bird flu get ready and hold tight

[varmintator]

Avian Flu and Poultry Products

 

There is no epidemiological data that suggest AI can be transmitted to humans through properly cooked food (even if the food was contaminated with the virus prior to cooking). There have, on the other hand, been cases of AI infection in humans that might have consumed dishes containing raw blood.

 

Basically this means that you should cook poultry and poultry products evenly and thoroughly. Similarly, because H5N1 virus can survive at very low temperatures, you should practice good hygiene when handling refrigerated or frozen meat, especially in areas where outbreaks of AI have occurred.

 

The basic rules you should follow include:

 

Separate raw meat and uncooked eggs from cooked or ready-to-eat foods to avoid contamination.

 

Do not use the same chopping board or the same knife with cooked and uncooked foods.

 

Wash your hands between handling raw meat or eggs and ready to eat foods.

 

Do not place cooked meat back on the same plate or surface it was on before cooking.

 

Keep it clean

 

Wash your hands after handling uncooked eggs or frozen or thawed poultry.

 

Clean and disinfect all surfaces and utensils that come into contact with raw meat and eggs.

 

Cloths should either be disinfected or disposable.

 

Cook it well

 

Cook poultry meat evenly and thoroughly to reach 70°C or the meat should no longer be pink.

 

Egg yolks should not be runny or liquid

 

Summary

 

So what does this all mean for you and your family? The truth is that at present, most concerns and media (as well as governmental and scientific) reports have focused on potentialities, rather than realities.

 

Only a small number of people have been infected with AI in the past three years, and an even tinier number have died. The current H5N1 outbreak is indeed wreaking havoc and sowing death and destruction in its inexorable movement around the globe, but the principal victims are birds, which have been dying in the tens of millions.

 

If this virus, or a mutation of it, effectively crosses the species barrier and then becomes transmissible from person to person, the ensuing pandemic will likely spread quickly; modern day air travel will guarantee that and the virus will have spread worldwide before we are even aware it is there.

 

But the nature of that pandemic is unknown. While it is almost certain to cause widespread illness, how severe will it be? It may be a virulent strain with the ability to slaughter the strong and vigorous similar to what happened in 1918. Or it may simply behave in the severe, but comparatively mild manner of the Asian and Hong Kong flu epidemics, killing influenza’s preferred targets: the very young, the very old, and the weak.

 

There will be no effective vaccine in the early days, weeks, and months and the odds are that the supply of effective anti-virals will be limited, and even when available restricted to those most at risk.

 

During the 20th century, influenza pandemics caused millions of deaths, hundreds of millions of illnesses, social disruption, and profound economic losses worldwide. When the next influenza pandemic does strike we can be almost certain that far more people will be ill and unable to work for a few days than will likely die. In one conservative scenario it has been calculated that the world will face up to 100 million outpatient visits, and more than 25 million hospital admissions. The impact of these absences will snarl the wheels of commerce, cut down the number of healthcare providers, and take their toll in a dozen little ways, from sick teachers and empty classrooms, to vacant shops and businesses, reduced emergency personnel, and so forth.

 

This is what a future pandemic can do. So planning for it and understanding how we will meet it is the best thing we can do and the one thing we must focus our efforts on.