The usual hysterical suspects Associated Press and the World Health Organization are at it again—flapping their arms furiously, wrinkling their brows with concern, and making dire warnings about the dreaded bird flue.
The Associated Press’s experts say:
China on Wednesday reported its 10th human death from bird flu, a 9- year-old girl in the country's southeast.
The girl died Monday in the southeastern coastal province of Zhejiang, the Ministry of Health said in a statement carried by the official Xinhua News Agency. It did not immediately say whether she was confirmed to have the virulent H5N1 flu strain.
The cause of the girl's infection was under investigation, but she visited the home of relatives whose chickens died while she was there, the ministry said earlier.
The H5N1 virus has devastated poultry stocks and killed at least 95 people since 2003, mostly in Asia. Fresh outbreaks have been reported in more than a dozen countries since early February.
Most human infections have been linked to direct contact with sick poultry, but experts have warned that the virus could mutate into a form that could be easily transmitted between people, possibly sparking a global flu pandemic that could kill millions.
Why the hell does the Associated Press even bother to write stories like this if they can’t even get “the official Xinhua” people to confirm that this single death in a country with a population of 1.3 BILLION sandal clad residents actually has anything remotely to do with their headline?
The girl was probably constantly sleeping with the chickens in her room or ate a dead chicken or made a new pillow using feathers from a chicken she found laying beside the road or something.
People in China treat their chickens better than they treat their women.
Next the WHO gets in on the bird flue bandwagon with this dire prediction:
Bird flu a bigger challenge than AIDS, warns WHO
By Alexander Higgins, Geneva
THE lethal strain of bird flu poses a greater challenge to the world than any infectious disease, including AIDS, and has cost 300 million farmers over $10 billion in its spread through poultry around the world, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.
Scientists also are increasingly worried that the H5N1 strain could mutate into a form easily passed between humans, triggering a global pandemic. It already is unprecedented as an animal illness in its rapid expansion…
Dr Chan told over 30 experts in Geneva that the agency's top priority was to keep the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu from mutating."Should this effort fail, we want to ensure that measures are in place to mitigate the high levels of morbidity, mortality and social and economic disruption that a pandemic can bring to this world," she said.
WHO says 175 people are confirmed to have caught bird flu, and 95 of them have died.Global influenza pandemics - as opposed to annual recurrences of seasonal flu - tend to strike periodically. In the 20th century, there were pandemics in 1918, 1957 and 1968.
Bird flu could potentially cause more deaths than those from the global flu pandemics. Because the H5N1 virus is airborne, it is easier to transmit and more contagious than HIV/AIDS, WHO officials said.
Yada, yada, yada…yack yack yack.
You do realize that the WHO has a vested interest in pumping this story for all it is worth, because if they can convince enough people that there is a problem then their budget will get incrementally boosted as they attack the new perceived threat.
Bigger threat than AIDS, huh?
I hope the WHO does a better job with the UN than they’re doing down in Africa fighting AIDS. It is well documented that the UN personnel spend way too much time raping or otherwise demanding sexual favors from young girls in the areas they are working right now.
Chickens everywhere are probably quaking in their little tiny boots…
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