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[Sebatianos]

Not here too... There are a few panicy children at school I have to calm down daily, because they keep gearing it in the media... :not_ok:

IT's simple - birds (like most animals) have various different illneses. Birds (like all living things) die. It's a normal proces and I'm sure such epidemics had already happened, but because people didn't identify the virus yet, they simply didn't care. Life goes on!

Now about the chance of becoming infected... I don't own any birds (actually at the moment I don't own any animals), I don't go around catching and hugging them and I never eat raw bird meat or raw eggs.

So there's no chance to get infected (the virus is eliminated at 60C).

And even so, there's medicatio0ns you can take even if you get infected.

So it's not that I care, but I'm more woried about getting infected with the regular flu, because that's a real possibility (And I hate being sick). I'm about as worried about getting birds flu as I am about getting HIV (as long as I don't do anything really stupid - I won't get infected.

[Danny252]

Its a virus that infects birds. It also infects those who come into close contact with it. Onoes! I guess I'll have to stop catching birds and hugging them. But really, notice how the media made a complete and utter fool of itself scremaing about it for 2 weeks, before giving up.

[Kon-Tiki]

That thing's still going on then? :blink:

[a1s]

H5N1? I prefer C2H5OH!

as for the serious part of my post, everything I wanted to say (more even- I didn't know the virus was eliminated at 60 degrees) was just said by Sebatianos.

[Fruit Pie Jones]

I have noticed an unusually high number of avatars containing birds, owls, and such creatures recently, often accompanied by incomprehensible words and phrases such as "O RLY" and variants thereof. I suspect that this could be related to the avian flu (possibly an early symptom of infection?), but further study is needed to confirm this.

[TheGiantMidgit]

Originally posted by Fruit Pie Jones@Feb 15 2006, 11:24 PM
...but further study is needed to confirm this.

O RLY?

[rlbell]

Originally posted by TheGiantMidgit@Feb 15 2006, 08:27 PM
It is Sars all over again. Do not worry, your chances of survival aren't exactly jepordized. There are many, many worse micro-organisms running about.

SARS it ain't. SARS could be transmitted through mucous contact (infected person coughs into hand but does not properly wash before handling something. The next victim handles the object, picking up the virus and is infected when they rub their eyes [why magazines have disappeared from doctor's waiting rooms]). SARS was a very easy infection to spread; although, infection rates fell as people started washing their hands often.

The bird flu is only transmittable through exposure to the droppings of an infected bird. All of the cases in humans are people who have to handle live birds that may be infected. If you are not a poultry farmer, the odds of you catching the diease is slim. To avoid catching bird flu, wash your hands after you handle bird poop. If you are unsure about it, wash your hands, anyways. Washing your hands does so much to prevent the spread of disease, it is a good idea to wash your hands regularly.

[rlbell]

Originally posted by TheGiantMidgit@Feb 15 2006, 08:38 PM
All it would take would be an anti-biotic resistance adaption from a multitude of common pathogens to become a major threat. ...and seeing how people use antibiotic medication these days, that's not difficult to imagine. Outbreaks of resistant influenza viruses could be lethal, even.

Viruses are not bacteria. They are naturally resistant to antibiotics. That is why the only trestment for viral infections are vaccination, or keeping the patient alive long enough for their own immune system to handle the virus (easy to do for the common cold, very hard to do for ebola). Sometimes, if you are sure that the people had the same viral strain and there is no blood type mismatch, you can inject antibody laden blood serum from a survivor into someone still afflicted.

With molecular nanotechnology and a better understanding of what the genes do, we can just gene sequence the virus and manufacture an antibody that will latch on to that specific strain of virus (after making sure that it will not also tag any body tissues as foreign).

There are anti-viral drugs, but they are nowhere near as effective as antibiotics were against bacteria.

[TheGiantMidgit]

I was referring to the media coverage style.

As for your second qoute, I like that. "Viruses are not bacteria." ...That's easily gathered, considering the vast difference between the two. Hn, protein casing? Genetic packet? As for sequencing a virus gene, one should assume we know how to do this if gene therapy exists.

[rlbell]

Originally posted by TheGiantMidgit@Feb 16 2006, 02:32 AM
I was referring to the media coverage style.

As for your second qoute, I like that. "Viruses are not bacteria." ...That's easily gathered, considering the vast difference between the two. Hn, protein casing? Genetic packet? As for sequencing a virus gene, one should assume we know how to do this if gene therapy exists.

We can do the easy part. Gene sequencing a virus is a trivial task compared to gene sequencing a human. Unfortunately, knowing the ordering of nucleotides in a gene tells us nothing about what the gene does. We would still have to determine which gene builds the protein sheath, and figure out how the genetic sequencs maps to a surface antigen. Once that task is done, we would need to reverse engineer the surface protein to determine what protein clicks onto it. Unlike many of the rediculous claims made by the proponents of molecular nanotechnology, building proteins is obviously within its capabilities. The hard part is working out a protein's shape, as they are very convoluted molecules.

Gene therapy, last I heard, was something else entirely. An organism suffers from a condition brought about by a gene that is either faulty or missing. Gene therapy attempts to introduce good copies of the gene into the cells of the organism, in the hopes that the cell expresses the gene. I must not know enough about gene therapy, as I have yet to hear of a plausible explanation for how the introduced gene is incorporated by the cell. Be that as it may, viruses are an example of gene therapy, so I do not doubt gene therapy's potential