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WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
11–20 of 57 posts
Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#12Has person-to-person transmission been proven for H5N1? It's still quite likely they were both infected from the same animal. If they can prove spread between people, that's a big problem... Until then this isn't a risk, other than the major implications for agriculture and food supply.
As far as I've read, they aren't sure about human to human transmission. Roughly a dozen people have had H5N1, but they all plausibly could have gotten it from poultry handling.
Which means a) no need to panic, but definitely a good idea to keep an eye on things in case we do observe humanhuman transmission and b) Maybe we need to revisit how we raise animals for food....
Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#13Has person-to-person transmission been proven for H5N1? It's still quite likely they were both infected from the same animal. If they can prove spread between people, that's a big problem... Until then this isn't a risk, other than the major implications for agriculture and food supply.
Probably, but it's rare and hard to confirm. Animal-to-human transmission is also rare, for that matter.
The headline is irresponsible and fear-mongering clickbait, even just by referencing the contents of the article below it.
Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#14Has person-to-person transmission been proven for H5N1? It's still quite likely they were both infected from the same animal. If they can prove spread between people, that's a big problem... Until then this isn't a risk, other than the major implications for agriculture and food supply.
I don't think it's been proved, but I tink the concern is that it's viewed as a matter of when not if.
> The discovery of two cases of bird flu within the same family in Cambodia has highlighted the concern over potential human-to-human spread of the virus, although experts have stressed the risk remains low.
Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#15[flagged]
This is a fair comment. May I add, broadsheet headlines also.
Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#16[flagged]
Is it unreasonable to be worried about H5N1 flu killing someone? That seems like something to be keeping an eye on, and I'm glad the WHO is.
To worry? Yes, it's unreasonable, because there's not a thing the WHO can do about it. "Worrying", in particular, does nothing. For that matter, pretty much anything involving a PR spokesperson from the WHO does nothing.
But that goes 10x for hyperbolic articles from the Guardian, which are the real problem here. They take the inanities from the PR person, and twist them into hysterical headlines that panic people for clicks. You'll note the use of the classic "X happens after Y" pattern, which is a standard yellow-journalism trope to link X and Y implicitly, even if they're unrelated ("puppies die after politician speaks!")
In this case, the WHO spokesman said that the 'increasing reports of bird flu in humans are "worrying"' (which is itself an anti-pattern of quoting a single word), but the rest of the article doesn't at support the headline. If anything, it goes out of its way to say that this particular case is not worrying, literally in the first paragraph:
> The discovery of two cases of bird flu within the same family in Cambodia has highlighted the concern over potential human-to-human spread of the virus, although experts have stressed the risk remains low.
Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#17Has person-to-person transmission been proven for H5N1? It's still quite likely they were both infected from the same animal. If they can prove spread between people, that's a big problem... Until then this isn't a risk, other than the major implications for agriculture and food supply.
Probably, but it's rare and hard to confirm. Animal-to-human transmission is also rare, for that matter. The headline is irresponsible and fear-mongering clickbait, even just by referencing the contents of the article below it.
Even just probably-unwarranted "worrying" is now "fear-mongering clickbait"? I feel so genuinely sad about the feverish level of shitflinging that so many topics are subject to due merely to their proximity to social politics.
Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#18[flagged]
Just two weeks to flatten the curve?
Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#19Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it unreasonable to be worried about H5N1 flu killing someone? That seems like something to be keeping an eye on, and I'm glad the WHO is.
To worry? Yes, it's unreasonable, because there's not a thing the WHO can do about it. "Worrying", in particular, does nothing. For that matter, pretty much anything involving a PR spokesperson from the WHO does nothing. But that goes 10x for hyperbolic articles from the Guardian, which are the real problem here. They take the inanities from the PR person, and twist them into hysterical headlines that panic people fo…
> Yes, it's unreasonable, because there's not a thing the WHO can do about it.
The WHO exists to contain such things so as to minimize the risk of wider harm.
It is not inevitable that every new disease spreads widely and becomes endemic. SARS and MERS were contained, for example.
If this new bird flu started transmitting human to human and was as lethal as it is in birds and animals there would be efforts to contain it.