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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Chinese man dies of bird flu |
| 2012-01-01 |
| A 39-year-old man in southern China died Saturday from what appears to be a contagious strain of avian flu, state media reported Saturday. The man -- identified by Xinhua as a bus driver with the surname Chen -- was hospitalized in Shenzhen on December 21 as he battled a fever. He tested positive for the H5N1 avian influenza virus, the provincial health department said in a statement, according to the official news agency. The man had not traveled out of the city of Shenzhen, nor did he have direct contact with poultry in the month before he came down with the fever, according to the department. Shenzhen borders Hong Kong, where more than 17,000 chickens were ordered culled on the same day that Chen was hospitalized. That decision came after a chicken carcass tested positive for avian flu. A bus driver indicates he caught it from a passenger. If I'm correct then expect a wider outbreak. Crowded public transport is the ideal means of spreading the flu. |
| Posted by:phil_b |
| #1 Influenza in humans works on a two advanced wave cycle, because of its two week incubation period. That is, when symptoms appear in a person, the spread of its invisible first wave is to his neighborhood, and its second wave to his entire village. Then, when symptoms show up in the people of his neighborhood, the infection to his village is still invisible, but the disease is spreading in the region, to other villages and even cities. This is why it is so difficult to contain. However, like a wildfire, it goes in fits and starts, reaching dead ends with many infections, and missing areas entirely while infecting everything around them. By the time there is a massive, regional outbreak in a region of some nation, it is spreading internationally, so national, regional and individual epidemic responses should be begun. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2012-01-01 09:33 |