say To Protect Yourself?
Governments and drug companies are scrambling to make vaccines and antiviral drugs. Who will get these, whether they will be effective and whether we will get them on time once there is a panic, remains to be seen.
Fortunately, over the past few decades there has been a revolution in our knowledge about how our own defense -- the body’s immune system -- works, giving us new ways to ward off viruses and “super bugs.”
It turns out that our body even has its own “food for the immune,” a small molecule made in each cell of our body, called glutathione (GSH). It improves the body’s generalized immune response because, according to Dr. Gustavo Bounous, “the antioxidant glutathione allows lymphocytes to respond more fully to an antigenic stimulus.”
Glutathione and Research Links
If you stimulate the production of glutathione, according to Allan Somersall, MD, PhD, who wrote “Breakthrough in Cell Defense,” you empower the cells to become “super cells” in their capacity to defend against a wide range of viruses and bacteria.
Breakthrough In Cell Defense
This discovery of increasing glutathione levels through nutrition is described by some as the biggest medical breakthrough since penicillin.
Dr. Bounous’ Discovery
With the world on high alert for a bird flu pandemic, it is all too evident that the battle against infectious disease has not yet been won by medical science. Hopefully the predictions will not come true, and the bird flu threat will mark a new level of world-wide cooperation in the prevention of infectious disease. So, while bird flu warnings are heightened, we can look after ourselves and our families’ health and ensure they have a strong immune system! Whether we are exposed to viruses like the bird flu, the Norwalk virus, Hepatitis C, super bugs such as c difficile, or the common e coli, or salmonella, our immune will be the strongest it can be!
So, while bird flu warnings are heightened, we can look after ourselves and our families’ health and ensure they have a strong immune system!
For Recommendations of Best Protective Supplements:
See also:
Protecting Against Infectious Diseases including Avian flu , H5N1 virus
New Health Discoveries for Avian flu, H5N1 virus, Bird Flu Alert
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