concentration of sources
Has the bird flu really reached Israel? The Ministry of Health has already begun tests to answer this question. This, after a considerable amount of turkeys on two farms in the south died as a result of the virus. Following this, it was decided to destroy the birds that were in the coops, and more importantly to check those people who came in contact with them. Well, to explain what bird flu is, we will give you a brief overview of the deadly virus. (Doctors website)
YNET reports that the Ministry of Agriculture imposed severe restrictions at noon (Friday) on the chicken coop areas in Kibbutzim Ein HaSholsha, Nirim, Kissuf and Holit in the south, following the outbreak of the bird flu epidemic. An outbreak of the disease was also reported in Moshav Sde Moshe, near Kiryat Gat, which killed 250 poultry there. Four chicken coop workers, including a chicken coop worker at Sde Moshe, were evacuated to "Soruka" hospitals in Be'er Sheva and "Barzilai" hospitals in Ashkelon. Their condition is mild and they were hospitalized in isolation. Hundreds of birds died in Kibbutz Nachshon near Letron, and the chicken coops were also quarantined there.
Walla News adds that another focus of the bird flu outbreak was located today at noon: Moshav Sde Moshe near Kiryat Gat. Veterinarians in the area confirmed that laboratory tests conducted today indicate that one of the turkeys was affected by the disease. As a result, the Ministry of Agriculture issued an extermination order for flocks of turkeys in Moshav, fearing that they might have contracted the disease.
At the same time, the European Commission banned the import of live poultry and poultry meat from Israel, due to the fear of an outbreak of the deadly strain of bird flu. Whereas the veterinary services at the Ministry of Agriculture stopped the export of unprocessed chicken products from Israel to the rest of the world.
Thousands of Israelis will die
If the bird flu reaches Israel, it could merge with existing viruses in flu patients - and create a new virus that will infect 1.6 million Israelis - so states the grim forecast of the Ministry of Health.
According to the ministry's scenarios, the health system must prepare for an epidemic outbreak that will last six to eight weeks, in which there will be 780 doctor visits, 10,000 hospitalizations and 2,900 deaths. "The large number of patients will create a tremendous burden on the medical services in the community. According to estimates, around 3,500 people may be hospitalized each week at the peak of the outbreak," states the report completed at the beginning of the week.
If last winter the number of hospitalized patients increased by 15%, it is estimated that this winter their number will increase by 40%-60%. "During an epidemic, the patients will be referred to the hospitals, only after all treatment options in the community have been exhausted," the Ministry of Health is now clarifying.
According to the authors of the report, it will take four to six months to develop a vaccine against the bird flu virus. "Factories for the production of vaccines exist in several individual countries, and it is estimated that they will be nationalized
their products for them, and it will not be possible to purchase vaccines in the first stages, if at all," the authors of the report estimate. As for the treatment with the existing drugs, it was found that the Asian bird flu virus developed resistance against the drug amantadine. "It is not possible to predict in advance whether the new strain that will be created will be sensitive to this drug," the report states.
In the event of an epidemic outbreak, full or partial closure of schools, nursing homes, military camps and prisons will be considered. Restricting the movement of Israelis to infected areas in the world and in Israel will also be considered. According to the new guidelines, people who are suspected of having the bird flu will be hospitalized in isolation, similar to the SARS suspects a year and a half ago. However, it was decided not to refer them to designated hospitals, but to hospitalize them near their place of residence. Suspects of the disease will be given treatment with the drug oseltamivir, twice a day for five days.
Fear in the US: 1.9 million will die in the event of an epidemic
The fear of bird flu increased worldwide this week with the reports of finding infected birds in Romania and Turkey. "The continued spread of the bird flu virus to Eastern Europe, and the fear of the disease being transmitted by migratory birds this coming winter, increases the risk of bird flu in the State of Israel as well," the report states.
A similar report recently revealed in the United States estimates that the outbreak of bird flu will lead to the death of 1.9 million Americans, and the hospitalization of nine million more. As of today, infected birds have already been found in many countries in the East and at the end of the week also in Eastern Europe. But a global epidemic has not yet broken out.
Meanwhile, the US has announced that health authorities in its territories are planning to develop a new vaccine against the disease, since, according to estimates, the virus that spread among the winged animals in Asia and Europe has changed significantly. According to an American official, the millions of vaccine doses held in the US are worthless, because they were prepared in accordance with the virus that appeared in Vietnam in 2004.
The cats eat infected and dead birds
Carter Doherty, New York Times (Haaretz) reports from Singen, Germany that more than a week after a cat in Germany died of the deadly bird flu virus, the country's authorities have ordered that pets not be taken out of homes in areas where infected birds have been found. The blanket order has caused concern and frustration among the millions of cat and dog owners who have to deal with the problems caused by the animals inside the home. At the same time, although the case of the cat's death is considered rare, citizens have also expressed quite a few concerns that the authorities will be forced to kill masses of pets, similar to the elimination of millions of poultry throughout Europe, Asia and Africa. This after two cats also died from the virus in Austria.
The bird flu spread rapidly from Asia to Europe and Africa, triggering waves of anxiety and economic fluctuations. The EU poultry industry has been significantly affected almost everywhere across the bloc. In the meantime, it can be said with certainty that in Germany only one cat died from the virus, on Rogen Island in the Baltic Sea.
According to experts at the World Health Organization, cats can become infected with the deadly virus of the disease H5N1, if they eat infected poultry. However, as mentioned, this possibility is very rare and the health authorities in Germany claim that there is almost no chance of a cat transmitting the virus to humans.
Background (from Wikipedia)
Avian influenza is a type of viral flu that attacks birds. There are two main strains of bird flu: a mild strain (H9N2) and a virulent strain (H5N1).
In recent years, several dozen infections and also human deaths from the disease have been discovered in Southeast Asia. Also, many mutations of the virus have been discovered in recent years (so far not ones that are transmitted to humans). The serious concern is that the deadly virus will undergo a mutation that will give it a fast infectivity, similar to the common human flu virus, and thus lead to a global epidemic. For this virus, no drug has yet been found that has been proven to be effective. There is an estimate that the drug "Tamiflu", which is used against common flu, can reduce the damage of the virus on humans, although not immunize against it.
Most of the humans who have been infected so far have been in direct contact with sick poultry, but there are also unproven reports of family members being infected from each other. Bird flu mainly attacks young people; About 70% of those who contracted the disease were under the age of 20.
The clinical symptoms of humans infected with bird flu (H5N1) are similar to those of humans infected with normal human influenza (H3N2). It turns out that the deadly H5N1 virus transfers a genetic load between it and one of the normal flu virus species, and creates a deadly mutation that causes death when it infects a person.
In recent studies on mice, researchers found that new strains of bird flu injected into mice became more lethal.
history
The H5N1 bird flu virus was first discovered in 1961 in South Africa. The first time that human infection by a mutation of the virus was diagnosed was in Hong Kong in 1997, when eighteen people contracted the disease and six of them died. At the beginning of 2003, three members of one family fell ill in China and two of them died. Later, signs of the disease were discovered in humans in Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia and Pakistan. Out of 120 people who contracted the disease, 60 died.
At the end of 2005, outbreaks of avian influenza in poultry were discovered in Turkey, Romania, and Russia, following the migration of birds from the Far East, in addition, news spread about the spread of the disease to Greece which turned out to be false, the health authorities in the world were prepared to prevent mass infection of humans with the disease. This spread of the disease brought strong pressure on Roche, the manufacturer of the drug Tamiflu, to allow the production of the drug by other companies in order to increase production after the company stated that it would not be able to handle all the orders that were placed at the last minute, even though the company suggested that the governments order them In the mid-90s, the company finally gave in to the pressure and at the end of October 2005 began negotiations with other pharmaceutical companies on the subject. At the same time, doubts began to arise regarding the drug's effectiveness regarding the strain that may undergo mutation, but the situation in this regard is still unclear.
The fear in Israel is that migratory birds that park in the Hula reserve and in other places may transmit the disease to Israel.
Influenza type A (one of the three types of influenza), is able to infect and pass between different types of animals. This flu resulted in three severe flu epidemics in the twentieth century in 1918, 1957 and 1968.
The deadliest flu epidemic in the twentieth century was the Spanish flu, which began in 1917 and killed about 50 million people worldwide within a year. At the beginning of October 2005, a study was published that claimed that the bird flu is similar to the Spanish flu
The viruses know
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