# 2042
I've a good many Internet friends, and so my email inbox fills up each day with a variety of jokes, photos, conspiracy theories, and links to videos. As a 12 year veteran of the Internet, and a BBS user for more than a decade prior to that, I'm pretty jaded when it comes to most of these submissions.
Every once in awhile something comes around that not only impresses or entertains me, but that has some (unintentional) application in the world of bird flu and EIDs (Emerging Infectious Diseases).
Today I have example. A short public service video, available on Youtube here, and on this UK website.
It only takes one minute, so `take the test'.
I'll wait.
If you are like most people, you failed miserably. Don't feel too bad. If you passed, well congratulations!
What, you might ask, does this have to do with EIDs?
Simply that we may miss something important by focusing too hard on what we expect to happen. We may not see `the bear' until it is already upon us.
Every day I receive several email notifications and updates from ProMed Mail, a service of the International Society of Infectious Diseases. Covering emerging infectious disease outbreaks and toxins, ProMed is one of the best resources on the net.
We also have scores of newshounds working on the various flu forums who scan foreign language newspapers and newscasts looking for reports that might indicate an outbreak somewhere in the world.
While most of the time these reports will turn out to be something tragically familiar, such as Dengue, Chikungunya, Lhassa fever, Ebola, or even plague . . . they can also be the harbinger of a bird flu outbreak, SARS, or perhaps something as yet unknown.
SARS after all, had never been described before 2003. H5N1 had never been known to infect humans before 1997. Over the past 30 years we've seen nearly one new infectious disease emerge each year; Nipah, Hanta, Hendra, XDR-TB . . . the list goes on.
Today we have one such report, posted on Flutrackers by Ironorehopper, and carried by Yonhap News out of South Korea. It describes an `unknown epidemic' in North Korea which, it says, is killing children.
There have been rumors coming out of North Korea for years regarding disease outbreaks, and of course, famine. Last year we heard of an epidemic of what was believed to have been Scarlet Fever. Most of these are hard to verify, however, as North Korea is both a repressive and closed society.
While this article repeatedly mentions `bird flu' as a possible diagnosis, there doesn't seem to be any data available as yet to support that assumption.
It also mentions HFMD (Hand Foot Mouth Disease), which given the demographics (only children affected), would seem a far more likely culprit.
Early news reports such as this one, while important to note, need to be viewed with healthy skepticism. Frankly the reporting here appears based mostly on rumor and speculation.
Caveat Lector.
Epidemic spreads in N.K. border towns: aid group
SEOUL, June 3 (Yonhap) -- An unidentified epidemic is spreading along some North Korean towns bordering China, placing North Korean health authorities on high alert, a local aid group said Tuesday.
The disease, suspected to be avian influenza by some North Korean doctors or hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) by some others, has already taken the lives of many North Korean children under seven years old, the Buddhist group Good Friends said in its newsletter.
Every day since April 27, five to six children have died of the unidentified epidemic in Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province, the group said, quoting a doctor of a hospital in the city.
The disease is already common among young children in the neighboring city of Musan, according to the group.
North Korean health authorities, however, are poorly handling the spread of the epidemic, without even giving an exact diagnosis or cure, the group said.
"We diagnose the disease as avian influenza," it quoted a North Korean doctor in Hoeryong as saying. Patients show flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough, sore throat and no appetite, the doctor added.
"Yes, right. Bird flu is spreading," another doctor in Musan was quoted as saying. The disease is spreading mainly among state-run daycare centers and kindergartens, although no cases of adult infections have been reported, he added.
"I understand the authorities are trying to trace the root of the disease," he said.
But a third North Korean doctor was quoted as saying that HFMD from China may be spreading to North Korea's border areas, the aid group said.
HFMD has struck over 10,000 people resulting in 26 fatalities, all of them children, in recent months, according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.
In all probability, this is something other than bird flu. But it should be monitored until we know for sure.
But more importantly, this is a reminder that the we dare not focus exclusively on the H5N1 bird flu threat. The next pandemic could come from a completely different direction.
We need to be watchful.
And so, from time to time this blog will devote some of its space to other emerging infectious diseases.
Not because bird flu has gone away, but because H5N1 isn't the only game in town.
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