Tuesday, November 13, 2007

H5N1 ALERTS (TODAY)

Passenger sparks bird flu scare in NZ
Bird flu alert strikes Bahrain
Indonesian man dies of bird flu - health official

New Zealand quarantines 223

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - New Zealand health authorities briefly quarantined 223 people in a Korean Air plane at Auckland Airport on Tuesday after a South Korean passenger displayed bird flu symptoms, officials said.

The woman was later deemed to be "no risk" and suffering from suspected gastroenteritis, airport police Inspector Richard Middleton said, congratulating the flight crew for notifying authorities about the potential problem.

For more, go here.
Bird flu cull of turkeys in Norfolk jeopardises Christmas poultry sales
35,000 chickens slaughtered after Norfolk bird flu outbreak

NVDL: H5N1 also provides subtle subtext in my book HOLIDAY. It's merely a sideshow to a lot of processes balancing out. I purposely wrote it in a very clinical fast forward way so that it appears to be an austere commercial break in the unfolding drama. See, we're distracted daily from issues like the weather, and the oil price - what are we focussing on? - and while this stuff is broiling, even more off the wall stuff is festering. This generation has been driven to distraction, but we're likely to regain our focus - painfully - in our lifetimes as well.

In Johannesburg for example, we may soon have to deal with not just hotter summers, that's the easy part, but the side-effects. Like malaria sweeping slowly south to highly urbanised parts that were originally too cold or dry.

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