What’s with China?
China is in the news a lot concerning bird flu, but it is difficult to know exactly what to believe. One article has China talking confidently about its ability to deal with the problem, citing as evidence that they have gone fifteen days without an outbreak of H5N1 among birds. The article goes on to say that nearly 7 billion birds have been vaccinated this year, 22,225,800 have been culled, and only five people have become ill, with only two of them having died.
All this sounds reasonable enough. The article goes on to say, however, that 151,200 birds died from bird flu. You would think that with 151,200 sick and dead birds around, more than five humans would have also become infected. Either it was a different strain of the virus, or the bird flu is not as big a problem as originally thought, or somebody’s not telling the whole truth.
In an earlier post here I mentioned an article in New Scientist which said that 300 people might have already died from bird flu in China. So is there a cover-up? We don’t know and we may never know. We must rely on China, and other Asian countries, to address the bird flu problem honestly, openly, and vigorously, not only for their own sake, but for the sake of people around the world. Will they cooperate? Only time will tell.
Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu
China is in the news a lot concerning bird flu, but it is difficult to know exactly what to believe. One article has China talking confidently about its ability to deal with the problem, citing as evidence that they have gone fifteen days without an outbreak of H5N1 among birds. The article goes on to say that nearly 7 billion birds have been vaccinated this year, 22,225,800 have been culled, and only five people have become ill, with only two of them having died.
All this sounds reasonable enough. The article goes on to say, however, that 151,200 birds died from bird flu. You would think that with 151,200 sick and dead birds around, more than five humans would have also become infected. Either it was a different strain of the virus, or the bird flu is not as big a problem as originally thought, or somebody’s not telling the whole truth.
In an earlier post here I mentioned an article in New Scientist which said that 300 people might have already died from bird flu in China. So is there a cover-up? We don’t know and we may never know. We must rely on China, and other Asian countries, to address the bird flu problem honestly, openly, and vigorously, not only for their own sake, but for the sake of people around the world. Will they cooperate? Only time will tell.
Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu
posted by Ed Bremson, MFA @ 11:34 AM
1 Comments:
At 12:08 PM,
rev. billy bob gisher ©2008 said…
somehow, someway, we have got to ditch closed socities. i'm workin' on it.
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