7 ms·
Hong Kong Confirms First Human Case of Bird Flu
- alexeisadeski3 13y agoWith an estimated mortality around 30%, I wouldn't want to catch this bug. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to spread human-human particularly well - yet. Mortality source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H7N9#Mortality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H7N9#... Transmitability source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H7N9#Human_to_human_transfer_of_virus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H7N9#...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- pilsetnieks 13y agoThis is about bird flu, which is a virus, not bacteria, and has nothing to do with antibiotics.
- nether 13y agoHoly shit, it's happening...
- Houshalter 13y agoYour comment adds nothing to the discussion and is severely exaggerating what's likely to happen. That said, I'm imagining the small possibility that people of the future look back on this comment going like "this guy knew and everyone ignored him."
- ZoF 13y agoHaha, we were so quick to dismiss him, if only we'd known.
- Kilo-byte 13y agoit's the usual flu season people, no need to fear this thing
- seanmcdirmid 13y agoThis flu is a bit worse than the standard one; you have a 3/10 chance of dying. As always, stay away from live birds...no pet chickens...think twice about buying that parrot.
- ars 13y ago> As always, stay away from live birds...no pet chickens...think twice about buying that parrot. What? No! This virus doesn't just magically show up in a bird, the bird has to catch it from another bird. Stay away from large flocks, sure. But home pets? No problem at all.
- panacea 13y agoDon't live/eat/sleep in close proximity to fowl pens.
- Crito 13y agoHave you ever smelled a chicken? That is good advice regardless.
- seanmcdirmid 13y agoI was talking about my own rules being a resident of the PRC. If you live outside the PRC, you can probably follow more lax rules to stay alive.
- Fomite 13y agoIt should be noted that transmissibility and virulence (your chance of dying) aren't particularly correlated, if at all, so while you don't want to get this, there's nothing yet to suggest wide-scale person to person transmission. Indeed, there's some evidence to suggest avian strains of influenza (vs. pig strains) have a little bit of a disadvantage when it comes to kicking off pandemics. Also, early mortality estimates are super unstable.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- AmVess 13y agoGoogle Flu trends (near real time updates): http://www.google.org/flutrends/ http://www.google.org/flutrends/ How they do it: http://www.google.org/flutrends/about/how.html http://www.google.org/flutrends/about/how.html
- lwf 13y agoGoogle's predictions of flu trends haven't been accurate recently: http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2013/01/google-flu-trends-cdc http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2013/01/google-flu-trends-cdc
- AmVess 13y agoI see the point of the article, but it is dated January 13, 2013...which isn't recent.
- Fomite 13y agoThat would have been last flu season, which is about as recent as evaluations of flu surveillance systems get. Also, I saw a presentation given at an infectious disease conference...less than a month ago. Google Flu Trends appears to really break down at small spatial scales, like a single city. Unfortunately, Google is also super opaque about how it works, so it's hard to tune.
- TeMPOraL 13y agoI guess NSA could run a much, much more accurate version of such service.
- bjz_ 13y agoFor an chillingly realistic depiction of how a worldwide pandemic could unfold, I'd highly recommend watching the film Contagion (2011)[1]. For all those who complain governments and scientists overreacting to new flu strains, I would prefer that than the alternative - doing too little and being swamped by an uncontrollable virus. [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598778/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598778/
- creativityland 13y agoWill have to give this a watch. Not sure how realistic but Plague Inc is not bad for an iPhone/iPad game. http://www.ndemiccreations.com/en/ http://www.ndemiccreations.com/en/
- ndemic 13y agoGlad you think so ;)
- draugadrotten 13y agoYou may be interested in https://www.moocdemic.com/ https://www.moocdemic.com/ which is a global simulated outbreak, playable on iPhone and android phones. The games goes together with the online MOOC "Epidemics - the Dynamics of Infectious Diseases" https://www.coursera.org/course/epidemics https://www.coursera.org/course/epidemics
- tdfx 13y agoThat's exactly what I thought of when I read this title. That movie give my friend a panic attack.
- orenbarzilai 13y agoI would also like to recommend World war Z. cuz a zombie plague is much more dangerous than flu
- Fomite 13y agoPhD Epidemiologist: I wouldn't. I love zombies, and I love zombies in Epidemiology, but I wouldn't exactly hold World War Z as a great example of pandemics in action. Especially not the movie.
- alanho 13y agomisleading title, it's first case in Hong Kong but not first case in whole world
- dredmorbius 13y agoI'd argue "unclear" rather than "misleading". H7N9 had previously been confined to the Chinese mainland. Inclusion of an "its" would help: "Hong Kong reports its first human case of bird flu". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H7N9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H7N9
- Anon84 13y agoA few comments based on my experience working with these things back in 2009 [0] 1. Yes, this thing has a mortality rate of 30%. What that means is that out of all detected cases 30% of the people have died. The keyword here is detected. At this stage, and without a massive surveillance plan looking for specifically for serological evidence of the virus, authorities are only aware of a tiny fraction of the actual cases (the most severe) which tend to skew the mortality rate. The actual mortality rate for the 2009 H1N1 has just now been reevaluated with more accurate data and techniques [1, 2] 2. So far it doesn't seems to have crossed the threshold to be able to spread quickly from person to person. Doing that will imply a few more mutations that will likely make it less aggressive and deadly (it's hard to spread if you kill your host too quickly). 3. Better than watching Contagion to get an idea of what a spread looks like at a global scale is to watch [3] which is an accurate representation of the H1N1 spreade in 2009. Each edge you see represents the (likely) first infected person traveling from an infected to an uninflected city. You can play with the (client) software we used for these simulations over at [4] 4. Attempts to use real time proxy data like mentions in Twitter and searches in Google to monitor the spread of infectious diseases haven't really been very successful. Google flu trends had some early success but it seems to be breaking down recently. As usual Twitter seems to be much better at predicting the past than the future. In fact the CDC has recently launched a competition to try and do just this [5] 5. In summary, don't panic. Much smarter people than myself are keeping an eye on this and it's likely not as bad as the link baity headlines would have you believe. [0] I worked directly with the official surveillance data and used it to model And forecast the worldwide spread of the virus. We were actually able to predict (and publish) the epidemic peak for dozens of countries I'm advance You can access all the relevant publications here: http://www.bgoncalves.com/publications.html http://www.bgoncalves.com/publications.html [1] http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/26/247379604/2009-flu-pandemic-was-10-times-more-deadly-than-previously-thought http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/26/247379604/2009-fl.... [2] http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001558 http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj... [3] http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YAf1aXCvvdU http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YAf1aXCvvdU [4] http://www.gleamviz.org/simulator/ http://www.gleamviz.org/simulator/ [5] https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/11/25/2013-28198/announcement-of-requirements-and-registration-for-the-predict-the-influenza-season-challenge https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/11/25/2013-281... Edit: spelling
- thaumasiotes 13y agoHuh, I assumed this had happened some time ago. The hong kong airport PA system has been pumping out warnings about bird flu since september at least. ("Do not touch birds while in Hong Kong. If you get a cough, inform the appropriate authorities.")
- dmgd 13y agoI was there for a few days at the beginning of July and they had those warnings then too (plus a body heat scanner, which was a little bit disconcerting because I was very warm at that point!!)
- CalRobert 13y agoI was just thinking I could go for another viewing of The Seventh Seal.
- blahbl4hblahtoo 13y agoIs it time for the media to go pant shitting crazy about epidemics again? Seriously? Has anyone else noticed a pattern here?
- sirkneeland 13y agoHas there been any observed correlation between public hysteria over disease outbreaks and lower airline ticket prices? I'd love to scoop up a cheap ticket for the Rugby 7s...