Word: avian
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...that while systems like Google Flu Trends may be useful, health officials need to remember that the service tracks searches, not confirmed cases of illness or even symptoms that are severe enough to bring a person to the emergency room. Earlier this flu season, for example, when reports of avian influenza overseas hit the news in the U.S., there was a spike in bird flu queries online in New York City. "The system only tells you what people are interested in reading or learning about," he says...
...emerging from wildlife. One way to start would be to trace how, when and where the H1N1 virus emerged from pigs into people (or vice versa - over the weekend, Canada confirmed reports that a swine worker in Alberta passed the H1N1 virus to pigs). The H1N1 virus contains human, avian and swine flu genes, and genetic analysis indicates that it reassorted years ago, meaning it could have been in pig populations for some time before the virus gained the ability to transmit easily from person to person. If we had had tight surveillance of flu infections among swine, we might...
...emerged and begun spreading among people, it's likely too late to contain. "What we need to do is upstream surveillance in animals and wildlife," says William Karesh, vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Global Health Program. "We've begun to do that with avian flu, but the funding isn't available for other species...
...question that has come up many times. The first definitive case of H1N1 was not diagnosed in Mexico, but in San Diego. So at the time that the outbreak was first diagnosed, it was already in the U.S. Our pandemic planning, overarching planning that was done largely around avian flu, had approached or looked at [an outbreak that] would originate off our shores. Then you could send in a team and attempt to contain it, if it were in a small area. Once it moved out of a small area, it's impossible to contain influenza. Those factors together really...
...from unpleasant firsthand experience with epidemics. Official cover-ups allowed SARS to spread in 2002 and 2003, eventually killing 349 on the mainland and leading to the sacking of both the Health Minister and the mayor of Beijing. In recent years, the country has waged a steady battle against avian influenza, which has killed two dozen people in China and prompted fears that it could mutate into a deadlier plague...