8 ms·
After death of girl yesterday, 12 more detected with H5N1 bird flu in Cambodia
- _madmax_ 4y agoWell, here we go again
- tom_ 4y agoThis sort of thing happens all the time, and on average no global pandemic comes of it. What are the odds this will be the same?
- virgildotcodes 4y agoReally tempting the gods here.
- throwaway5752 4y agoThe current situation for H5N1 is different than it has been in the past. * https://www.science.org/content/article/incredibly-concerning-bird-flu-outbreak-spanish-mink-farm-triggers-pandemic-fears https://www.science.org/content/article/incredibly-concernin..., "H5N1 appears to have spread through a densely packed mammalian population and gained at least one mutation that favors mammal-to-mammal spread" * https://www.npr.org/2022/12/02/1140076426/what-we-know-about-the-deadliest-u-s-bird-flu-outbreak-in-history https://www.npr.org/2022/12/02/1140076426/what-we-know-about... "Unlike the 2014-15 outbreak, this one is being driven by wild birds, not by farm-to-farm transmission" That said the risk is still low and the best thing to do is read experts: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/spotlights/2022-2023/avian-flu-highly-pathogenic.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/spotlights/2022-2023/avian-... "The current public health threat to people from H5N1 virus is low. The current H5N1 outbreak in poultry and birds continues to be mostly an animal health issue. However, people should avoid direct and close contact with sick or dead wild birds, poultry, and wild animals. People should not consume uncooked or undercooked poultry or poultry products, including raw eggs."
- munk-a 4y agoThis probably won't develop into a global pandemic - but the odds of global pandemics is constantly increasing as we continue expanding factory farming and shrinking natural reserves. That's sort of the key tune of climate change: everything awful gets more frequent, but it's still probabilistic.
- throwaway12245 4y agoIt does not appear to be highly transmissible between mammals. If it mutates, this could change.
- 323 4y agoDon't worry, surely there are some virologists in some lab mapping right now exactly what mutations would make it very transmissible between mammals. So that we are ready and prepared, of course.
- gwern 4y agoUp until a few months ago, it wasn't transmissible between mammals at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H5N1#Mammal-to-mammal_transmission_(2022%E2%80%932023) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H5N1... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mammals_that_can_get_H5N1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mammals_that_can_get_H...
- dom96 4y agoUnlike COVID this seems to be a well known influenza variant so not sure there is much to be worried about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H5N1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H5N1
- ianlevesque 4y agoFile this one under comments that may not age well.
- PostOnce 4y agothe very article you linked says, in the Overview section: around 60% of humans known to have been infected with the Asian strain of HPAI A(H5N1) have died from it, and H5N1 may mutate or reassort into a strain capable of efficient human-to-human transmission.
- munk-a 4y agoYea - one upside of extremely deadly diseases is that they have problems hitting pandemic levels due to how quickly hosts die off - the "best performing" diseases are rarely fatal but often come with serious long term effects so the host can spread it around a fair amount before their system gets it under control.
- kuhewa 4y agoThere's no guarantee of that pattern though because transmissibility and lethality are not always tightly coupled. E.g. there's no reason a pathogen can't have traits favouring heavy presymptomatic transmission but also progress to death rapidly at some point.
- lamontcg 4y agoThere's still room for a pandemic to be at least 10 times worse virulence than COVID while still managing to be highly transmissible since that is what happened with 1918. And instead of predominantly killing the elderly it went after 30 year olds and babies as well.
- rntz 4y agoPossibly a mistranslation? I can't read Khmer, but someone on twitter claims there were 12 contacts (rather than infected individuals) with the index case (the deceased girl, I assume) of which 4 report flu-like symptoms: https://twitter.com/jurreysi/status/1628816263295438849 https://twitter.com/jurreysi/status/1628816263295438849
- UncleOxidant 4y agoThat's better... but 4 out of 12 of her contacts displaying flu-like symptoms isn't very comforting either.
- aaomidi 4y agoPlease don’t be h2h…
- cheeze 4y agoNot again...
- jacknews 4y ago"First published in Hindustan Times" This is one of a very few English-language newspapers left now in Cambodia, and is kind of an unacknowledged government mouthpiece, yet they're getting this story from an Indian paper?
- alephnerd 4y agoAccording to HT they got it from the Associated Press [0]. [0] https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/bird-flu-kills-11-year-old-girl-in-cambodia-first-death-since-2014-officials-101677137756083.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/bird-flu-kills-11-...
- dieselgate 4y agoWeird, not on topic but the quote you mentioned made me think of the poem "The Blind Men and the Elephant" [1]. I've only heard it (poem) before and never really knew what "Industan" or whatever place was being referenced until seeing "Hindustan" written here. Weird how spoken/written language dots can connect randomly after like decades [1]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_poems_of_John_Godfrey_Saxe/The_Blind_Men_and_the_Elephant https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_poems_of_John_Godfrey_Sax...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- myshpa 4y ago"Van Oosterhout, a professor of evolutionary genetics ... warns that our highly bred livestock cannot keep pace with the evolution of parasites, such as viruses, due to the animals’ lack of genetic diversity. As a result, livestock act as “mixing vessels” for the emergence of new infectious diseases that can then make the leap from animals to humans. In combination with habitat destruction, the illegal wildlife trade, and mass migration of both animals and people, Prof. Van Oosterhout says this has created a “perfect storm” for the development of pandemics, such as COVID-19. He concludes that emerging infectious diseases are “possibly the greatest existential threat to humanity.”" https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/excessive-animal-farming-created-perfect-storm-for-pandemics-scientist-says https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/excessive-animal-f... https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/coronavirus-meat-animal-farming-pandemic-disease-wet-markets-a9505626.html https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/coronaviru... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2020/sep/15/covid-farm-animals-and-pandemics-diseases-that-changed-the-world https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2020/... https://sentientmedia.org/animal-agriculture/ https://sentientmedia.org/animal-agriculture/ We should stop eating meat. For most of the world it's not a necessity, but a personal choice. We "grow & harvest" 80 billion land animals every year.
- armatav 4y agoIt’s a necessity for all humans to eat meat. Whether you eat animal or lab meat is the choice.
- amrb 4y agohttps://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/spotlights/2022-2023/avian-flu-highly-pathogenic.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/spotlights/2022-2023/avian-...
- dredmorbius 4y agoDavid Wallace-Wells was just writing yesterday about the prospect of back-to-back pandemics, based on H5N1, at the New York Times: <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/opinion/bird-flu-pandemic-h5n1.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/opinion/bird-flu-pandemic...>
- bandyaboot 4y agoI remember reading a tweet in December of 2019 that referenced an article about a spate of deadly respiratory infections in China. They jokingly said this sounds like it’s from the opening sequence of a pandemic/disaster movie. Reading this headline gave me a fleeting moment of “ptsd”.
- eggsmediumrare 4y agoSame. There aren't many brief glances at my phone that are seared into my memory, but a notification from DW news on New Year's Day 2019 is one of them.
- credit_guy 4y agoIt's different this time. We have flu vaccines, and they are updated annually for the most likely dangerous strains. If this turns out to be such a strain, a flu vaccine against this could be produced (and approved) in no time.
- smith7018 4y agoJust to add to this, monkeypox was the last time there was a new infection panic. We fortunately nipped that in the bud because we had vaccines and were more understanding of the severity of the situation. It’s not a 1:1 situation but it’s similar enough to put me at ease.
- Auracle 4y agoThat was also spread from direct contact, mostly through (male to male) sex. There was never any reason to panic, unless we were all planning on having post-COVID orgies.
- etiam 4y agoHow does it ever help to panic, but it's a pertinent fact that smallpox is highly contagious, with true airborne being one among its modes of transmission. In my opinion there was real cause for concern, with modest probability but very high stakes, not because of the properties of that monkeypox strain in itself, but for what it might have turned into if it sustained transmission on scale in humans and the new-host-driven evolution happened to carry it through phenotype territory closer to smallpox with respect to life cycle and virulence. Virulence levels of a less benign monkeypox lineage would have been bad enough actually, if the virus could tap into properties for effective transmission. We seem to have lucked out about the evolution (again) this time, and it probably helped that the current version had agonizing symptoms and its transmission was best targeted to a human subpopulation which overall has a lot of healthy respect for epidemics.