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city
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Joined: 15 Aug 2005
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Location: Larnaca area
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ZURICH (Reuters) - Drug maker Roche Holding AG has temporarily suspended deliveries of its Tamiflu antiviral drug to the United States in order to head off a run on stocks by consumers fearing a pandemic caused by bird flu.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-10-27T122831Z_01_SCH743511_RTRUKOC_0_US-BIRDFLU-TAMIFLU-ROCHE.xml
I don't understand the people. Isn't Tamiflu only a drug that will help against "normal" flu?
As long as the bird flu virus has not "jumped" onto humans and transformed into a new virus (contagious between humans) noone knows which drug will be needed. Or to be precise noone wil be able to produce a medicine that really stops that virus.... |
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cannedmoose
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Joined: 12 Aug 2005
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Location: National Forest, England
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| city wrote: |
I don't understand the people. Isn't Tamiflu only a drug that will help against "normal" flu?
As long as the bird flu virus has not "jumped" onto humans and transformed into a new virus (contagious between humans) noone knows which drug will be needed. Or to be precise noone wil be able to produce a medicine that really stops that virus.... |
It's due to all the misinformation flying around. Essentially this is being massively overblown by media outlets looking for sensationalist news. Every other day we're bombarded with new outbreaks of 'bird flu' reports without the media pointing out that these outbreaks are due to birds being exposed to other birds. Thus, I think we now have a situation where the general public does appreciate that as yet it cannot be transmitted via human-human contact and takes extreme exposure to birds to jump the species boundary.
I spoke to a friend the other day who said her mum had told her not to eat chicken... which is ridiculous and I told her so. Although yesterday on the news I heard that sales of chicken in Germany have decreased by 40% in the past few weeks, so that's obviously not isolated ill-advice.
If it makes the jump to humans and a pandemic results, then I'll be the first to hunker down and avoid contact with people until it blows over. But for now I realise that it's no current threat to me or my family and despair at those who spread 'Chinese whispers' that it is. |
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city
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Joined: 15 Aug 2005
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Thats exactly how I see the situation. I mean if one listens to serious media - its always clearly pointed out that it is a BIRD flu which not yet is dangerous to humans unless you have extremely close contact to birds (farmers etc) where the virus has a chance to be transferred to a human.
I think they make that very clear here in the german media. But then again I should not generalize - if one might only read the yellow press which is usually only hunting for sensations then they may get a wrong impression. I do not know exactly what those media write, as I do not read them.
For me it is very clear that there is no general thread yet. I personally do not take any additional precautions. Lucky me I seem to have a strong health and immune system. I haven't been ill for the last lets say two decades and I never had one of those yearly flu vaccinations. These are only a guess imo, as they never know beforehand which exact specification of the virus will hit this year....
In case it becomes epidemic I think I wil simply stay home. One can't do much in such a situation anyway. At least thats what I believe.... |
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