Planet of the Apes?
Although I am definitely not one to see signs of doom or prophetic messages, this story about the bird flu virus (H5N1) being found on cats brought to mind Planet of the Apes. That part of the story about all the pets dying of a strange disease and people taking up monkeys as pets…
Still news isn’t very clear yet and it seems only one cat really tested positive for bird flu.
Some news also report that it seems the cats managed to fight the virus, if this turns out to be exact it may be proof that in order to ‘survive’ the virus may become less virulent and thus less deadly.
Still news isn’t very clear yet and it seems only one cat really tested positive for bird flu.
Some news also report that it seems the cats managed to fight the virus, if this turns out to be exact it may be proof that in order to ‘survive’ the virus may become less virulent and thus less deadly.
posted by DCveR at 5:10 PM
12 Comments:
Cat Flu?
Isn't that a blues singer?
I know what you're going to say, as I've said this before, but sometimes I think a global epidemic is just what this planet needs!
Of course, I still believe our species is not beyond all hope. We could fix our problems if we stopped bickering long enough to talk about them...
As for the virus, I sure hope it weakens soon. This place wouldn't be half as fun without all the people.
chill dad: Not that I know of...
viking: Sadly the virus doesn't target the idiots and such a deadly epidemic could leave us worst than we are now if the dead ones were the few wise ones left...
I actually got really excited when Toronto had that big outbreak of the SARS virus...I was thinking all it would take is a stiff south-westerly wind and a lot of stupid rednecks would quit sucking up the oxygen and depleting the potable water stores. And that would leave more resources for those of us who are more deserving of spreading our genes around the planet. But it didn't happen and now I have to waste a bunch of time learning how to build a dirty bomb. Cocks and bullocks!
i know i've said it before, but i think secretly the world is preparing the caribbean islands for quarentine zone... just a matter of which island for which desease.
bunny jo: What if it had spread south and you got contaminated? This things are so non-selective...
ale: Sadly the caribbean islands are one of the last places a reasonable person would want to be in case of a major pandemic: easily served by planes, easily contaminated, not many local structures to fight the disease.
Various epidemics of diseases have been around us for years and are nothing new. If I weren't so bad in science/math/chemistry etc., I might have become a pathologist, because I find it so fascinating. (Instead I went into another deadly field--advertising!!)
I'm trying not to think about it. If this does turn into an epidemic, with my illness I'd be done for!
Oh, no, I would have been safe. My superior intelligence warned me to get one of those mask-thingy's.
and il be smarted enuff to hyde unner the bed.
the cat probably got it from eating a sick bird.
Look at bubonic plague - dogs get it and act like they have a small cold, yeild a bunch of very sick fleas, and get well. cats get it and it typically turns into the pnemonia version quickly and they die w/i 2-3 days. So how other species react to a disease can be a warning, but is no proof of much of anything.
plague now has reservoirs in 35 countries... always with the potential for the perfect combination of events to touch off another devastating epidemic. (No, we still don't have a cure-all for it; if you get the pnemonia version and aren't treated aggressively within the first 24 hours of symptoms you are dead. 100% fatality rate. Only a 50% fatality rate with septic or buboe versions - untreated - and a longer window of time to begin treatment, and a decent cure rate.)
Seems to me that bird flu does have the same potential as the b. plagues of 1200- 1500. But when B. Plague hit 1898 -1906 it spread to 5 continents but was still contained with quarentines, was never allowed to run the way it did in medieval times. Hopefully we'll be able to contain bird flu. The difficulty with treatment is that there isn't going to be enough capability, enough beds, enough respirators to get people through it. Prevention, quarentine, continued research are the best hope.
dismal subject, isn't it.
kris: Pathologists work is too smelly anyway... ;)
nml: Make sure you stay safe, what about vaccines?
bunny jo: Don't know why but I got the mental image of you wearing one of those masks mixed up with the mental image of a belly dancer wearing a veil...
chill dad: Can't really believe that! Well, I actually can't really believe you can fit under the bed, big guy. :P
hayden: Unlike the b. plague, this H5N1 virus doesn't seem to be very 'smart', it kills the host too fast, and if it changes it becomes less dangerous, so we can always hope for it to become less of a menace. Otherwise soon the beds will be enough for all those still surviving.
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