India has a major problem: bird flu. “A total of six districts in eastern West Bengal state have reported an outbreak of avian flu among poultry including a new one late Suday, the government said,” according to the AFP.
West Bengal animal resources minister Anisur Rahaman told AFP: “Samples of dead chickens in Bankura district tested positive Sunday.”
This is the third, albeit worst, outbreak of bird flu in India since 2006.
One of the solutions for this problem is to kill all animals infected any all those that could suffer from the same flu. This means that the government has to destroy some 400,000 birds. Thus far, they’ve only succeeded in killing 100,000 birds because local villagers are resisting the state government.
Obviously, Avian flu isn’t just dangerous for birds: “experts fear the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus may mutate into a form easily transmissible between people.” Although it’s logical that local villagers don’t want their poultry killed, they can’t have the last say. This isn’t about protecting animals, this is about protecting human beings. The bird flu has killed some 200 individuals since 2003: the damage has been limited because most governments act resolute when they’re country’s hit by bird flu.
Having said that, it is horrendous for farmers. They see their entire lifestock being destroyed before their eyes. Assuming that most farmers in India aren’t exactly wealthy, it seems wise for the Indian government to pay the farmers damages.
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Hi, The article is good and mostly correct. 350 cases, 21 dead – mostly kids. Source: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/country/cases_table_2008_01_15/en/index.html India is also suffering because people have banned eggs and poultry from them. World healt org. graph showing cases by age: http://www.wpro.who.int/NR/rdonlyres/FD4AC2FD-B7C8-4A13-A32C-6CF328A0C036/0/S4_1113.jpg Discousison group http://www.newfluwiki2.com/frontPage.do Some help http://www.pandemicflu.gov/takethelead/index.html If you think you can do something about global warming, then know you can do some thign about this. Kind regards, Kobie "All I know never changed my mind as much as the one thing I did not" – Kobie Tau
Avian Flu – Humankind’s most Deadliest Threat and Only a matter of ‘TIME’ according to the WHO India is presently experiencing its worst outbreak of bird flu ever to wildfowl with 400,000 culled and the state authorities are in their own words, ‘highly alarmed’. It is generally regarded by many of the world’s leading bird flu experts that China will be the epicentre where the next avian flu pandemic will emerge if it does, followed closely by Indonesia. The spread of the 1918 Spanish flu took only 25 weeks to do its worst according to the news at the time. There is no exact figure of how many people died of the killer virus and estimates vary from 20 to 40 million in the aftermath of the 1920s to modern-day estimates of 50 to 100 million mortalities. Basically the Spanish flu could not have arrived at a more opportune moment, if one can describe it that way, as it was the nearing of the end of WW1. Troops and people were infected and where as the war ceased and they went back to their respective countries, they carried the killer disease with them. Back home this contamination thereafter infected millions more and the Spanish flu travelled the whole globe. In those days the only mass transit mode of transport was shipping and where air-flight was only used predominantly by the military. Therefore the Spanish flu had compared to today’s mass transport a very limited slow reach to destinations around the world. For today the spread of a pandemic would be much faster as between 8 and 9 million people on average fly every day of the year on international flights. But added to this and according to current data available, the H5N1 virus is around 20 times more virulent than Spanish Flu when compared to the respective mortality rates of the two diseases to date and when compared to the very minimum of humans who were killed in 1918. Once infected therefore and unknowingly, it has the propensity to spread like wildfire throughout the world. Just imagine the unimaginable though and that at the 2012 Beijing Olympics such an outbreak happened. Then with millions travelling too and from the games, the consequences for humankind would be horrendous. Hopefully this would not be the case and only a theoretical possibility. Therefore as Tamiflu (the major reliance) is a herbal drug and is not a cure, we have to comprehend that the only way to defeat this terrible killer disease is at its source and not vaccination. Professor Kennedy Shortridge the man who first determined that bird flu had jumped into humans in 1997 is trying to get such a global strategy adopted before it is hopelessly too late. It is therefore hoped that governments throughout the world listen when he announces and submits this life-saving strategy in Bangkok next week. For if not, only their own people will suffer eventually at the hands of their narrow-minded thinking and neglect. Dr David Hill World Innovation Foundation Bern, Switzerland UK Postal Address: P O Box A60, Huddersfield, HD1 1XJ, United Kingdom UK Tel:0044(0)1484 537181 20th January 2008