Continued from Part 3
Monotreme at 18:03
How significant are pigs in the grand scheme of things, ie evolution of a human pandemic virus?
I have argued that based on the changes in H5N1 sequence and its changes in pathology, that it is becoming more adapted to mammals. I have futher argued that this means it is under selection in mammals. This would imply the existence of a mammalian reservoir as I have argued in this thread: Final Adaptation of H5N1 to Humans Role of Mammalian Reservoirs.
Pigs are an excellent candidate for a mammalian reservoir. There may be others.
The strange way this pig disease is being handled raises my suspicions, as did the retractions of pig sequences, the odd nature of the sequences, and the attempts to prevent publication of the paper regarding the early infection of Shih the soldier.
This is all circumstantial evidence, at this point. Hopefully, well get more information soon.
Medical Maven at 18:12
I would agree with Tom DVM at 16:41, and I would add that the pig population in China has to be mighty stressed, regardless of what mix of viruses and/or bacteria are assailing them. Severely stressed organisms in close proximity to H5N1 and ducks and chickens and us are perfect vessels for adaptation. And as Tom has said many times pigs arent just another cog on the way to our turf.
We occupy the same turf. Oink.
Doctors/Veterinarians/Virologists, please humour me: what is the common link between Sars, polio, human bird flu, which are the object of the compulsory two-hour notification just published? And does whatever that is in common in these three illnesses also has in common with this strange pig disease?
All text below I fished out from Wikipedia, but my science is just not enough to attribute a sense to what I read:
The three of them are virii
The three of them are positive-sense ssRNA viruses
Sars: initial infection. Initial symptoms are flu-like and may include: fever, myalgia, lethargy, gastrointestinal symptoms, cough, sore throat and other non-specific symptoms. The only symptom that is common to all patients appears to be a fever above 38 C (100.4 F). Shortness of breath may occur later.
Non-paralytic polio: initial infection. 90% have no or almost no symptoms or their disease is indistinguishable from influenza
Influenza, Initial infection. Chills or a chilly sensation are often the first indication of influenza. Fever is common during the first few days, and the temperature may rise to 102 to 103 F (approximately 38 to 39 C). Many people feel sufficiently ill to remain in bed for days; they have aches and pains throughout the body, most pronounced in the back and legs.
Frenchie Girl. What’s your best guess? It appears that you have come to the conclusion that there is no connection between them and you would be right.
I would be the first one to admit that the Chinese has done some pretty impressive things…I didn’t say they were good, I just said they were impressive…
…but you have demonstrated one of their fatal flaws…they underestimate the intelligence of their own citizens and of their neighbours around the world…
…They think they can throw up and globblydigoop they like and we will automatically buy it…like they do with their own citizens.
I was in Lenningrad in 1973 and I know for a fact that the Russians were not buying and had little respect for their own Government at that time…1988 was no surprise to me…
…Same thing here…China today reminds me of Russia in 1988.
We are in for interesting times I’m afraid.
FrenchieGirl. Could you keep a close eye on happenings around the World Health Organization for the next month…I’m expecting some unusual patterns and happenings…Thanks!!
and by the way…the World Health Organization has the exact same problem as the Chinese Government.
FrenchieGirl: All three virii are simply virii “of concern.”
Polio is probably not a pandemic threat, at least, not on the scale of SARs or influenza, but it’s nasty enough and it’s making a bit of a global resurgance. They probably want to know about a polio case so they can vaccinate everyone in the vicinity.
SARS and influenza, obviously, are virii that need to be reported ASAP. (At least they ARE concerned enough to take things seriously!)
IF we only knew what WHO knows, IF we had the barest idea of what China has manipulated and buried, IF we could access the latest lab study results from the CDC, IF we knew all that, WE would be away from our computer and topping-off a MOTHER LODE of preps.
(I attribute a 75 per cent probability of accuracy to the above statement).
Tom DVM, Cygnet, thank you. And yes I’m keeping my ears on the ground and not just there. Interesting times, yes, that’s a very serious Chinese curse (“May you live [in] interesting times”) which I have only ever used twice and the curse came to the ones I gave it to.
Tom DVM, Anon_22. With your experience at the highest level of international agencies, would you say it is possible that there may be good offices from a third neutral party “X” mediating between, say Country Y and Organization Z?
Medical Maven at 2002:
You make a powerful, powerful statement. Is your personal prepping done, or close to done?
Do you have a guestimate as to the arrival/timeline of a H5N1 panflu?
A commentary in the Hong Kong press questions why the
Chinese government has not mentioned H5N1 in relation
to this pig disease. The commentary was written by
Mr. Haode Fang and published in Asia Times
Thanks to Dan Silver for the referrence.
Translated with altavista fromhere
The live pig may become the birds and beasts flu variation
medium: The South China pig epidemic situation cannot lower one’
s guard writes Wen Fangde bold 20.06/09/05, billion Tuesday The
Chinese Ministry of Agriculture on September 4 confirmed, since
this summer south China partial local eruption live pig epidemic
situation. Must point out that, the pig simultaneously has the
humanity and the birds 接受体, the birds and beasts flu virus
and the person flu virus all may infect the pig, if this two kind
of virus simultaneously infect the identical pig cell, two kind
of sickness virus gene possibly carries on the exchange in pig
in vivo. Therefore, has a pig epidemic situation regarding South
China, the hygienic expert really cannot lower one’s guard, but
China’s government department even more should not gently bring
in light of this to the related question. Under the Chinese official
New China sheqi New China net on September 4 quotes the Ministry
of Agriculture news office public office concerned person in charge
to confirm that, since this summer south partial local some center
small feed farms, have raised the keeper of livestock to have
the live pig epidemic situation. But Ministry of Agriculture asserted
positively that, At present the live pig arises the quantity “
large scale to reduce”, “the epidemic situation situation tends
to relaxes”. Must point out that, the pig simultaneously has the
humanity and the birds 接受体, the birds and beasts flu virus
and the person flu virus all may infect the pig, if this two kind
of virus simultaneously infect the identical pig cell, two kind
of sickness virus gene possibly carries on the exchange in pig
in vivo. Therefore has the expert to point out, if the birds and
beasts flu the one day variety infection humanity, its medium
is possibly pig. Therefore, the preventing and controlling birds
and beasts flu expert always stressed, must prevent the birds
and beasts flu variety, certainly must stop the pig and the chicken
混养. In 2003 Holland has the H7N7 high 病原性 birds and
beasts flu, has 13 pigs chickens 混养 farm pig only to encounter
the infection, but, same year discovered although is high 病原性
poison, but certainly has not caused the pig only clinical symptom,
only detects the immune body. In Southeast Asia’s H5N1 birds
and beasts flu epidemic situation, passes through the large-scale
investigation finally to find the case which the pig only infects,
if the identical pig only simultaneously infects the person and
birds and beasts’ flu, has the possibility to have the person
birds and beasts gene exchange, creates the new virus. The Chinese
Ministry of Agriculture person in charge on 4th declared that,
the recently pig sickness epidemic situation take the high fever
as the main characteristic, was called “the pig high fever”. The
worth noting is, Ministry of Agriculture acknowledged, in recent
years in the high temperature humidity season south partial areas,
“appeared many times”. The Vietnamese government once announced
in March, 2004 that, the birds and beasts flu epidemic situation
is under the control, but the matter separates for 5 months, the
birds and beasts flu stages a comeback and rapidly from the south
provinces and cities to the national spread. According to pointed
out that, after the epidemic situation occurs, Ministry of Agriculture
sends out the expert group and the work team many times to arises
the local diagnosis epidemic situation, instructs the local development
to guard against controls the work. After the laboratory examination,
removes the person livestock altogether to be sick the epidemic
situation, simultaneously the durable world animal health organization
recommends the method examination, removes the African pig acute
communicable disease. But, regarding concerned expert whether
once tested the high 病原性 birds and beasts flu, the related
report has not actually mentioned. Should point out that, the
Chinese Ministry of Agriculture possibly also has pays attention
to the epidemic situation proliferation crisis. According to the
New China net, Ministry of Agriculture requests each place to
organize the veterinarian personnel “to go down to the basic unit”
, instruction cultivation household comprehensive nature and so
on development disinfection, isolation guards against controls
the measure, and aims at already Zha Dao cause of disease development
immunity; All levels of animals guard cognizant agency must strengthen
the quarantine work, strictly prohibits the sale, the transportation
dying of illness the pig, prevents the epidemic situation dissemination;
Strengthens the epidemic situation monitor and the report, promptly
discovered the epidemic situation hidden danger, early adopts
guards against controls the measure. Ministry of Agriculture also
requests, must propaganda pig sickness guard against controls
the knowledge, educates the farmer to raise the live pig raising
level, do not have to slaughter edible, dies of illness the pig.
Last November, then world Secretary General Wei, already died
Li Zhongyu warned, the birds and beasts flu eruption person teaches
other people the epidemic situation was only the time sooner or
later question, after such epidemic situation eruption, estimated
a global year national will produce loses 800 billion US dollars.
Li Zhongyu pointed out at that time that, the birds and beasts
flu has not spread in the humanity, but some signs already were
revealed, but everybody did not know when it did erupt, the whole
world must have the unification regarding this to know and to
take the action. In 1997 appeared the high pathogenic H5N1 birds
and beasts flu from the birds and beasts flu virus in Hong Kong,
already disseminated to the Europe and Asia least 15 countries,
now only was sooner or later the question, the H5N1 birds and
beasts flu very is possible to evolve the adult to teach other
people. In the South China area, the H5N1 birds and beasts flu
is not certainly rare. The world health also hoped this conference
can coordinate the various countries to subsidize a Southeast
Asia resources more deficient country, the world silver about
to in can hit proposed 300000000 to 500 million US dollars preventing
and controlling plans fund, use for to assist the impoverished
country to strengthen the guard mechanism. Teaches other people
casualty which the epidemic situation possibly can create, each
estimate numeral from all has 2 million to 360 million people,
did not pass away the health to believe, 7.4 million people are
the reasonable estimate casualties. At present, the whole world
had six tenths countries to draw up the birds and beasts flu in
accordance to the plan, including China. But, if the world health
aspect care resistance birds and beasts flu variation question,
should request as if to assist China on own initiative to investigate
the related event. Extremely anxious is, appears the H5N1 birds
and beasts flu virus in Vietnam and Japan, had demonstrated (Tamiflu)
has the antibiotic nature to “the especially sensitive luck”.
In other words, the birds and beasts flu virus has very strongly
变异性, causes humanity’s anti- flu medicine expiration. Relates
front 100.01 million person of lives and the property huge threat
in this, the world health sends out the most important advice
is “exchanges the information as soon as possible, do not have
to block off the flow of news”.
Wow, anonymous you’ve earned your right to anonymonity with this one.
The date of this bombshell is September 5 2006. We need a human translation, but there is obvious concern about “birds and beasts flu” (H5N1) and the pig high fever epdidemic.
exchanges the information as soon as possible, do not have to block off the flow of news.
Well, today they did decide to block off the flow of news.
Do you think you could get Dan Silver to translate? We would be eternally grateful.
The worth noting is, Ministry of Agriculture acknowledged, in recent
years in the high temperature humidity season south partial areas,
appeared many times
this sounds as if the disease were not new, but reoccurred
each summer (or does it refer to H5N1 ?)
But, regarding concerned expert whether
once tested the high [path.?] birds and beasts flu, the related
report has not actually mentioned.
so they didn’t mention whether H5N1 was tested in the same report
wich excluded African swine fever
Monotreme, I don’t exactly understand the relevance of the new
press-law. Does it mean that articles as this will be more
strictly censored in future ?
2006–09–08
China Daily
Beijing Hormel Foods Company Ltd, a joint venture between Minnesota-based Hormel Foods Corporation and Beijing Sanyuan Group Co Ltd, has teamed up with Liaoning Zhenxing Group Ecology Development Co Ltd to promote its new product: Hormel Organic Fresh Pork. Liaoning Zhenxing will supply pigs to Beijing Hormel, which will be responsible for processing and retailing the meat.
Yes, that is a very damning “opinion.”Thank you anonymous.I knew we werent the only ones nervous.Btw i just spent the last hr searching chinese cdc,and trade and market papers in chines and found no mention.Peoples daily here i come.I was checking to find out if thecrackdown was on yet.Did find a case of strept suis in a hong kong from this past week,and mention of the 275 cases of dengue.
LONDON, Aug. 17 (UPI) — “Two Chinese doctors are offering lessons learned in the SARS epidemic to the world, hoping they will be used if bird flu breaks out.
In the August issue of the British Medical Journal, Nanshan Zhong and Guangqiao Zeng spoke about their experiences during China’s three outbreaks of SARS between November 2002 and May 2004.
“The lessons we learned while facing up to these events can improve our medical performance in the future for management of new epidemics, such as human avian influenza,” the authors said.
The lessons of SARS were:
Honesty is needed and information must be disseminated as soon as possible, or panic will result;
Controversy can lead to lost chances and laboratory workers and health professionals must share all information in close collaboration;
Conclusions may be premature so take your time and make sure they are right;
Be aware that some centers may be flouting regulations, so insist on strict adherence to scientific standards.
Zhong and Zeng said that SARS is currently under control in China but has not been eradicated. They suggested that all medical professionals should collaborate closely in the future to contain emergent infections, public officials should work closely with these professionals to create useful public policy on infectious disease, and an international monitoring system should be set up for early alerts.
Both physicians work at the Guanzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases in Guangzhao, China.”
http://www.upi.com/HealthBusiness/view.php?StoryID=20060817-042411-2622r
anonymous at 21:02
‘’I dont exactly understand the relevance of the new press-law. Does it mean that articles as this will be more strictly censored in future ?’‘
Yes, that’s what it means. Especially relevant is that Hong Kong press is now under the control of Xinhua, the communist government press organ.
The article you found was published in Hong Kong.
16 April 2003 *****
(excerpt)
“The director of one of the World Health Organizations global network of 11 laboratories investigating SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), told The Scientist yesterday (10 April) that the new coronavirus implicated as the cause of the disease is certainly around in the environment but is unlikely to be the causative agent. Frank Plummer is director of Canadas National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. (Level 4 )
Canada is the Western country hardest hit by SARS, which arrived in Toronto before WHO announced its global alert on the disease on 12 March. It has seen 190 SARS cases, in two waves, and 11 deaths, Donald Low told The Scientist. Low is chief microbiologist at Mt Sinai Hospital, Toronto. He dealt with the first case in Canada and has just emerged from quarantine.
But according to Plummer The proportion of our samples [from Canadian SARS patients] that show the coronavirus is going down. He said earlier this week that about 60% were showing the virus by PCR test; now its only 50%.
Of course, the case definition of SARS is a little loose, said Plummer but many of the Toronto cases are epidemiologically linked, and we are finding some of the best-characterized cases are negative. So its puzzling. As is the fact the amounts of virus we are finding, when we find it, are very small only detectable by very sensitive PCR.
Their samples from about 50 cases of probable SARS and 30 cases of suspected SARS are primarily, but not exclusively, nasopharyngeal swabs. Thats what the majority of labs around the world are testing its where you find most respiratory viruses Its strange [that theres so little virus there]
[b]Sorry for the long punchline….[/b]
“The (SARS) sequences Plummer’s (Canadian Level 4 ) lab is looking for are “the same as everyone else’s,” provided by the US Centers for Disease Control. The coronavirus is both avian-like and bovine-like, and is thought to represent a new family of coronaviruses.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol10no6/03-0852.htm
“”“Severe acute respiratory syndromeassociated coron- avirus (SARS-CoV) was isolated from a pig during a survey for possible routes of viral transmission after a SARS epidemic. Sequence and epidemiology analyses suggested that the pig was infected by a SARS-CoV of human origin.”“”
google translates these two passages as:
However, The experts had tested for high disease iatrogenic avian flu, the report did not mentioned.
The Ministry of Agriculture is responsible for the people on the 4th China claimed that nearly Japan’s outbreak of swine diseases characterized mainly by high fever Levy, as noted here #29482; high fever here #12290; is that the Ministry of Agriculture admitted that the past few years Southern parts of the hot and humid season that to the Vietnamese government had #24050; several times here #12290; March 2004 announced that the avian flu epidemic has been controlled system, but after five months later, avian flu Vol. Soil came from the southern provinces and rapidly to the whole States spread.
Grace at 20:09-Sorry about the delay in answering. I was out for a while. To answer your questions-I am “topped-off” and could shut the doors right now for the duration, (if I choose to do so). With the full-court press by all of the TPTB worldwide on suppressing information the pandemic could have already begun. (And I am not a conspiratorial type).
So the way I look at it “every day is a gift”, and I hope the gifts keep coming at least until next Fall (2007), but after that I start reaching my 95 per cent probabilities.
But who am I to say, they don’t tell me nothin’.
Monotreme - I just realized that heddiecalifornia has a thread going on communication practices in China. Instead of opening a new thread on infectious disease censorship in China, I’ll post there. Between heddiecalifornia’s thread and this one, it looks like the bases are being covered anyway.
Nightowl,
Yes, I saw her thread too. Yes, I think we have plenty of places to post on this important topic.
I think you guys are over reacting. If they publish these papers about SARS transmitting from human to pigs, and were not censored, and if anonymous got this article about the latest pig outbreaks, I say the information is available locally (just like information is available locally in Indonesia), but not serious enough to attract western MSM to report on them. I can’t believe that the Chinsese authorities are so stupid to cover up the pig outbreak, because the consequences of a pandemic are much more serious to them than to us. One of these papers said Guandong province has a population of 85 million, plus neighboring Hongkong and Macao (don’t know numbers). Just one province/region - almost 3 times the population of Canada. At such population density, Guandong population will be completely wiped out, along with all manufacturing capacity for all those goods we buy at Walmart etc.
I know Monotreme, Tom DVM will disagree with me on this. We have to wait for more news, and not get overly excited. We need to conserve our energy and not burn ourselves out before the real one hits.
I say we should watch them closely but calmly.
maybe someone can type the Chinese word for pig-high-fever-disease:
Ȳ
into the search field here:
http://news.google.com/news?ned=tcn
it doesn’t seem to work for my browser, although I can search
for this string from the google.com mainpage (4 hits)
>><<
forget the above post, the fluwiki-software changed the Chinese string.
See here for the correct string:
http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?p=539945#post539945
here is another article, which seems to say that the disease is not
new, but occurs regularly in summer in South China since years.
So, it looks unlikely that it is influenza.
Agriculture clear : the pig disease occurred in the south part of the current epidemic situation is not slowing down Zoonosis
September 5, 2006 : 4 hits Source : Agricultural Information Network In recent years, the hot and humid season, the pigs occurred in some parts of southern China as the main feature high fever epidemic of swine diseases, known as the “Pig high fever.” This summer, some small and medium-sized farms (households), the recurrence of the epidemic pigs. In this regard, the State Council attach great importance to it, have made important instructions on many occasions. Agriculture conscientiously implement the State Council’s instruction, organized Local veterinary departments have adopted a series of control measures. Currently,
the number has drastically reduced the incidence of live pigs, the epidemic situation is easing. Epidemic, the Ministry
of Agriculture repeatedly sent to the affected regions Group and the Working Group disease diagnosis and guide the local prevention and control work carried out. After laboratory tests excluded zoonotic disease, in addition to using the World Animal Health Organization (An Introduction to OIE) recommended method, the exclusion of African swine fever. Ministry of Agriculture veterinary personnel to local grass-roots organizations to guide fish farmers carry out disinfection, comprehensive prevention and control measures such as isolation, and immunization against the pathogen has been found; ADPMA bodies at all levels to strengthen quarantine work,
no marketing, transportation App prevent the epidemic from spreading. Strengthening the epidemic monitoring and reporting, promptly
discovered hidden perils. take early prevention measures. Meanwhile,
various measures should be taken to give wide publicity swine
disease prevention and control knowledge, the majority of farmers raising pigs, not slaughtering and consumption App.
apparantly it did spread quite dramatically this summer. Let’s see whether they can contain it. It seems to be a seasonal disease, depending on weather. So it will hopefully slow down when it’s getting colder and dryer.
OK, I finally figured out how to do these searches for Chinese keywords at news.google.com , it’s a bit complicated for me, but it works. I get 31 hits in Chinese Newspapers for pig-high-fever-disease. I could post them, if TomDVM thinks it’s important and wants to search for more explicite symptoms.
ANON-YYZ at 01:48
The paper that anonyomous posted was published on September 5 2006. The new censhorship laws did not go into effect until September 10 2006. The cenorship laws apply to material published in China. It is an attempt to control the flow of information into the country, not out. I’ve read the new laws and they are very draconian and broad. The Chinese government, through Xinhua, can bascially delete any material they don’t like and de-certify any news organization they don’t like. They are going back to the days of the Culutural Revolution in terms of information control within the country. I’ve posted some excerpts on the Chinese Communications thread. I don’t think we are over-reacting to the censorship laws themselves, they really are very significant.
As regards the link to the pig disease, of course we cannot know if they are related, but I think it is worth noting the timeline of events. We’ll just have to wait and see what develops, but I think we should be alert to any sudden and surprising changes in the behaviour of the Chinese government. And the new censorship laws qualify, IMO.
To FrenchieGirl at 18:58
Bird Flu and Polio are both deseases wich can cause paralizes. Polio does that in humans, Birdflu only in a small number of test animals. Hind legs paralyzes. Both viruses are neurotropic, attack all kinds of neural tissue.
anonymous, good tip on searching Chinese google.
Here is the link to a translated page:
Pig “high fever” handling technology standard (temporary) Agricultural products processing network - On September 10, 2006 In recent years, south our country the partial areas had the many kinds of causes of disease infection in the high temperature humidity season and continue send the pig which the infection caused “the high fever”, this sickness take gave off heat, the skin blushes and has the respiratory tract symptom and so on as a characteristic, provided the pig production to create the bigger economic loss. In order to prevent, controls this sickness, rests on “the People’s Republic of China animal guard law …
Guangdong has not had “the pig high fever” The Chinese feed on-line (must subscribe) - Before 11 hours Guangzhou on September 7 reporter learned from the Guangdong Province agriculture department that, Guangdong has not had until now “the pig high fever” the epidemic situation, this kind of pig sickness has not appeared in recent years in Guangdong. Yesterday Xinhua News Agency reported said that, south the partial local some pig field occurrences “the pig high fever” the epidemic situation, the field and raised the pig household for the pig to create the economic loss. … Zhanjiang takes strict precautions against “the pig high fever” at present not to discover this sickness up to the whole city South net - On September 8, 2006 Reporter yesterday (on September 7) understood since from the city raising livestock bureau, summer, south our country the partial areas have this year had “the pig high fever”. In order to prevent this epidemic disease spreads, the Zhanjiang raising livestock department is positive should to, promptly takes the measure, strictly guards against. Stops to at present, the whole city has not discovered “the pig high fever”. …
South China has “the pig high fever” Guangdong not to discover the related case of illness Sina Net - On September 5, 2006 South the net news country Ministry of Agriculture news office public office concerned person in charge on 4th said that, since this summer south China the partial areas have had “the pig high fever” the quantity large scale to reduce, the epidemic situation situation tends to relaxes. Reporter (on 5th) learned today from the province agriculture department that, at present Guangdong has not discovered “the pig high fever” case of illness. …
‘’‘“The pig high fever” the person livestock altogether contracts by no means Foshan Daily - On September 4, 2006′’‘ … Arises the quantity large scale to reduce, the epidemic situation situation tends to relaxes. This person in charge introduced that, this kind of pig sickness epidemic situation take the high fever as the main characteristic, is called “the pig high fever”. In recent years appears in the high temperature humidity season south partial areas many times. After the epidemic situation occurs, Ministry of Agriculture sends many times …
Guangdong Province agriculture department: Guangdong has not had “the pig high fever” New China net Guangdong frequency channel - On September 5, 2006 New China net Guangzhou, September 6 - (field seventh lunar month Liu Xian Li) reported according to Xinhua News Agency that, since this summer south partial local some center small feed farms, have raised the keeper of livestock has “the pig high fever” the live pig epidemic situation. Yesterday the Guangdong Province agriculture department concerned people in charge told reporter, Guangdong continuously extremely take the animal epidemic disease to guard against control the work, so far has not appeared “the pig high fever …
[ Video frequency ] the partial localpig high fever hastens the slow confirmation inhuman livestock altogether to be sick CCTV international - On September 4, 2006 Since… this summer south partial local some center small feed farms, have raised the keeper of livestock to have the live pig epidemic situation. At present the live pig arises the quantity large scale to reduce, the epidemic situation situation tends to relaxes. This person in charge introduced that, this kind of pig sickness epidemic situation take the high fever as the main characteristic, is called “the pig high fever”. In recent years appears in the high temperature humidity season south partial areas many times. …
South China “the pig high fever” the epidemic situation hastens slow Souhu.com - On September 4, 2006 The Ministry of Agriculture news office public office concerned person in charge on 4th said that, since this summer south China partial local some center small feed farms, have raised the keeper of livestock to have the live pig epidemic situation. At present the live pig arises the quantity large scale to reduce, the epidemic situation situation tends to relaxes. This person in charge introduced that, this kind of pig sickness epidemic situation take the high fever as the main characteristic, is called “the pig high fever”. …
How prevents the pig “the high fever” Agrarian Daily - On September 5, 2006 In the near future, south our country the partial countrysides area will occur take the pig high fever, sends critically ill and the death quickly as characteristic pig sickness, will be many by high temperature, the humidity season arises, raises the management condition difference to disperse the keeper of livestock and the small pig field sends, vividly is called “the high fever”. Prevents this sickness to be supposed to complete the following several points: … Guangdong not presently “pig high fever”
Nanfang Daily - On September 5, 2006 Newspaper news (Reporter/Chen Qinghao) reported according to Xinhua News Agency that, since this summer south partial local some center small feed farms, have raised the keeper of livestock has “the pig high fever” the live pig epidemic situation. Yesterday the province agriculture department concerned people in charge told reporter, Guangdong have not so far had “the pig high fever”. …
Here’s a link to one of the stories, translated by bablefish:
Pig “high fever” handling technology standard (temporary)
1) popular characteristic this sickness assumes the regional characteristic popularly, the popular season obvious, mainly occurs to the high temperature, the humidity season, sends, the disease incidence rate critically ill high, the treatment result difference, the mortality rate is higher. The different date age, the different variety pig may occur; Mainly raises the management and the hygienic condition worse disperses the keeper of livestock and center, the small pig farm sends; The immunity does not arrive, the immunity procedure and uses the medicine unreasonable pig field especially to be obvious.
(2) clinical main symptom book gets sick the main symptom is the pig group suddenly arises, 体温升高 to 40 ℃ above, the spirit sinks strongly fragrant, picks the food quantity to drop or the appetite waste certainly, has difficulty in breathing, happy bends down lies, contracts the pig skin to blush, the ear department cyanosis, bodily many place skins and so on hypogastric and four limbs end assume the purplish red color spot massive. Arises the pig group mortality rate high, generally is 10%−30%, high may reach above 50%, the young pig is more obvious. The partial sows are being pregnant the later period to appear the miscarriage, produces the still birth, the weak young and the mummy.
(3) main pathological change dies of illness the pig to split examines the pathological change to assume the multiplicity. In the chest cavity, the abdominal cavity has the massive yellow to accumulate the fluid and the textile fiber 渗出物, presents the sending size textile fiber natural disposition pleurisy and the peritonitis. The lung dropsy, assumes the motley shape to the brown marble type pathological change; Between the lung the nature increases the width, between the nature pneumonia pathological change is obvious. The lymph node, specially the inguen lymph node and the lung hilus lymph node obvious are tumescent. The part dies of illness the pig kidney tumescently, assumes brown or the earth yellow, the quality of material is crisper, has the extravasated blood phenomenon; The spleen tumescent, the nature is crisp; The individual pig has the digestive tract pathological change.
Tom DVM can give a better account, but the impression I get is that “pig fever” is a syndrome (a collection of symptoms) not the name of a particular disease. This syndrome has been before, usually when it is hot and humid.
There appears to be concern that there may also be one or more infectious diseases that can cause epidemics. Taken together with the article that anonymous posted at 20:38, I think there is concern that some of the pigs in China with “pig fever” might be infected with H5N1. We need a human translation, but they seem to consider this at least a theoretical possibility.
The good news, so far, is that I haven’t seen any reports that clearly indicate that human infections or deaths have occured, although again, we need a human translation to be sure.
Monotreme et al. We should start by keeping one thing in mind. There appear to be so many pigs and so many humans (and possibly so many chickens?) in this area that I am not sure anyone knows what is going on.
Secondly, the farmers here are highly skilled animal husbandry management specialists of pigs whether they are in back yard flocks or not. You don’t have a seven fold expansion to these types of numbers without knowing what you are doing and there must be established information pathways between these farms to coordinate things or it would all be lost in managerial anarchy.
Now, as far as this disease is concerned, despite their obvious level of skill they are at a loss to do anything to prevent or stop the spread…they are basically treating this like a ‘forest fire’. They are standing aside and trying to let itself burn out.
There are a couple of things about the clinical signs mentioned…and I had a hard time quite understanding them. This appears to be a viremia and primarily pneumonia rather than a diarrheal disease or a bloody diarrheal disease which are quite frequent with pigs.
In other words this virus, if the clinical signs and postmortem findings are correct targets the lungs and the pleural cavity. Their are findings in the abdomen and those indicate general viremia or possibly secondary bacterial infection.
I guess at this point I would want to know the apparent incubation period and the time from illness to death…hours, days or weeks.
Sorry, I don’t think this is a syndrome of diseases…typically, this would be one disease causing all the problems.
It should be remembered that farm animal veterinarians spend all day almost every day treating localized epidemics…can be one farm, a number of farms or a whole area…and it is not uncommon for a disease to break on a large number of farms at the exact same time period. It is a different world with what would be different rules from which you would expect.
As far as whether pigs in China have H5N1…it is strictly a question of numbers and probablilities.
Eighty percent of the pig farms are relatively small family farms. Although I have a great deal of admiration for farm families, this does come with some inherent and significant problems.
These will be multi-species farms with probably chickens as well. Pigs will route around and will browse and sample many feed types. Therefore, they might eat chicken faeces and will definitely be eating chicken who die from any cause, although I would not want to make generalizations here because I have observed some highly efficient small family farms…where you could eat off the floors.
So if pigs don’t get H5N1 from eating chicken byproducts then they will be in contact through direct contact. Nipah infections supposedly occur from bats pooping in the vicinity of pigs as well.
Therefore, we have the pig numbers (seven fold increase 6 years) and the poultry numbers (possibly even a larger expansion) and huge human populations in the same place.
The question is not whether pigs are being infected. The question is 1) are they susceptible…can H5N1 infect them or 2)does it produce asymptomatic infection or 3) does it cause symptomatic infection.
I am afraid that H5N1 initially couldn’t infect pigs…then could infect pigs asymptomatically and now is affecting pigs symptomatically.
This statement if true has huge implications for the pigs closest relative….as Medical Maven put it yesterday…OINK!!
but, do you agree that pig-high-fever is probably _not_ influenza ?
anonymous. I do not have all the facts…
and I would really like some time alone with a few of these sick pigs…before and after they die…if you know what I mean…
…and I don’t think I am at the top of the Government of China’s consultant list ao the above is probably not going to happen /:0)
I can tell you that a percentage of the pig population in China will have contacted H5N1.
This is an exotic virus unseen by the porcine immune system up until now…
…It would take between 1–3 wks to screen postmorten and live tissues for viruses…most testing in North America would be done in a few days.
Are we to believe that despite the economic loss they have done no testing? Are we to believe that they have done testing and found nothing? Are we to believe that they have done testing and found out that this is a minor outbreak with a mutated previously commone pathogen?
anonymous. That’s where my problem starts and ends. As a veterinarian with a life-time of tracking these bugs and trying my best to save farmer’s livelyhoods…THIS MAKES NO SENSE TO ME AT ALL…ZERO.!!
If they can’t look me diretly in the eye and tell me that it is this bug and explain to me the process that they followed to identify this bug and disclose all of their laboratory results to me…
…then it is H5N1 until they prove otherwise.
How many times must we be kicked by the mule before we go stand somewhere else.
My family is going to pay a huge price for their screw-ups have way around the world…that is the nature of the term pandemic.
Here’s hoping China doesn’t shut down it’s media releases on the pigs, but my gut says they will. If this situation is due to h5n1 and people have died as well, China is smart enough to block that information. They are not about to slice their own throats. I don’t know about the anyone else, but this woman will not be buying Hormel products. If this is how I feel, can you imagine what would happen to their stock if MSM reported this.
As far as some symptom changes in pigs, this I would expect. This virus has more to feed on! gina
it is H5N1 until they prove otherwise
ludicrous.
Monotreme at 08:23
I say the only thing that changed was foreign correspondents not allowed to post news into China. There was no freedom of the press within China before - nothing new here.
Yesterday, the mood on this forum was so grim someone was going to start SIP and throw away the key. Others talked about increasing the preps etc.
I am more concerned now that I know of this 85 million population in Guandong province. At such a high density, it may be as bad if not worse than New York City, and based on your model, any government (even in the U.S.) would have no choice but to quarantine the place. That brings up the subject of supply chain disruption. To me the bigger question and more urgent question is what are our governments doing to encourage our population to prepare for such global disruption. Why is CDC suggesting that it is very difficult for the virus to turn pandemic? Why is the Canadian government suggesting everything is under control when there is not much action? I know they ordered Tamiflu, but what about storing food and water. Current recommendation is 3 days for general emergency.
We won’t be able to find out when H5N1 turns pandemic in China. Watch them closely but calmly and don’t try to catch the falling knife.
anonymous. If you don’t want an honest answer…don’t ask the question…
…and if it is ludicrous…maybe you would like to give me an understandable alternative that fits the scope of the outbreak and the obviously unique character of the pathogen…
…and you also haven’t given me your reasoning why this outbreak may have been going on for a few years in one form or another and they have not come back with one word on causative agent.
that’s not the way veterinary medicine and science works.
ANON - YYZ. To catch a falling knife…we have to see it first.
The Government of China is doing everything they possibly can to make sure we don’t see it coming…or if we see it coming, it is coming from Vietnam or Thialand or maybe a good solution would be if it comes from North Korea…no one likes them anyway.
I’m curious about the phrase “person in charge on 4th” in the article published on the fifth of Sept. I wonder if this is an attempt to limit fallout after authorities read the article or an acknowledgement that people can be fired quickly or if 4th refers to some level of government?
anonymous at 11:34-No, what is ludicrous is your obstinance in persisting to flout the standards of this forum by maintaining anonymity. And doing so, because of some perceived slight in the past? Or doing so, just because we want you to adopt a handle? A child-like contrariness?
If you are going to take liberties in commenting on statements by any one us and verge on being insulting, at least have the courtesy to adopt a handle.
And be thorough in your criticisms by laying out logical counterpoints instead of throwing out one-word pejoratives.
Tom DVM at 11:14
You spend a lot of time on this forum. If you truly believe that it’s going to come out of China, then I would ask you to spend some time correcting the Canadian government’s lack of action. A little speculation is not a bad thing, but it’s too much. I know you have tremendous stress and I don’t want this worry to hurt your health. I hope you treat this as a friendly plea.
ANON-YYZ. Thanks for your kind comments here and in the past. I really was just trying to slip that one comment in without anyone noticing but it didn’t work to well.
Now, as far as the Canadian Government goes. In Sept 1998, as a Federally Accredited Veterinarian with twenty years experience and with irrefutable independent laboratory test results behind me, I went to my agency…the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Health Canada and the Government of Canada to have them intervene and do a little survelliance on a wide variety of imported foods from China.
But at that time their masters were very busy with their Team Canada visits to China and they weren’t very interested in listening to what I had to say objectively as scientists.
Given my history with the agencies predecessor, Agriculture Canada - Health of Animals Division, I expected this situation to be dealt with effectively and brutally in 2 weeks.
I continued my discussions with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Health Canada and the Government of Canada for approx. six more years. During that time, I ran into a whole lot of politicians but did not run into one scientist.
I have had this battle and I have the scars and the files to prove it…but if you can think of an approach that might work…I am with you all the way. Thanks again. /:0)
highflyer at curevent:
So? TomDVM got some facts wrong and some facts right and
the rest is opinion, not that different from mine by the way.
“I think you missed the point a bit the pigs may or may not be
a mixing vessel”
What I said, they might not be needed. Pigs as a mixing vessel
is old knowledge, valid, it happens (or happened). The current
theory is, that avian flu could lead to a pandemic directly.
So the pigs might be in the picture or not at all.
“pigs are a potential mixing vessel whether we want them to be
or not and that means one more variable is out of control”
Stating the obvious. If they have flu (does not have to be H1N5)
then there is one more possible variable in the play. We do not know that.
“and just because a certain thing did not happen in the past
does not mean that H5N1 might find a completely different way
to use pigs in the future. “
?? Pigs as mixing vessels is schoolbook knowledge. And yes it could happen.
“The second issue is that in the past pigs were not infected”
Outright wrong, as I posted pigs can be infected, there were
studies done (three that I know of, earliest was 1998). See my
post what the results were: high dosis needed, low letality and
difficult to infect by just being in the same barn.
Of course, all that could have changed or could change in the
future, no proof not even a hint that it has.
“which means this is another demonstration of rapid adaption
to a mammalian species”
If its H1N5 then yea, otherwise no.
“pigs are one step removed from us”
Yes.
“so even if the virus does not use the pigs the virus has made
a significant jump closer to us “
Yes, if.
“if it goes in pigs the potential template is too large not to have
future influences directly on our collective futures. “
Possible, not definite
“I would like to raise one other point each viral infection
produces billions upon billions of individual replications”
Yes, but birds take care of that in much greater numbers already.
“so in a population there are an infinite numbers of mutations
mutations of every concievable type. “
Not really. There is a limit.
“Thle thing is that human mutations in viruses infecting avian
species may not catch on and visa versa”
No proof for that, pure speculation that human viruses can infect birds.
“the bottom line is that in my opinion, the pandemic virus with all
required mutations is being produced repeatedly it is just the
environment has not been right with the confluence of variables
to allow it to take off pigs offer a launching pad”
If the pigs have flu, its dangerous. Agreed and not new.
But - in the past to be a mixing vessel, they did not have to die.
Quite the opposite, a mixing vessel that sails longer is far more
effective. Same idea as with the Aids patients discussion.
The obvious high death rate of these pigs, dying of whatever,
says nothing other than that: pig meat might become more
expensive wherever whenever
Tom, could we maybe agree then that with the new info
swine-flu is less likely, although it can’t be ruled out yet ?
(should be vague enough…)
anonymous at 12:38-Are you sure highflyer’s alias isn’t “stalking dragon”?
And please rotate your guest line-up from Current Events. We want that “fair and balanced” veneer for fluwiki.
anonymous at 12:34. Does this mean your handle is highflyer at current events. Well nice to meet you…Why don’t you just post as highflyer…you are more than welcome here.
It has happened before here but I think you and I are dancing on the head of a pin here. You are obviously up on your information as am I.
We would agree that pigs are a factor…and in that case, whether or not they are a mixing vessel is really not important…if this is in fact H5N1 in this many pigs…we are in big trouble and we are in big trouble anyway.
If we assume an in effect infinite number of replications then we must assume an infinite number of mutations…and a mutation to a pandemic virus in a bird is and has been a dead end until that bird contacts a human in a factory farm and that human has a number of fellow workers (as in H7N7 in the Netherlands). Using this pathway, the virus could completely adapt to humans in birds (1918).
and it should be remembered that there is influenza in pigs only because they caught it from humans in 1918 or in the stages leading up to 1918.
Pigs are a mixing vessel. They will always be a mixing vessel at the interface between wild animals, domesticated animals and us…it is their relative postion that makes them important…
…and their eating habits being omnivores (eating animal and vegetable matter with equal prowess) and also they are extremely intelligent animals in my opinion on the same level as a wolf.
I know that H5N1 has infected pigs in the past but not at this level and not at this virulence.
I agree with you that the worst case scenario is 60% CFR in humans and 0% in pigs. This allows the virus to adapt to us in another mammalian species without needing us to be involved…and for the record, I believe that is exactly what is going on at the moment.
“Quite the opposite, a mixing vessel that sails longer is far more effective.”. I completely agree.
“The obvious high death rate of these pigs, dying of whatever, says nothing other than that: pig meat might become more expensive wherever whenever” On this one I completely disagree. If this is H5N1 and we don’t know that yet, it indicates that H5N1 is fully adapted to a mammalian species once removed from us…with a CFR of 40%…and I think you would agree on second thought that that is extremely important to us on two accounts 1) timing of the next pandemic and 2) potential virulence of the pandemic virus.
What are the chances that some -or most- of these pigs are in the food supply? How much pork do we import from China? Also, I seem to remember a couple of months ago, I believe it was England, that said if they find it in pork they would destroy all their pigs. Does anyone else remember that?
anonymous at 12:38.
We don’t know whether this is H5N1 or Nipah or some other mutated and therefore exotic virus to pigs…
…and the really dumb thing is that the World Health Organization could have cleared this ‘tempest in a teapot’ up a week ago or a month ago or it now appears maybe a year ago…
…It’s pretty clear that once again like H5N1 in chickens, SARS, Foot and Mouth and Strept. suis, they are hiding something…and that’s the point…when they cover things up there always turns out to be a very good reason why they covered everything up…and the most likely source of the cover-up at this point is H5N1 or other influenza…the most likely being H7N7.
If the World Health Organization and my friend Dick Thompson would like to treat their fellow travellers with respect for their intelligence…they can choose their mode of delivery AND PROVIDE FULL DISCLOSURE with independent verification by a scientific third party (I know longer trust anything that the World Health Organization says based on a clear track record…their comments are rumours to me until backed up by independent sources).
Now, even if this turns out to be a million pigs with H5N1, that does not mean the pandemic is tomorrow…that means we don’t have two years to the pandemic and regulators and governments around the world already know it. That might be a partial explanation for Dr. Nabarro’s fatigue according to Goju.
So my point would be that if the pigs have it or if the World Health Organization doesn’t provide data soon to disprove H5N1 as the cause…then it is time for me to start prepping in a hurry and it is time for you to finish your preps because the likelyhood of a pandemic this year just doubled. Thanks for the question.
DeBP. Given my examination of China and food quality that is a tempting question to answer but as a scientist I could only give you the answer when I was reasonably sure that I was correct…and I can’t do that at the moment…
…but I do believe you intuitively know the answer to your question. /:0)
DebP at 13:19 -
I’ve been researching that question myself. So far I haven’t found the answer. I’ve also been reading the labels on some of my prep foods and I’ve come to the conclusion we don’t really know where a lot of our food comes from. Until the COOL (Country of Origin Labeling) law takes effect (it’s been delayed until Septemeber 30, 2008, I believe) we’re only guessing. The words “Distributed by: or Marketed by:” tell me nothing.
Tom DVM at 13:22-That was a GrandSlam Tom!
You must have eaten your Wheaties this morning. : )
Tom DVM at 13:07: “We dont know whether this is H5N1 or Nipah or some other mutated and therefore exotic virus to pigs” Although I’ve been quiet for awhile, Tom, I have been enjoying your most informative posts. I know that the reason for the pig die-offs in China can only be mere speculation at this point, as there appears to be an unusually harsh censorship of the media there, for whatever reason. But do we know if this phenomenon has crossed borders anywhere? And is it possible that H3N8 could jump the species barrier to pigs, as it did with dogs? Or to put it another way, have you seen many dog diseases jump to pigs in your professional career? Just curious. Thanks again for your analyses.
Monotreme,
Tom DVM can give a better account, but the impression I get is that pig fever is a syndrome (a collection of symptoms) not the name of a particular disease. This syndrome has been before, usually when it is hot and humid.
I said that yesterday. Nobody wants to listen to me.
<sulk>
just kidding :-)
Thanks a lot Medical Maven.
OKbirdwatcher. I think you’ve got it about right…watch out for the old ‘value added’ escape hatch…and there is another good one that they oten use, ‘the old switheroony’…
…the way this works is that you would never by product y from country x…so what they do is ship the product from country x to country y where they repackage it with some really nice packaging and then they ship it to country z because we in country z like buying product y from country y.
Here is my translation of the first paragraph of the piece posted by anonymous at 20:38. I’m not going to translate the whole thing for copyright and other reasons, but I will make bullet point notes as I go along.
(When you think in 2 different languages, your grammar goes out the window.)
The Ministry of Agriculture in China confirmed on Sept 4th that since this summer outbreaks of a pig disease have been happening in areas of southern China. Since pigs have both human and avian receptors to avian flu viruses, they can be infected by both types. If these 2 different types of viruses infect the same pig cell at the same time, they may exchange genetic materials. Because of this, health experts should not take lightly this report of an outbreak of pig disease in southern China, and the relevant Ministries of the Chinese government should not gloss over problems related to this outbreak.
By the way, Tom, I don’t mean to start any more conspiracies, but is anyone questioning the reason the Chinese were giving for culling so many dogs a few months back? Could it really have been rabies, or was it something else? It sure seemed strange to me. Maybe they did this before? It seems that they sure did kill quite a few dogs in the name of rabies….
Tom DVM at 13:07 “anonymous at 12:34. Does this mean your handle is highflyer at current events. Well nice to meet youWhy dont you just post as highflyeryou are more than welcome here. “
Highflyer is indeed a poster at CE (whose words I suspect are being copied here without his/her knowledge). I believe HF was responding at CE (curevents) to the comments of a poster who uses the name gsgs at CE, and who would like all the forums to be merged. So he is trying to do just that on his own.
While I dont think the various forums should be merged, it would be better to have no anonymous posters here. As in this case, it makes discussion all the more confusing during these difficult times.
Ok, everyone knows that 1 million pigs died. Everyone knows it wasn’t from old age. So it is for a sure a disease that is killing them. If it isn’t H5N1 why won’t they just tell everyone. Are some diseases worse than others? (Except of course H5n1)
De jure and others.
China has a huge stray dog problem. Don’t think of dogs in the same way as people think of dogs in the west, where you get a dog from a pet shop or dog breeder. Most dogs in countries like China are mongrels and they wander around living on whatever people want to feed them with. Because there is such a huge population of dogs that don’t have proper owners or are owned by very low income people, NO ONE has the money to go and sterilize them. Therefore every now and then when diseases break out, local governments have to go around doing culls.
Anon_22 at 14:36: Thanks, anon_22, all the more reason to ask the question: which diseases do dogs and pigs share with one another? And if they were culling dogs for rabies, do they do this often? (every year, once in awhile, etc.?) And who is verifying that the disease is rabies? Is it something their neighbors should be concerned about? Just curious. It just seems that there have been quite a few viral outbreaks in China lately, or maybe its just because we all are paying a bit more attention.
Hi De Jure Was it you who first jumped in and said that H5N1 was manmade in China…and then got jumped on? I just want to get my facts straight.
I graduated in 1982. I will try to explain just how unprecedented all this change actually is.
In my four years at veterinary college, there was not one mention of influenza and poultry and the fact it might be a zoonosis. We trained about others including rabies of course, brucellosis (undulant fever), Erysipelas, Listeriosis, Leptospirosis, Salmonella Campylobacter and E. coli etc. In most cases these bugs would make you sick but not kill you…except rabies.
It was in 1988 I think when suddenly things started to change. In Australia, there was an outbreak of sickness in horses that basically also killed all the humans in contact with them in short order including the veterinarians I believe. This sent a shock through the veterinary community because it was unheard of and undiagnosed for a long period of time. I just learned a few weeks ago that the virus involved is a close relative of the Nipah virus that is currently hanging around in Asia…in a sense that outbreak represented ‘innocence lost’ for us and me.
Then other things started changing, I started seeing diseases becoming harder to treat and I saw a sudden epidemic of Blackleg disease (soil borne like tetanus). I found out that the last known cases were in the early 1950′s. This kind of thing also starts to perk you up a bit. Then, I started seeing this weird virus caused pneumonia in cattle that I learned to treat effectively after a time…and when SARS showed up I realized I had been treating its ‘kissin cousin’ in cattle for several years in Canada…luckily it didn’t decide to hit humans here or I would have definitely had it. The difference for me in learning to handle the cytokine storm was when I learned to manage the disease with prednisolone in relatively high doses for short periods and I learned that spectinomycin seemed to have some antiviral effects.
There has been too many disease changes to mention but West Nile mutated to come to North America, Dengue fever has mutated to extend into areas it didn’t use to go and to increase virulence, I understand malaria is doing the same thing, we have drug resistant bacteria on many levels etc. etc. etc. etc.
And we have H3N8 that you mentioned. This virus had been stable in horses for several decades, probably fifty years. It had never crossed the species barrier to anyones knowledge and yet here we are again. There had never been a case of high pathogenic flu identified in humans until 1997 and then Bingo…we have H5, H7, H9 etc. etc. and now H3N8 which I believe is a low pathogenic virus that may have been involved in the 1890 pandemic which supposedly was the worst one in 300 years.
This is highly unusual. Will it jump to people. I would say all bets are off now that it is in dogs because unfortunately, kids love dogs and people have a tendency to kiss and hug sick dogs which means this virus is again possibly circulating where is shouldn’t be going.
Can it jump from dogs to pigs. probably Can it jump from dogs to humans probably…but not necessarily for a significant time period.
To me the bottom line is we are in unprecedented times…something is pushing the pathogens of the world…parasitic, bacterial and viriological.
The experience of the last fifteen years indicates to me that we should throw the rule book out…take nothing for granted…expect the unexpected.
It all gets probably pretty confusing even for the world’s experts I think.
Geez DeJure 14:24. I forgot about those dogs. Does anyone know if this occured in the same general geographic area…Okieman, we need another one of your maps.
…I never bought the rabies argument…if they are such good vaccine makers, they could produce gallons of rabies vaccine…it’s not like the technology hasn’t been standardized for decades…unless it was a completely exotic strain of rabies which is entirely possible given their history.
Or maybe their message wasn’t about dogs at all…
Mosaic. Thanks.
I agree with you this gets to be a problem…I know that gs wouldn’t do anything maliscous and I know that he is not the anonymous at 11:34.
Tom at 14:44: You’re partly right: I floated the possibility that H5N1 may have been a lab experiment, further speculating on its possible use as a bioweapon, just from the circumstantial evidence I could gather. Then as you recall certain matching sequences from ‘04 were withdrawn by the Chinese and we were off to the races. Anyway, I don’t think anyone should rule anything out, expect the unexpected as you would say. I ask provocative questions to come up with explanations which might help me to see where this thing is going. It would be nice if we had the data from China to get some answers to our questions, but all we can do is speculate if the data isn’t forthcoming. I think our best bet at this point is to see what is going on with China’s neighbors to see what may be going on in China. Disease knows no political boundries. Thanks for your reply.
/:0)
Tom DVM-Yesterday you stated that China reminded you of the Soviet Union in 1988 prior to its breakup. I thought, at the time, that was stretching it. But putting aside their SURFACE economic strength, I am beginning to think that things are spinning out of control for their “politburo”. (Witness the recently promulgated laws). Environmentally (which includes associated viral outbreaks) it is probably looking pretty scary for those at the top.
China has a tiger by the tail, and they can’t jail it or shoot it.
By the way Tom, for what it’s worth, your advice on how to handle the H5N1 monster changed my entire outlook on how to prep for it. Before I started reading your comments, I thought I could just get enough antivirals for my family and it would be cool. Wrong. You pointed out that this thing will definitely eat your lunch if you get infected with it. I took a long look at masks in particular and came to the conclusion that you cannot have too many of them. In fact, I tell people who haven’t prepped to concentrate on one thing above all the others: get a good supply of N-95 masks. By the way, you can get a good deal on N-95s at usplastic.com (they sell them for less than $.50 US). You convinced me that I will not expose myself or my family to H5N1 at all costs.
STAFF WRITER WITH CNA Monday, Sep 11, 2006,Page 3
?
The Council of Agriculture (COA) called yesterday for chicken and pig farms to set up bird-proofing nets as soon as possible in an attempt to keep wild birds separated from poultry and pigs and prevent outbreaks of avian flu. COA officials said the nets should be set up by the end of this year and warned that farmers who fail to comply will face fines of NT$10,000-NT$50,000. Taiwan is a stopover site for various species of migratory birds, which are considered carriers of the avian flu virus. The officials said that the government will offer subsidies to poultry and pig farmers who set up nets before the end of the year.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2006/09/11/2003327099
Tom DVM at 10:37 pigs closest relative…
we are pigs closest relatives? ~yikes~ no wonder we are having such an obesity epidemic! (okay, clearing cookies & going back to reading/lurking status)
De jure
I can’t tell you why they were culling dogs that specific time, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was because of rabies.
The point that I am making, is that you have to interpret information in the context of what is usual and unusual in a particular country. And culling dogs for large outbreaks of rabies would not be unusual.
Pig disease outbreaks would not be unusual. Millions of pigs dying would be unususal.
A clampdown of foreign media is not rare but is not something that would happen everyday, so it deserves attention. But there are many reasons for clampdown of media, and I don’t know what it might be, but my guess is it’s not H5N1 or the pig deaths. And it’s just a guess, intuition, whatever.
Ruth at 14:34 If it isnt H5N1 why wont they just tell everyone. Are some diseases worse than others? (Except of course H5n1)
See, here is where I’m going to make another of those cultural arguments that drive Monotreme bonkers (that’s a British term, BTW). And when i say cultural, I don’t mean just China and the west. I mean countries that have diametrically opposite policies, customs, laws, what-have-you, in this case regarding freedom of information.
Let’s put it this way, the US has a Freedom of Information Act, the UK has an Official Secrets Act. I live here and travel to the US frequently and have lots of American friends (!), and I can tell you there is a huge difference in how official information is handled routinely, even though both are democracies.
Now in a country like China or the old USSR or even the new Russia, or Iraq, or Burma, everything and anything is secret unless some official comes along to tell you it is not. Even then, you look over your shoulder to see if he’s setting you up before you say anything to anyone.
There are places on this planet where train timetables are national secrets.
So just because they are not telling is not indicative of anything, unless it is in a country that routinely discloses everything about disease outbreaks. China is not one of them. So it could be H5N1, it could be Swine fever, it could be anything. The fact of them not saying much does not add to what we know, is all I’m saying.
anon_22 at 15:30-Whatever is going on in China, it will affect the world. For years all of the experts (financial and otherwise) said it could not go on like this forever for China—stellar growth rates, relative calm, etc.
And now for a year or more I have read little about China’s hidden economic liabilities that could blow up in their face, etc. If you take the contrarian point of view, now is the time to watch out. The most telling convergent trends in the world are now centered on the Mideast and China. But China is pre-eminent because it has that big scarlet letter on its forehead-H5N1.
BTW did you know that you can’t buy detailed US street maps outside of the N american continent? For security reasons.
What’s so secret about these maps that you can get info on the internet on half a dozen sites?
Official policies don’t always make sense, but they still exist. :-)
we are pigs closest relatives? ~yikes~ Actually, bears are the the closest relative to swine.
When did they first dig up those 1918 flu pandemic corpses to study them? Which research study? There were a number of them - Hultin in 1951, Spitsbergen (between Norway and Greenland) in 1998, etc.
Re-Dogs in China —
I recall reading about several incidences in the 1970′s when there were food shortages that people in some cities were commanded to kill any pet dogs they were keeping as pets, and entire cities did so; people ate them. Authorities said they ate food that should be going to people.
Large dogs were always kept in China by landlords for protection of property; after the Revolution a lot of them went feral and ran in packs and attacked people, carrying off small children and feeding on corpses. To this day many Chinese people are afraid of mongrel type dogs; especially some of the older people who recall the upheavals in the cities.
The smaller dogs, like the hairless and Pekingese pet dogs were considered pets of the aristocracy, and were killed off in short order as a symbol of decadence.
When China first went into Tibet, they required that Tibetan dogs be killed off, and many of the shepherds did so themselves to be sure that their companions had a painless death. Very few of the Tibetan Mastiffs, a very old and wonderful guard dog and herding breed, were left — I believe that the TM show dogs now available in the west are descended from only about 8 or ten dogs found after this kill off.
Once you have traveled in a Chinese City, you will find that everything is so crowded, there is really very little space for most dogs to enjoy any kind of life. Any worms, fleas, parasites could become a very great problem for very many people in pretty short order. Dogs are pretty much close to vermin. For pets, the Chinese prefer caged birds or crickets, and sometimes fishbowls — entertaining, easy to feed, fun to watch, small space.
To this day many Chinese people are afraid of mongrel type dogs;
As kids, we were taught that dogs were dangerous the same way as playing with matches was dangerous.
I had a big phobia of dogs till I got to my 30s….
And now I have as big a dog as one can get….
:-)
here is one other translation, courtesy to Kassy from curevents,
which looks interesting and has quite some details about the desease:
How guards against controls the pig high fever?
[ Author: Chen Jianxiong The extension pastes from: The mechanization raises pigs the association Click number: 556 Renewal time: 2006–9−4 ]
gThe pig nameless high feverh is the pig high fever synthesis drafts, is one kind of disease incidence rate and mortality rate high disease, mainly occurs is nurturing Cheng Qizhu and the partial sows, the sickness pig clinical main performance for the rise of bodily temperature, the spirit sinks strongly fragrant, has a poor appetite or waste certainly, the breath difficult, gasps for breath, the partial pigs are accompanied by the skin to blush change purple and so on the symptoms, the minority pore has the bleeding point.
The cause of disease mainly for many kinds of viral and the bacterium, parasite’s mix infection and continues sends the infection, including hog cholera virus (HCV), the pig reproduction and the breath synthesis drafts viral (PRRSV), pig flu virus (SIV), false rabies virus (ADV), pig ring virus 2 (PCV-II) and the pig peripneumonia puts line bacillus (APP), pig streptococcus 2 (SS-II), vice-pig bloodthirsty bacillosis (HP), kills Pakistan bacillus (PM), pig mycoplasma pneumonia (MH), the arch body, attaches the red blood cell body, bacterium and so on pig cholera salmonella bacillus (SC) mix infections. @ @ Starts from 2006 at the end of May, certain local many pig farms, the growth nurture Cheng Zhu and the partial sows, the care pig explode the pig nameless high fever, the majority of morbidity pig farm trouble pig disease incidence rate above 50%, the mortality rate reaches as high as 50~90%, has created the serious economic loss for the pig farm and the pig farmer, therefore some pig farms go bankrupt. @ @ Because this sickness cause of disease is complex, for the multi-cause of disease mix infection, on clinical is generally difficult to control, the treatment result is not often ideal, creates the pig mass growth slow or stagnant, the sick and disabled pig and the death pig only increases, the feed efficiency, the growth speed as well as the pig group overall uniformity reduces, the treatment cost increases, causes to raise pigs the production to suffer the serious loss.
Morbidity characteristic @@ 1.Occurs in the temperature high season, the course of an illness is long, about 5~20 days, the case fatality rate is generally high. @@ 2.The pig farm to guards against the work not to take, the technical personnel health care idea is bad, does not have the strict seal pig farm, not to carry on the system to the pig group the health care pig farm morbidity to be serious. @@ 3.The morbidity pig’s body weight in 20~80kg, the disease incidence rate is generally highest, also has is weaned after newborn pig morbidity. @@ 4.Medicine treatment result not too ideal, applies drugs randomly the pig farm mortality rate is higher. @
@ Clinical symptom @ @ Morbidity pig rise of bodily temperature to 40~42.5, the spirit sinks strongly fragrant, picks the appetite to drop or the appetite waste certainly, contracts the pig skin to blush, after ear ear bodily many place skin spottiness and so on edge cyanosis, hypogastric and four limbs end massive, assumes the purple red; Breathes the difficulty, bends down happy lies, the partial pigs appear the serious abdominal breathing, asthma are rapid, some performance gasp for breath or assume the irregular breath; The partial trouble pig flows the nasal mucus, sneezes, the cough, the eye secretion increases, the majority of pigs have the tear spot, has the conjunctivitis symptom; The partial pig group constipation, the excrement constipation, assumes spherically, urinates Huang Ershao, muddy, color deepening. The course of an illness slightly long sickness pig whole body is pale, appears anemia phenomenon, by Mao Culuan, the partial sickness pig hind legs is been incapable front, the individual sickness pig is on the verge of death cannot stand, the final whole body twitches dies. The morbidity pig group mortality rate is very high, some pig farms even reach as high as 50~90%. The partial sows are being pregnant the later period (100~110 days) to appear the miscarriage, produces the still birth, weak whelp and mummy.
this reminds me to the posts from Mingus at FT about circovirus and PMWS. Some other infection(including flu) would be required to start/accelerate that disease.
1: Vet Microbiol. 2004 Feb 4;98(2):159–63. Porcine circovirus-2 and concurrent infections in the field. Ellis J, Clark E, Haines D, West K, Krakowka S, Kennedy S, Allan GM.
… Porcine circovirus-2 (PCV-2) is the necessary cause of post-weaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS) in swine; however, a variety of co-factors, including other infectious agents, are thought to be necessary in the full expression of disease. … Other co-infecting agents with PCV-2 in the lung include, (PRRSV), swine influenza virus (SIV) and Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae.
1: Vet J. 2003 Nov;166(3):251–6. Association of porcine circovirus 2 with porcine respiratory disease complex. Kim J, Chung HK, Chae C.
porcine respiratory disease complex (PRDC) porcine circovirus 2 (PCV2)
Among the 105 pigs with PRDC, 85 were positive for PCV2, 66 were positive for porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), 60 were positive for porcine parvovirus (PPV), 14 were positive for swine influenza virus (SIV). There were 80 co-infections and 25 single infections.
[Korea,2003]
Anon_22 — Good for you! But I hope that you don’t decide to become a pyromaniac any time soon ---
I live in the SF Bay area, where there are a lot of China-born people and their elderly relatives. When I am walking my huskies, I have found that some view them with real alarm, particularly when their little kids head over to pet them.
Of course, I often cross the street to avoid pit-bull type terriers — it’s a matter of becoming familiar with the breeds.
I thank my lucky stars to live in the USA and to be able to keep animals as pets and be able to feed them, buy flea and worm and tick repellants, and keep them close to home.
DeJure. 15:16. Thanks I think. The way I approach this thing is that we are a group of friends sitting around my kitchen table with similar interests and we are gabbing and discussing and debating and disagreeing in a friendly way…every so often someone tosses up a zinger and that changes the thinking of the rest…just like you said earlier…you tossed up that comment about H5N1 being manmade and it led eventually to the same conclusion by many on flu wiki…you didn’t push the discussion, you just started it.
I have tried to give my honest opinion, based on my professional and life experience here…I know that you know but I hope no one takes my comments as the truth…I don’t have a license on the truth…I am giving the truth as far as I understand.
As a scientist, I assume that I will be wrong and believe me I would really like to be wrong about H5N1, H7, H9, and H3…don’t know of many others at the moment.
The cards seemed to be stacked against us at the moment and concentrating only on H5N1 would be not to understand the full force and intracacies of nature. I have seen what it can do with animal diseases when it wants to…and as a veterinarian it can be a little scary.
I’m really glad that you are covered with N95 masks for when you have to break SIP and I hope that our discussion raise some constructive doubts about the value of spending billions of dollars on tamiflu and vaccines while ignoring antibiotics, electrolytes and prednisolone etc…
…but that being said…we are each talking about the future of our own families and communities…we should be skeptical…we should ask for sufficient objective evidence to be able to come to a conclusion that we can live with…there is nothing better than entering a chancy situation knowing that you know all the variables and are convinced that you have picked the right path through the mine-field.
Bottom line…don’t take what I say as the truth…and I know you well enough to know that you will make up your own mind. Thanks.
Anything else you guys want me to translate, please put up the original link, not the translation link.
I can’t promise I’ll translate them all, but I’ll look over them to see if there’s anything important.
TomDVM and others: You can shout it till the pigs fly, but an intelligent mammmal wouldn’t it its own s#@t, or any other s@#t. Reading this thread is strong motivation to go vegan!
Tom DVM at 14:21 -
Thanks for explaining how the game is played to those of us who are otherwise clueless.
Yep. I see lots more rice and beans in my future, pandemic or not. I think I’ll become a vegetarian…or maybe just fence off some property and buy a calf and a pig and a…
Is there any other way to have any quality assurance…at least until it goes to slaughter? :(
Now come on you guys…support your local farmer…be omnivorous.
You can avoid most problems by buying locally directly from farmers or from a local butcher.
The other thing I do is eat any processed meat in moderation and fast food in moderation. As long as you don’t eat any one thing all the time…you will be alright…but then again I am probably no the one to be giving instructions on healthy living at the moment.
Is this thread on track?
Except for that one brief detour:)
anonymous at 15:54
:)-
Me, sticking my tongue out at you.
bump
Sorry for posting anonymously, EnoughAlready. Really and truly, there was no malicious intent, no agenda. Please don’t start anything - I’m leaving.
Closed and continued here.