Will this be the Flu pandemic of 2005-2012.....

[whistle]

<snip>
washingtonpost.com
World Not Set To Deal With Flu
Strategy for Pandemic Needed, Experts Say

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 31, 2005; A01


Public health officials preparing to battle what they view as an inevitable influenza pandemic say the world lacks the medical weapons to fight the disease effectively, and will not have them anytime soon.

Public health specialists and manufacturers are working frantically to develop vaccines, drugs, strategies for quarantining and treating the ill, and plans for international cooperation, but these efforts will take years. Meanwhile, the most dangerous strain of influenza to appear in decades -- the H5N1 "bird flu" in Asia -- is showing up in new populations of birds, and occasionally people, almost by the month, global health officials say.

If the virus were to start spreading in the next year, the world would have only a relative handful of doses of an experimental vaccine to defend against a disease that, history shows, could potentially kill millions. If the vaccine proved effective and every flu vaccine factory in the world started making it, the first doses would not be ready for four months. By then, the pathogen would probably be on every continent.

<snip>

Only One Drug

In the absence of a vaccine, the only pharmaceutical bulwark against H5N1 is oseltamivir. It can shorten the illness's duration, and if taken immediately after exposure, it can even prevent infection. But the world's supply of the drug is limited. Sold as Tamiflu, it is manufactured by just one company, the Swiss giant Roche, in a laborious, expensive process that takes eight months.

Twenty-five countries have ordered oseltamivir to stockpile, and five others have expressed interest, a Roche spokesman, Terence J. Hurley, said recently. The United States already has a stockpile, but it is enough to treat less than 1 percent of the population. The government has ordered enough to treat 3 million more people, or about 2 percent total. At a congressional hearing in late May, the company's medical director, Dominick A. Iacuzio, said it will begin producing oseltamivir in the United States soon. The company says it could supply 13 million more courses of treatment in 2006 and an additional 70 million in 2007 -- provided the government orders them.

<more>
<link> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/30/AR2005073001429_pf.html

[unhappycamper]

1. Once it starts, it should be pretty much over in 18 months.

Keep in mind that cholera, measles, smallpox, etc. pandemics often reduced populations by 60~80%. The total body count for the 1918 flu pandemic is somewhere between 20,000,000 ~ 100,000,000.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. One word. Immunostimulants. Find them, use them.... this NIH

article pretty much says it all.

1: Postepy Hig Med Dosw (Online). 2005 Jun 7;59:250-8. Related Articles, Links

Sochocka M, Blach-Olszewska Z.

Laboratorium Wirusologii Instytutu Immunologii i Terapii Doswiadczalnej Polskiej Akademii Nauk im L. Hirszfelda, Wroclaw.

Innate (natural) immunity differs from acquired immunity with respect to the detection systems (receptors and structures detected on pathogens), the cells engaged, and the nature of the mechanisms. Innate immunity is an ancient system, with similar structures in plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates are involved in the development of defense against pathogens. Toll-like receptor (TLR) structures are present in all organisms, and some mechanisms (i.e. complement activation) were also discovered in invertebrates and vertebrates. During infection, innate reactions develop before acquired immune reactions do. Natural immunity involves such reactions as the production of different cytokines, chemokines, and interleukins; the innate, cytokines-dependent nonspecific immunity of leukocytes; HLA-independent pathogen-killing cells, and phagocytosis. Such cytokines as interferons, the TNF family, and interleukines 12 and 18 participate in antiviral, antibacterial, antiprotozoan and anticancer natural immunity. NK cells, cytokines of the TNF family, and the complement system activated by lectins are engaged in the non-specific killing of infected or tumor cells. As over-activation of the innate system can be dangerous, the system must be submitted the strict control. The exact mechanism of this control system is not yet known, but there are several indications of its presence.

PMID: 15995591

[whistle]

3. It seems a bit technical...do you have the link or....

...if I google "Immunostimulants" will I get some explanations that are more simplified?

This isn't what Prince Charles (or maybe it was his dad the duke Phillip) referred to when he said, "...if reincarnation does occur, I want to come back as a pandemic virus and kill off all the inferior races in the world!", or words to that effect.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Google for "Manapol, Acemannan, Medicinal Mushrooms, or

Pycnogenol, Transfer Factor, or Glyconutrients.

[whistle]

6. Alright.......

[wli]

4. kinder than death at Bushler's hands

"History is a reminder of what's possible."
George W. Bush at Auschwitz, as reported by Ari Fleischer