Tamiflu for all??
For those of you who wake up in the morning not thinking about bird flu…you better start doing so. If you were one of those people wearing face mask when SARS was around but aren’t afraid of something called “bird” flu, here’s some info you might want to consider. The human immune system has NEVER had to deal with the Avian H5N1 virus, therefore has no resistance againts it. Your body doesn’t have necessary methods to combat this so called flu.
A good analogy would be Singapore during world war 2. The British who controlled Singapore at the time were convinced the Japanese troops would invade by sea that all their major artillery pointed to the sea. However the Japanese just walked through Malaya and then waltzed into Singapore. Your body has got major artillery pointed the other way, it will NOT be able to combat the avian flu. For comparison SARS only had a mortality rate of about 20% , Avian flu will have a mortality rate closer to 100%.
Here’s the good news, a company caled Rouche has developed Tamiflu a drug used to combat bird flu. Here’s the catch, it’s Patented. Up until now it’s hasn’t budge to making the product free for use, allowing other companies to produce MUCH cheaper generic drugs for third world nations hardest hit by the flu. A indian drug company has gone ahead with plans to make Tamiflu with or without the approval of rouche which sounds noble, but I doubt their doing it for free either. However there is cause for concern, tamiflu isn’t all that good. In fact in vietnam some patients succumb to the flu even with treatment. The disease is evolving and it;s gonna hit us. Everybody says the human race is due to have ANOTHER deadly outbreak, it’s just a matter of time. This time with aircraft and commercial flying coupled with globalisation and mass import/export of food this outbreak could make the spanish flu look common cold. We could see the first virus take a death toll of more than 250 million. That means statistically, 1 out of every 24 people you know would die from it. Or you could be one of those 24.
I guess with all our modern medicine and technology, ignorance and arragonce still haunt humanity. While we pray for the pakistanis in their mountains who have suffered a terrible fate, a fate far worse could await us. A fate we cannot run from, and all that’s left would be to leave it up to God (that’s if you still believe in it). That’s my 2 cents don’t spend it all in one place.