Bird Flu ! Contingency Plans?

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-18-2007
Bird Flu ! Contingency Plans?
5
Fri, 09-28-2007 - 3:33am

I'm still new and I've been reading and sometimes adding to the threads for a few weeks so I thought I would open a new thread about a topic that many may feel has gone away, but believe me is still very much around and may one day impact millions of us who have Diabetes or have other medication dependent illnesses.


I read that many of you are thinking about having the Winter Flu jab, but have you thought about the consequences of a much more potentialy life threatening Flu, labeled as "Bird Flu" to many around the world.


I am an expat, retired and I live in Java Indonesia, where Bird Flu is a reality and has not gone away, with another 3 deaths reported in the past few months. What we call "the rainy season" will be upon Indonesia in the next few months and it is at this time that we have to be vigilent about the possibility of a so called pandemic.


You may think , how will affect me, well the current death rate here is 80% of recorded cases and there is no known vaccine to protect us against this type of flu should it cross to us humans from birds.


As a diabetic, needing daily Insulin, and discussing the consequences of an epidemic or pandemic with our care workers here, its quite evident that with the breakdown of the supply infrastructure world wide, that certain medications may not be available to us. This is going to be tough on individuals, whose very survival may depend on an available supply. We are also told that the Flu may pass through in a 6 month cycle and may very well repeat itself.


So what are you going to do? Are you aware of the potential consequences?


Well, as an advisor to our local diabetic community, I am actively educating people as what to do and assisting them in some form of contingency planning should the flu strike our local community. As with myself its important that I have enough supplies to cover the Flu cycle, so I need Insulin, syringes, needles, alcohol, glucose tabs etc, all the things that I can readily obtain now, but have been advised that there will be a world wide supply shortage of many of these items should a pandemic arise.


Thought provoking..well maybe for some, if it's at your door step.


We off course pray that such a pandemic event will never take place but the WHO say, "it's not if but when", so maybe the non inavailability of our medications will impact us as will the threat of catching this deadly flu and becomming just another statistic.


This is not intended to alarm you but to indicate how reliant we are upon the inferstructure that helps us survive our disease and to ask ourselves the question:What if?


 


Catcount


PS. ( I thought hard and long about publishing this, and there is no intention of alarming you, just making you more self aware)

Avatar for cl_maryfrances40
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Fri, 09-28-2007 - 9:48pm

Catcount,


Your message is fine and thought provoking.


I went to the orient several years ago and became severely ill. I flew home becoming sicker by the minute.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-18-2007
Sun, 09-30-2007 - 3:57am

Maryfrances,


Thanks for your

Avatar for cl_maryfrances40
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Mon, 10-01-2007 - 12:42am

How many times do we use the same injection

Avatar for 2sweet02
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2003
Mon, 10-01-2007 - 4:43pm

I will do my best to keep us all alerted to the various flus.

2sweet02

Avatar for cl_maryfrances40
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 10-02-2007 - 10:12pm

2sweet02,


Thank you for keeping a look out for us and I hope you don't need to post much about this. Many times vets hear about these things before medical doctors hear about them. My sister gets a medical journal (on line) about infections and there are vets which contribute all the time. I wish I could remember the name of it. She used to forward the information on to me but she has stopped. I hope the jounal didn't go out of business.



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