Without the White Coat
Bird flu… are we ready?
Are we prepared for a pandemic to come to our shores? Months ago, news on SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) filled the front pages of our national dailies creating a scare among Filipinos. Now we have this so-called bird flu or also known as Avian influenza.
Actually, SARS never made it through the Filipino community, it merely caused panic in some quarters of our population with heightened paranoia when all your neighbors wear all the protective masks. A religious hospital even required all the visiting public to wear some sort of a surgical mask upon entering their medical institution. (Probably they had made some money from selling those masks). Is the threat of a bird flu causing similar paranoia among our population? Well, I guess not, since everyone just keeps on doing their own stuff making each day another situation to survive. Perhaps, with the current situation everybody is just too busy to think about bird flu.
On the other hand, do you remember what happened to the Y2K bug at the turn of the 21st century? There was so much flare and scare but did it ever cause havoc on our computer system? I guess, not. But for sure IT companies raked money because of the scare.
Nevertheless, it's better to be ready all the time than to be caught flatfooted. So, we must heed the warnings raised by the health department and other concerned agencies regarding this bird flu. Lest we be caught flatfooted by this deadly disease.
Let's review where this Avian flu started. The first case was noted or recorded last May 1997 when a 3-year old boy died of a mysterious disease, reported as the first human death and confirmed to have the avian strain of H5N1. The first case was recorded in Hongkong, the second recorded case of avian flu was in South Korea in 2003 that wiped out a population of 2.5 million chicken and ducks, also during that year a veterinarian from the Netherlands died of flu-like symptoms and a strain of H7N7 was documented in his case. January 2004, countries like Vietnam were affected and a different strain was discovered in the island of Taiwan, thus outbreaks were seen in Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, China, Pakistan and Thailand. The following month of February 2004 the first case was documented in the US and Canada. In the following year 2005, cases in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia and even Siberia were reported, recently last October 7, 2005 a duck population in Danuse Delta in Romania had confirmed an H5N1 strain on infected ducks. Some cases were reported in Greece, Turkey and Northern Mongolia.
The Philippines is strategically formed by means of islands, thus the spread of the virus is very low or minimal at all. The geographical set up of the Philippines had made barriers that transmission can be confined at one area only. Avian influenzae is a flu among the bird population that included chicken and ducks, it will be fatal once it transfers to the human population. A weak immune system will contribute a lot of complications for those afflicted with the Avian flu. Is there treatment for this Avian flu? The pharmaceutical giant Roche and a research company Gilead come out with 'Tamiflu' and GSK came out with their own brand of inhalant 'Relenza' effective in the first 48 hours once symptoms are noted, but with this not enough protection are derived, the big question is, how would we know that we have the avian flu or just an ordinary influenzae or common cold or for short a 'viral syndrome' and when do we give our vaccine or immunization for protection and prevention, is there a preventive phase of the Avian flu? These and more we have to answer, these 'Tamiflu and Relenza' may be good for some 'garden variety flu', if we want protection we have to take 75 mg a day of this drugs for weeks for the preventive aspect, but the big question is, when is bird flu gonna hit us. As usual we’ll update you on any news on this bird flu.