As some of you may know, this week is Pandemic Flu Awareness Week. We are very concerned with the bird flu, as it has the potential to cause millions of deaths around the world, in particular in places where information is not passed on quickly or truthfully. As we wrote recently, there is alot of anecdotal evidence that the bird flu is already spreading among people in Asia in places other than Indonesia, where the most recent official deaths have been reported.

We are of course particularly concerned about China, where infectious disease information has been routinely covered up (i.e. SARS, swine flu, and of course bird flu), leading to many deaths there, as well as outside the country. One of the main reasons that SARS did not infect millions is that it is relatively non-contageous, at least compared to bird flu.

There is an initiative being created to help local people in China deal with the pandemic should only nominal or inaccurate official information is available to the general population. We will be helping in any way we can, and will post updates to the blog as well. In general, recommend that anyone reading school up on the ins and outs of bird flu, as it could make a big difference if a pandemic begins.

With this in mind, we want to refer you to several different resources on the bird flu, and explore this issue throughout the week. One of the more innovative resources available is the Flu Wiki, though this is immediately accessible only to those with internet access. The idea is to create a forum where experts and lay people can work together to, in their words, help local communities prepare for and perhaps cope with a possible influenza pandemic -- because international and government agencies can be unreliable. Take a look!

We will feature a new resource every day in the coming weeks.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 05, 2005 at 11:25 p.m.. You can skip to the end and leave a response.