Flu: Bird Flu Falls Off the Radar, but Cases Show It?s Still a Threat

[Pathfinder]

Hat tip Sharon

Flu: Bird Flu Falls Off the Radar, but Cases Show It?s Still a Threat</NYT_HEADLINE>

Tyrone Siu/Reuters

<NYT_BYLINE>By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

</NYT_BYLINE>Published: November 22, 2010

In the wake of last year?s pandemic of H1N1 swine flu ? which turned into far less of a global threat than had been feared ? the world has largely forgotten about the H5N1 bird flu.

But that flu has not disappeared. Nor does it seem any less lethal. In contrast to the swine flu, which killed only 1 out of every 2,000 people who got it, the avian flu kills about 3 out of 5...

Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/health/23global.html?_r=1


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About the author:

Donald G. McNeil Jr.
<!-- close subHdr -->

<!-- close callout -->Donald G. McNeil Jr. is a science and health reporter specializing in plagues and pestilences. He covers diseases of the world's poor, AIDS, malaria, avian flu, SARS, mad cow disease and so on.
...
He has won several awards: For a series on patent monopolies on AIDS drugs in Africa, for a series on AIDS in one South African town, for a series on six diseases on the brink of eradication and for a series on third world cancer victims dying without morphine...

Read more:
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/m/donald_g_jr_mcneil/index.html

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Flu: Bird Flu Falls Off the Radar, but Cases Show It?s Still a Threat

Comment:


Flutrackers.com has been a source for avian flu information for Donald McNeil for several years.

We are located as his reference in the side column under "navigator":

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/ref...eil/index.html

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Flu: Bird Flu Falls Off the Radar, but Cases Show It?s Still a Threat

This small forum has never seen avian influenza A(H5N1) falling out of the radar, as testify the huge amount of material collected during 2010.

Human cases confirmed or suspected were traced in Egypt, Vietnam, Indonesia without interruption and the NYT article remind here sounds bitter.

For other media outlets perhaps the remind is timely, as the attention toward influenza viruses from animal sources fell dramatically after the mild 2009 pandemic.

But at least for FluTrackers members, avian influenza has never disappeared: poultry infected, people exposed, frantic search for source of the contagion...

For me, this renewed attention of the main media sources about H5N1 is a bit late, not enough and possibly directed to increase the attention of the audience, now angered by the impending economic recession, poverty, unemployment: in other words, H5N1 as arm of mass distraction.

For FT, the story is different. We know the threat, we are seeing people struggling for life, for their livelihood in the area where the H5N1 is hitting an important source of food and income, as poultry industry is.