Are we at the edge of another pandemic? H5N1

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On 27 June 2024, 9:49 A.M., I summarized the approach to survive a very deadly disease called H5N1 Avian Flu, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. I have covered a lot of information over the past several weeks on the next potential pandemic called H5N1. I have come to realize this pandemic will primarily be transmitted by insects, primarily Mosquitoes. Mosquitoes infect humans with a blood to blood transfer between infected to uninfected birds/animals/humans.

This virus has been evolving over the past few years. It began with birds and spread to animals and humans. The disease is passing across a maze of viruses in recent years including H5N1, H5N2, H5N3, H5N5, and H5N8. But in my opinion the primary threat is H1N1.

H1N1 decimated the human population during the First World War. It went by many names including the Spanish Flu which killed between 50 and 100 million people during the period from 1918-1919. This plague went by many names. The Americans fell ill with "three-day fever" or "purple death." The French caught "purulent bronchitis." The Italians suffered "sand fly fever." German hospitals filled with victims of Blitzkatarrh or "Flanders fever. Sand fly fever is an arthropod-borne viral disease, also known as “Phlebotomus fever”, “mosquito fever”.

From 1918 to 1919, the Spanish flu infected an estimated 500 million people globally. This amounted to about 33% of the world's population at the time. In addition, the Spanish flu killed about 50 million people. Since the world population has grown around 5 times in the last 100 years. The threat might impact 2.5 billion people should it materialize today.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVpBFy_TRtA

In my humble opinion, these diseases are transmitted by insects. An insect bites an infected bird/animal/human and then transmitted the blood directly to another bird/ animal/human. The following is a good approach to limiting the spread in humans.

1. You can protect yourself from mosquito bites in two ways. If you spend a lot of time outdoors you can create protective clothing (boots, clothing and camping gear) that repel mosquitoes by treating them with Permethrin.

2. You can also protect yourself from mosquito bites by applying mosquito repellent on you skin. This will provide short protection (several hours) to drive away mosquitoes. There are a variety of products available. They include DEET, Picaridin, IR3535, Oil of lemon, Para-menthane-diol eucalyptus, and 2-Undecanone.

3. Another product that can help prevent mosquito bites is Metofluthrin. Metofluthrin is a pyrethroid used as an insect repellent. The vapors of metofluthrin are highly effective and capable of repelling up to 97% of mosquitoes in field tests. Metofluthrin is used in a variety of consumer products, called emanators, for indoor and outdoor use. These products produce a vapor that protects an individual or area. Effectiveness is reduced by air movement. Metofluthrin is neurotoxic, and is not meant to be applied directly to human skin.

4. Accidents can happen. What to do immediately after being bitten by a mosquito? Treat the bite with Tecnu Topical Analgesic Anti-Itch Spray (Diphenhydramine HCl 2% ). There is another product that can diminish the effects of being bitten by an infected insect. It is called ChiggereX. This product contains 10% Benzocaine.

5. If you become infected with H5N1 treat the condition immediately using one of four FDA-approved antivirals for influenza: (1) Oseltamivir phosphate (Tamiflu), (2) Zanamivir (Relenza), (3) Peramivir (Rapivab), (4) Baloxavir (Xofluza). These are prescription drugs and will require a doctors prescription. Time is of the essence here. This condition will begin to destroy the human body and make it impossible to treat within a few days. Time is of the essence.

6. Some people are very vulnerable to mosquito bites. These are people with open wounds. Just covering the wounded area with bandages will not protect you. Mosquitoes can smell your blood and you become a prime target. I suffered a small bleed and was attacked by around 50 mosquitoes in less then two hours outdoors. (Luckily I had protected myself with DEET before I went outside and as a result, NOT ONE MOSQUITO WAS ABLE TO BITE ME.) This may also be a problem for women who are going through their menstrual period.

7. Go on the offensive. Wage a war on mosquitoes. In general, mosquitoes live in a hot humid environment. They most commonly infest Ponds, Marshes, Swamps, and Other wetland habitats. So minimize their breeding grounds. Wage war on mosquitoes.

8. Use our friends. What, you didn't realize we have allies in our war on Mosquitoes? We have many friends. Some are birds like woodpeckers, some are other insects like dragonflies, some are fish like gambusia affinis.

9. Wastewater tracking of H5N1 can identify the specific regions in the U.S. where the outbreak is underway. One of these regions is San Francisco, California. This area could be Ground Zero of the outbreak. But we cannot monitor the threat because the funding for Wastewater tracking has been halted. But time has been wasted and H5N1 is on the move and Central Valley in California is in the epicenter.

In the historic past, migrating birds were the long distance transport agents of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1. Seasonally they would move the infectious disease between the northern and southern hemispheres as the seasons changed from summer to winter. But now as humans have developed means of rapid transport, such as jet aircraft, the speed and distance this virus can spread is rapidly accelerated.

A recent article on Forbes wrote the following:

There’s a saying that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Will that be the case with the H5N1 avian influenza virus that’s been spreading among birds for years, jumped to dairy cattle earlier this year and appeared in a pig a month ago? Is hindsight not 2020? Are we seeing the same mistakes made with the H5N1 bird flu that we did during the COVID-19 pandemic? Or is this H5N1 virus situation right now different enough from the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic that we don’t have to worry about the “p” word this time?

H5N1 Bird Flu Concerns Grow. Are COVID-19 Mistakes Being Repeated?

So let me try and answer this question.

It is a very different virus in the following ways.
1. It is much more deadly. The death rate will be around 100 times more then COVID.
2. It affects an entirely different part of the population. Whereas, COVID primarily affected the aged and those with poor immune systems. This threat will strike the young and those in the peak of their lives.
3. It is much faster. In a similar pandemic H1N1 which struck during the First World War. One person in the family would die in the morning and before the end of the day, the entire family had perished.

It is not COVID but just like the people who lived through the Plague of 1918 witnessed, when the plague began people wore masks and they did not help anyone stay alive. They hid in their homes and died in their homes. It is a very different plague then COVID.

The Forbes article then goes on to say:

Pig Reassortments Were What Led to the 2009 H1N1 Pandemic

It’s important to remember that a series of reassortment events in pigs is what led to the 2009 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic. These pig events resulted in a version of the H1N1 influenza virus that could jump to and spread among humans back in 2009. That pandemic led to an estimated 60.8 million cases, 274,304 hospitalizations and 12,469 deaths in the U.S. and an estimated 284,400 deaths worldwide.

So you start with an H5N1 pandemic and wave a magic wand and it changes overnight into a deadly H1N1 Death Plague.

On 25 Nov 2024, 5:57 pm on this thread, I reported about a case of H5N2.

In April 2024, laboratory results from a hospitalized patient in Mexico City showed the first direct evidence of human infection caused by influenza A virus subtype H5N2 (A/H5N2). The patient died, and the case fatality was reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) on 23 May 2024.

Canada has second flock hit by H5N2 avian flu

Canada has now had two commercial poultry flocks affected by the H5N2 strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). Both H5N2-affected flocks are in Abbotsford, British Columbia, the Canadian municipality that has been hardest hit by HPAI in 2004. The first flock infection of H5N2 there was confirmed on November 8, and the second instance was first reported on November 16.

The first of the two flocks to be affected was part of a commercial egg laying operation, but WOAH has only identified the second flock as a commercial poultry farm.

These last two weeks there's been an egg shortage at the supermarket, when I tried to find out why I discovered there's been an avian flu epidemic among Australian chickens for several months. I had no idea about it.
Definitely that's a concern.