Essay on Avian Influenza: The H5N1 Virus

Influenza is an infectious illness that can be spread from one individual to the next. It can be transmitted by means of saliva, nasal secretions, feces and blood. It can also be spread by coming in contact with the virus on contaminated surfaces. Influenza is responsible for an average of 36,000 deaths and for more than 226,000 hospitalizations each year in the United States. (Davidson, 2007-2009, Davis, 2007).

Every year, millions of people start talking about the influenza virus and getting their vaccines as the flu season approaches, which starts around the October-November period and reaches its peak between December and March. Therefore, public health officials around the world- and in the U.S in particular- are constantly challenged by properly preparing for the annual influenza dilemma, given that this viruses, and other respiratory viruses, are a serious health threat to the U.S population and the world as a whole. Furthermore, what makes the influenza virus even more challenging to control is that it can mutate rapidly and reassort to form new strains, having the ability to reside in multiple animal hosts. In fact, many scientists and researchers have been doing in-depth intensive research so as to understand the mechanism behind this unique characteristic of the virus, try to find new ways to control it, and explore different areas of protection and vaccination.

The Great Influenza is a book not many enjoy. However, Dr. Petri enjoys this book for reasons that are lost to many. The book starts off on part one chapter 1 the Warriors. it starts off with imagery of September 12, 1876 talking about it crowd in an auditorium in Baltimore’s Academy of music. this was too launch John Hopkins University where they say they would change all of American education and in this first page you meet Thomas H. Huxley an English scientist who is the keynote speaker of this event. then give me George Armstrong Custer who “led the seventh Cavalry to with the stretching at the hands of him video savages resisting encroachment of the white man.” customer had spoke on the front page of the Washington star. then the book starts going deeper into detail

According to the CDC there was a breakout in “1918-19 Flu pandemic, which killed as many as 50 million people worldwide”causing the biggest breakout for Influenza (Reconstruction of 1918 Influenza Pandemic Virus). Influenza originated from Asia and the Middle East. Virtually all mammalian species have influenza. Influenza is a contagious respiratory illness caused by the Influenza virus. There are three types of Influenza: type A, type B, and type C. Influenza has numerous symptoms, vaccinations, and is unlikely to kill it’s host.

People are dying every second to a variety of reasons, some that could be prevented others where that is not the case. However, experts agree that influenza and influenza related deaths could be significantly prevented if people took the influenza vaccine annually. The influenza virus is a deadly virus that has been killing people since the 1900s; in 1918 the first recorded epidemic of a strain of influenza known as the Spanish flu killed approximately 50 million people ("Pandemic Flu History"). Because people did not know what the virus was or how to fight against it, it spread very fast. However, after the vaccine was made, later epidemics such as the 1957, 1968, and 2009 epidemics were not as fatal, killing approximately one million people worldwide. Vaccines played a large role in human history in fighting and preventing diseases from annihilating human beings. This paper will discuss the economic aspects of whether it should be mandatory for hospital health care workers to take the flu vaccine.

The seasonal influenza vaccine has been in existence for a numerous amount of decades, therefore so has the gradual implementation of the vaccination. Through recent studies, the break through knowledge of the importance of enforcing the requirement of this vaccine for children has acquired increasing acceptance statistics. During the many outbreaks of different classified strands of avian influenza, the health care community has been unable to retain the virus and alleviate patients efficiently. However current tallies have shown that the system for controlling these outbreaks have improved lowering the mortality rate profoundly. (BioScience Trends, 2013).

In the book, The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, John Barry discusses the 1918 influenza pandemic. In the prologue, Paul Lewis, a physician who spent most of his time in the laboratory, was introduced. He had encountered the disease only once, but he had seen the devastating affects it had on the human body and this was enough impetus for him to try to end this virus. After the prologue, Barry shifts the topic to medicine in America (this was my favorite part of the book). Admission into medical school wasn’t based on academic scholarship or merit; instead, it was based on whether the applicant could pay the tuition. So William Henry Welch established the John Hopkins School of Medicine, a school that would

Describe two innate (nonspecific) immune responses that might prevent an influenza virus from causing any noticeable infection, even if the virus enters your respiratory passages.

Flu season is upon us and influenza has hit our area particularly hard this year. The flu is a contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses that infect the nose, throat, and lungs that spread from person to person through sneezing and coughing. The flu can also be spread surfaces when infected people touch surfaces such as door knobs, shopping carts, computer keyboards, countertops, etc. Symptoms of the flu include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Though it can be difficult to avoid the flu entirely, there are things you can do to protect yourself and your household from getting the flu by following these steps at home. Continue these steps daily throughout the flu season.

Avian influenza is a disease that has been wreaking havoc on human populations since the 16th century. With the recent outbreak in 1997 of a new H5N1 avian flu subtype, the world has begun preparing for a pandemic by looking upon its past affects. In the 20th Century, the world witnessed three pandemics in the years of 1918, 1957, and 1968. In 1918 no vaccine, antibiotic, or clear recognition of the disease was known. Killing over 40 million in less than a year, the H1N1 strain ingrained a deep and lasting fear of the virus throughout the world. Though 1957 and 1968 brought on milder pandemics, they still killed an estimated 3 million people and presented a new

Once there was a virus named Birdie. This virus was a Bird Flu, or Avian Influenza, virus of the subtype H5N1, the first strain of Avian Influenza having the ability to infect humans (Normandin and Solan). Birdie looked like a microscopic pomander, a fragrant orange with cloves stuck in it. Inside, she had eight pieces of single stranded ribonucleic acid or ssRNA. Birdie was deadly to humans, but was not able to spread from one human to another. She could only spread from birds to humans ("Bird Flu"). Birdie started out inside a chicken named Cluck, where she was formed. A little while later, Cluck's farmer Mark, sold his Cluck, to Joe, another poultry farmer because Mark did not realize that Cluck had H5N1. After a few months of Cluck living

I think many can testify to being guilty of brushing off symptoms like a stuffy nose, and the feeling of fatigue as the common cold, treatable by over the counter drugs. We tend to ignore these minor signs of what could possibly be a very dangerous and severe viral infection, this respiratory infection being the influenza virus. Flu activity most often appears between the months of February and May, leading many to believe their symptoms might be caused by allergies. Although symptoms are very similar, the flu can cause epidemics with the deadly outcomes, as the common cold is just a nuisance for us.

Influenza strikes this country in pandemic proportions every year. Although there are many factors contributing to morbidity and mortality, the mortality rate varies from year to year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the thirty year range from 1976 to 2006, saw death rates from a low of 3000 to a high of 49000 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016). So far this season, there have been 3697 deaths from influenza related illness (CDC, 2016). In 2009, the virulent H1N1 strain, with a 20% risk of death, also brought the difficulties of lack of research based clinical evidence for treatments (Cook, et al., 2010). The lack of research conducted during pandemics stems from the delay caused by the often

“The Lord will strike with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague until death” (Deuteronomy 28:22). At the end of World War I, when a mystery Spanish Flu or the Great Pandemic death unfolds, before the outbreak is over, 500 million or one-third of the world’s population becomes ill and about 20-30 million parish, making it one of the worst pandemics since the writing of the earth’s history . The effect of the influenza epidemic is so severe that the average life span decreases by 10 years. Not only this, as World War I, delivers an unequal reason for being, the Spanish Flu brings an equal mortality to young adults between the ages of 20 and 40 . Because the Influenza

Around 5 million people worldwide are affected annually by the influenza A virus (IAV), with infection resulting in severe morbidity and sometimes death. Although effective IAV vaccines exist, annual influenza epidemics occur due to its ability to quickly evolve new strains. Therefore, IAV remains a serious public health threat as evidenced by the recent pandemics involving swine H1N1 and avian H7N9. Thus, there is a vital need to develop more effective vaccines against influenza. Normally, vaccines function by priming the immune system to recognize a pathogen so that the body can more easily identify and eliminate it upon a second encounter. This protective immunity relies on receptors in the innate immune system such as the pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and retinoic acid inducible gene I (RIG-I). In contrast, Nod-like receptors (NLRs) sense cellular damage as a result of infection and engage the inflammasome. Inflammasomes are multiprotein complexes that stimulate the secretion of inflammatory cytokines. Recent work by Pang et al. examined the relevance of host recognition of viral PAMPs versus virus-inflicted damage in linking innate recognition of IAV to adaptive immunity. Mediation of adaptive immunity to IAV is attributed to production of interleukin-1α (IL-1α) and IL-1β, cleavage products of the inflammatory cytokine IL-1. Pang et al. provided evidence that induction of an adaptive CD8+ T cell response did not depend on PRRs