Thread: China to shut borders if bird flu mutates

http://news.yahoo.com

China to shut borders if bird flu mutates

By Susan Fenton Sat Oct 22,12:20 PM ET

HONG KONG (Reuters) - China will close its borders if it finds a single case of human-to-human transmission of bird flu there, a Hong Kong newspaper reported on Saturday, while a defiant Taiwan said it would copy a patented antiviral drug.


Saving lives would be Beijing's top priority in efforts to contain a possible outbreak of bird flu, even if it meant slowing the economy, Huang Jiefu, a vice minister of health, was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post.

The World Bank said while prevention measures would cost a lot, the economic damage from a pandemic would be far worse.

Huang told health officials from China, Hong Kong and Macau on Friday that any suspected human case would be quarantined.

The World Health Organization has said the deadly H5N1 strain is endemic in poultry in China and across much of Asia, and it may only be a matter of time before it develops the ability to pass easily from human to human.

China's sheer size and its attempts to conceal the SARS epidemic in 2003 have prompted fears among some experts that it has had more bird flu cases than officially recorded.

Since breaking out in late 2003 in South Korea, the deadly H5N1 strain of influenza has killed more than 60 people in four Asian countries and reached as far west as European Russia, Turkey and Romania, tracking the paths of migratory birds.

Russian authorities said they had uncovered more cases of bird flu in the Urals and were investigating a suspected outbreak in the Altai region close to the Kazakh border.

NEW CASES

On Friday, new cases were reported in Britain, Romania and Croatia, but there was no immediate indication it was H5N1.

Croatian authorities started culling on Saturday all poultry around a fish pond where the country's first bird flu case was confirmed and police sealed off the area.

The officials said 10,000 birds in about 1,000 rural households will be killed in the next few days.

Samples were sent to Britain to determine if it was H5N1 which has been found in Romania, which shares the Danube waterway with Croatia, and in Turkey.

Bosnia banned the import of poultry from neighboring Croatia and also forbade the transport of wild fowl and poultry and the slaughter and sale of poultry in outdoor markets.

In Britain, the Agriculture Ministry said a parrot that died in quarantine had contracted bird flu. The parrot had been imported from Surinam and held with other birds from Taiwan.

Because of the British case, Germany said it would ask the
European Union next week to ban all wild bird imports.

Junior Agriculture Minister Alexander Mueller said the case showed the European Union's existing ban on imports from countries which have bird flu was not tight enough.

"One doesn't really know where it was or went before or where it was hiding," Mueller told Reuters in an interview.

TAIWAN TALKS TOUGH

Amid growing fears about the spread of the disease, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche AG has come under pressure to pump up output of its antiviral avian flu drug Tamiflu.

The company agreed on Thursday to meet four generic drug makers with a view to possible tie-ups.

But an impatient Taiwan said -- patent or not -- it was ready to start making its own version of Tamiflu.

"We have tried our best to negotiate with Roche. It means we have shown our goodwill to Roche and we appreciate their patent. But to protect our people is the utmost important thing," Su Ih-jen, head of the clinical division at the National Health Research Institute, told Reuters.

The research institute showed media a generic version of Tamiflu produced by its laboratories, which it said was 99 percent similar to Roche's drug.

Taiwan has so far been spared a serious outbreak of H5N1 but authorities found rare birds infected with the strain in a container smuggled from China on Thursday, the island's first case since late 2003.

Experts say Tamiflu, generically known as oseltamivir, cannot be regarded as a "cure-all" for H5N1 as it must be administered in the early stages of infection -- and will in some cases not work due to anti-viral resistance.

The WHO's director of epidemic and pandemic alert, Mike Ryan, told the Financial Times on Saturday it would cost billions of dollars to prepare the world fully for a potential pandemic with large-scale production of vaccines and other measures.

World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz told world parliamentarians in Finland that prevention would still be far cheaper than cure.

He said SARS, despite being contained relatively early, cost east Asian countries 2 or 3 percent of their gross domestic product for a quarter.

"Stop and think what a larger epidemic that spreads death and disease around the world would do in damage to commerce and the international economy," he said.

Retailers wouldnt have to worry if they sell American Made Products.

Amazing.

China can shut it's borders to protect its citizens, but we can't because it's impossible.

Has anyone checked the length of China's land borders compared to ours?

Try 12,400 miles for China vs 7,600 for the US.

Since we're mainly talking about the US-Mexican border with regard to the illegal invasion, it's 12,400 vs 2,000.

There once was a time when this country was actually able to do things that were difficult. I guess those days are long gone.

Maybe this will be the Chinese century, while the US sinks into third world squalor.

Saving lives would be Beijing's top priority in efforts to contain a possible outbreak of bird flu, even if it meant slowing the economy, Huang Jiefu, a vice minister of health, was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post.

Can anyone imagine a US official saying the same thing?

Originally Posted by jp_48504

Retailers wouldnt have to worry if they sell American Made Products.

Specially Wally-Mart

Yep no Wally for me...

Even worse, tutors are now being outsourced..

http://www.yahoo.com/

Originally Posted by CountFloyd

Amazing.



Try 12,400 miles for China vs 7,600 for the US.

Since we're mainly talking about the US-Mexican border with regard to the illegal invasion, it's 12,400 vs 2,000.

Hey count, now imagine what will happen when the FTAA has their way? I can assume our borders will be the entire North and South continent, right? That is a lot of coast line and ports.

My scenario:
After the borders are wiped, there will be a massive terrorist attack. This will be justification to raid another country to get the war machine in full effect again. Then the mark of the beast will be in full swing (RF IDs) and with nearly a global government, our constitution will be worth less than a roll of downy; civil unrest will consume us then fear and war will set in like the plague.

Do I seem to be too far off with my creative thinking?