H5N1 Hits England

I'm afraid the only way I can cope with this is to make light of the situation:

"Bernard's Turkey Sizzlers - bootiful!"

"Didn't we just have Christmas?"

"I won't get bird flu - I'm a bloke."

"Is bird flu the female equivalent of 'man flu'?"

 

Sounds like another frozen mars bar conspiracy theory!! What I don't get is why the government has supposedly stock piled medication in advance of some pandemic. (Pity you in N.I. - you'll be the last to receive it!). If we can't catch anything from the poultry and why do we need an antedote to the flu? And, if the flu hasn't actually mutated yet, how do we know the antedote we have will work? Sounds a bit crazy to me.

 

The latest theory is the virus might have come from Hungary (cue yet more lame puns about eating turkeys because you're Hungary). The H5N1 virus could mutate, particularly if it comes in contact with a human flu virus; the antiviral drugs ('vaccines') are not really vaccines but a broad-spectrum treatment for flu-type viruses which can ease the symptoms; they are neither a cure or a vaccine.

 

Cheers, my wife is English and is heading over there for a couple of weeks in early March to hopefully witness to her dying grandmother and to other members of her family.

Is there anything she needs to know about what food to avoid or what not to get near? I was stationed over in England from 88-90 and I still to this day can not give blood because of the mad cow scare...

 

Just turkey ATM. So far (ie given the virus does not mutate), it's not so much a matter of avoiding certain foods as avoiding working with poultry and handling the carcasses - that's the only way so far that humans (notably in Vietnam) have contracted the virus. Eating cooked meat shouldn't be a problem.

 

It seems that the Hungarian connection is indeed the most likely culprit; looks like we're dealing with a poultry-to-poultry communication, not wild birds.