New Testament Bible Prophecy
of the End Times
The Words of Jesus regarding the
last days:
Luke 21:11 "And great
earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines,
and pestilences; and fearful sights
and great signs shall there be from heavens.
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December 22, 2006
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The 1918
flu pandemic claimed 50 million lives, and experts in The Lancet predict the toll today would be higher than this, despite medical advances. |
Flu 'could wipe out 62 million'
Flu viruses are constantly evolving, a global flu pandemic could kill 62 million people, experts have warned.
The world's poorest nations would be hardest hit, fuelled by factors such as HIV and malaria infections, the Harvard University researchers believe.
Yet developing countries can least afford to prepare for a pandemic, which needs to be addressed, they say.
Killer strain
Some scientists believe a new flu pandemic may be imminent and could be triggered by bird flu.
So far there have been only 258 cases of the latest strain of avian flu, H5N1, recorded in humans.
But the fear is that this strain could mutate and spread quickly and easily between people, triggering a deadly pandemic.
It is estimated between 50,000 and 700,000 people could die in the UK if such an event occurred.
When they extrapolated the mortality rates then to the global population of 2004, they estimated 51-81 million people could die and gave a median estimate of 62 million.
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Locust
plague encircles
Mexico's Cancun resort.
MEXICO
CITY (Reuters) Sept. 28, 2006-- Clouds of
locusts have descended around the Mexican beach
resort of Cancun, destroying corn crops and
worrying officials in a region still recovering
from the devastating fury of last year's
Hurricane Wilma.
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Traveling
in dark fogs, locusts are grasshoppers that have
entered a swarming phase, capable of covering
large distances and rapidly stripping fields of
vegetation.
"Imagine,
they fly in the form of a flock. Imagine the
width of a street," government official
Martin Rodriguez said on Tuesday, describing the
fields around Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula.
Towns
have formed pesticide-armed brigades and are
winning the war against the 3-week-old plague
that has left tourist areas unharmed,
authorities said.
Squads
wait until night to blast the flying insects as
they are roosting on plants. They carry
motorized backpack pumps to shoot chemicals in a
fight that has affected from 2,000 to 2,500
acres (800 to 1,000 hectares) of farm land.
"It
is a war, effectively," said German Parra,
a senior agriculture official in the Gulf state
of Quintana Roo, home of tourist resorts Cancun
and Playa del Carmen.
Hot
weather and an absence of mobility-limiting
hurricanes have allowed the insects to breed
more than normal.
The
insects have focused on agricultural areas,
sparing beachgoers another disaster after last
year's Hurricane Wilma, which ravaged Cancun and
other Caribbean coast resorts and caused
hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and
lost revenue.
Destruction
to corn crops has been lessened because the
locusts came after most of the harvesting was
finished, officials said.
Locusts,
which typically come to the region in four-year
cycles, are most famous as one of the 10
biblical plagues of Egypt.
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Avian Flu Virus
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Much of the world is now on alert for outbreaks of the lethal strain of bird flu that is fast becoming a major avian killer around the world.
Millions of birds have died or been destroyed as a result of outbreaks in dozens of countries since the H5N1 strain emerged in South-East Asia in 2003, before spreading to Europe and Africa. |
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The number of cases among humans is also rising, and by mid-February 2006, more than 90 people had died from bird flu - a mortality rate of just over 50%.
The first human deaths from H5N1 outside Asia, in January 2006, heightened concern,
the World Health Organization pointed out .
Governments around the world are being encouraged to develop a global policy to try to stem the advance of the virus.
The killer virus has now hit three continents - reaching Nigeria in February 2006 and making major inroads into Europe in the same month.
The main fear is that with each new human case, the chances increase of a mutation that might create a more virulent strain that could pass from human to human.
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Ready or Not, Bird Flu Is Coming to America
Officials Advise Stocking Up on Provisions -- and Warn That Infected Birds Cannot Be Prevented From Flying In
By BRIAN ROSS
March 13, 2006 - In a remarkable speech over the weekend, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recommended that Americans start storing canned tuna and powdered milk under their beds as the prospect of a deadly bird flu outbreak approaches the United States.
Ready or not, here it comes.
It is being spread much faster than first predicted from one wild flock of birds to another, an airborne delivery system that no government can stop.
"There's no way you can protect the United States by building a big cage around it and preventing wild birds from flying in and out," U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Michael Johanns said.
U.S. spy satellites are tracking the infected flocks, which started in Asia and are now heading north to Siberia and Alaska, where they will soon mingle with flocks from the North American flyways.
"What we're watching in real time is evolution," said Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. "And it's a biological process, and it is, by definition, unpredictable."
Industry Precautions
America's poultry farms could become ground zero as infected flocks fly over. The industry says it is prepared for quick action.
"All the birds involved in it would be destroyed, and the area would be isolated and quarantined," said Richard Lobb of the National Chicken Council. "It would very much look like a sort of military operation if it came to that."
Other than the farmers, everyone there has to dress as if it were a visit to a hospital operating room.
Can It Be Stopped?
Even on a model farm, ABC News saw a pond just outside the protected barns attracting wild geese.
It is the droppings of infected waterfowl that carry the virus.
ABC News has obtained a mathematical projection prepared by federal scientists based on an initial outbreak on an East Coast chicken farm. Within three months, with no vaccine, almost half of the country would have the flu.
That, of course, is a worst-case scenario -- but one that cannot be completely discounted.
In Europe officials are advising owners to bring their cats inside. It's advice that might soon have to be considered
here in the US.
BANGKOK, Thailand 02/20/2006 --
The World Health Organization has issued a dramatic warning that bird flu will trigger an international pandemic that could kill up to seven million people.
The influenza pandemic could occur anywhere from next week to the coming years, WHO said.
"There is no doubt there will be another pandemic," Klaus Stohr of the WHO Global Influenza Program said on the sidelines of a regional bird flu meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.
"Even with the best case scenario, the most optimistic scenario, the pandemic will cause a public health emergency with estimates which will put the number of deaths in the range of two and seven million," he said.
"The number of people affected will go beyond billions because between 25 percent and 30 percent will fall ill."
Pandemics occur when a completely new flu strain emerges for which humans have no immunity.
It also comes just a few months after the first probable instance of human-to-human transmission of the bird-flu virus emerged.
|
|
The virus killed 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam earlier this year and led to the slaughter of millions of poultry birds across the region.
" There is a conclusion now that we are closer to the next pandemic than we have ever been before," Stohr told reporters.
"There is no reason to believe that we are going to be spared."
|
Stohr said if bird flu triggers the next pandemic, the virus would likely originate in Asia.
"An influenza pandemic will spare nobody. Every country will be affected," he said.
There have been other pandemics within the last half
century, all spread worldwide within a year of being detected.
The Asian flu pandemic of 1957 claimed nearly 70,000 lives in the United States and one million worldwide after spreading from China.
In 1968, the Hong Kong flu pandemic is also said to have killed around one million.
Both pandemics were believed to be mutations of pig viruses.
It is important that countries act quickly to guard against a possible pandemic and take stock of their inventories of
antiviral, Stohr said.
Health ministers and senior officials from 10 Southeast Asian countries, along with China, Japan and South Korea, are among the more than 100 people attending this week's meeting to develop strategies against flu and other infectious diseases.
Tuberculosis
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European
Union
'faces TB crisis'
Drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis in
Eastern Europe and central Asia are putting EU
states at risk of a deadly outbreak, health
officials have warned. |
The
Red Cross called it the most alarming tuberculosis
situation since World War II and urged EU leaders to do
more to combat the threat. The
World Health Organization (WHO) said the "hottest
zones" of new strains were all on the borders of the
EU.
Of 450,000 cases
in Europe and central Asia annually, 70,000 are new
strains.
'Wake
up'
The health groups' warnings came as they launched the
Stop TB Partnership in Europe to try to fight the
epidemic.
Markku Niskala,
head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies, said the message for EU leaders was:
"Wake up, do not delay, do not let this problem get
further out of hand."
"The drug
resistance that we are seeing now is without doubt the
most alarming tuberculosis situation on the continent
since World War II," he said.
The
WHO has found high levels of multi-drug resistant
tuberculosis in Baltic countries, Eastern Europe and
central Asia.
And studies in
Latvia showed 18% of drug-resistant cases there are the
most extreme variant.
"The
hottest zones of drug-resistant tuberculosis are all
around the periphery of the European Union," said
Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO's Stop TB division.
"Investment
in tuberculosis control must reflect the real emergency we
are facing and be placed higher on the European agenda,
especially in donor countries," he said.
About
1.7m people are dieing of tuberculosis every year.
Drug resistant TB 'more severe'
TB bacterium
Patients must complete a full course of drugs to cure TB
The problem of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis may be even more severe than previously thought, experts warn.
A survey of 79 countries by the World Health Organization published in the Lancet found TB drug resistance in virtually every one.
Particularly high levels of resistance were seen in regions of the former Soviet Union and parts of China.
About a third of the world's population is infected with the TB bug, with 8.9 million developing TB each year.
In 2004, the respiratory disease caused 1.7 million deaths worldwide.
MULTIDRUG-RESISTANT TB
Kazakhstan: 14.2% of new cases
Tomsk, Russia: 13.7%
Uzbekistan: 13.8%
Estonia: 12.2%
Liaoning province, China: 10.4%
Lithuania: 9.4%
Latvia: 9.3%
Henan province, China: 7.8%
Anti-microbial drugs have proved very effective at treating TB.
But experts believe their misuse has given the bacteria too much chance to evolve new
defenses which render the drugs less effective.
The biggest problem is patients failing to complete a full course of the drugs.
Even though symptoms might have disappeared, small amounts of the bacteria may remain, and are capable of mutating.
Multi-drug-resistant TB strains are those that are resistant to at least the two most potent drugs, isoniazid and
rifampicin.
More dangerous strains
Scientists have recently reported an even more worrying from - extensive drug-resistant TB
(XDR-TB) - which has been found among people with HIV in South Africa.
We have not been serious about controlling TB - Professor Peter Davies
TB Alert
The latest study was carried out for the Global Project on Anti-Tuberculosis Drug Resistance Surveillance, which was set up in 1994.
From their analysis, the WHO team estimated there were 424,000 cases of
multi-drug-resistant TB world-wide in 2004.
China, India and Russia accounted for half of these cases.
The researchers believe about 1% of new cases of TB are caused by
multi-drug-resistant strains. However, in eight countries, including Kazakhstan and Latvia, the figure was above 6.5%.
Three countries - Andorra, Iceland and Malta - had no cases of resistance to first-line drugs, while in the United States, Hong Kong and Cuba, the cases of MDR TB showed a decline.
Lead researcher Dr Mario Raviglione said: "The findings of the Global Project
emphasize the importance of implementing sound tuberculosis control activities to prevent further creation of MDR tuberculosis, and the necessity of mainstreaming high-quality treatment for MDR tuberculosis into routine tuberculosis control
programs.
"Otherwise XDR-TB is bound to keep emerging as a fatal variant of TB, especially in high HIV prevalence settings."
Cases of tuberculosis (TB) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland rose by 10.8% in 2005, figures show.
Professor Peter Davies, of the organization TB Alert, said TB - and in particular
multi-drug resistant strains of the disease - was a bigger problem than people had expected it to be.
Chikungunya Disease
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Feb. 24, 2006
A crippling disease in the Indian Ocean island of Reunion has
infected 157,000 people, one in five of the population, in the
last few months health officials say.
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Chikungunya, Swahili for "that which bends up", causes high fever and severe pain, but was not thought to be
fatal. However, the health minister of France, which rules the island, said this week 77 deaths may have been caused
directly. He told Le Figaro newspaper on Thursday this was a "radically new situation, that was not anticipated or foreseen by any scientific theory.
"We are face-to-face with a devastating epidemic which suddenly accelerated at the start of the year. Developments went beyond all the predictions made by experts," he said.
SARS
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Severe Acute
Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS) is a respiratory illness that has been reported in Asia, North America and Europe. It is an atypical pneumonia of unknown
etiology, and was recognized at the end of February 2003. Symptoms include:
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• Fever greater than 100.4°F
• Headache
• Overall feeling of discomfort
• Body aches
• Some people experience mild respiratory symptoms.
• After 2 to 7 days, SARS patients may develop dry cough and have trouble breathing.
SARS appears to be primarily spread by close person-to-person contact. Most cases have involved people who cared for or lived with someone with SARS, or who had direct contact with infectious material (such as respiratory secretions) from an infected person.
Potential ways in which SARS can be spread include touching the skin of contaminated people or objects and then touching your eyes, nose or mouth. This can happen when a SARS-infected person coughs or sneezes droplets on themselves, other people or nearby surfaces.It also is possible that SARS can be spread more broadly through the air or by other ways that are currently unknown.
Mad Cow Disease (BSE):
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In 1986, Dr. Richard Lacey of Leeds University warned that Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease; called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD in humans) was in the British meat supply, and that a wave of human deaths would hit Britain. |
He said that people should stop eating beef and that the newspapers should start warning people of the possibility of infection. Funding for Lacey's research was cancelled and he was fired from his research position at Leed's University. Dr. Lacey's warning were ignored and suppressed.
In 1987, 700 BSE infected cows were reported in Britain. By the summer of 1988, the number had climbed to 7,000. By late 1994, the figure had risen to 36,000.
In June 1988, the British government ordered the compulsory slaughter and destruction of the carcasses of all affected cattle. But it was already too late. BSE infection had already flooded into the meat supply and infected many unsuspecting British citizens.
John Collinge of St Mary's Hospital in London says that a major epidemic could still occur. "It may only involve hundreds, but it could be Europe-wide and become a disaster of biblical proportions," Dr Collinge said. "We have to face the possibility of a disaster with tens of thousands of cases."
BSE has subsequently spread across Europe to cattle in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and as of June 2001 to the Czech Republic. To date, almost 200,000 cattle are known to have contracted BSE.
Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United States now exclude blood donations from anyone who has resided in Britain for 6 months or more during 1980 to 1996. In January 17, 2001, the FDA ordered a ban on blood donations in the U.S. from anyone who has lived in Britain or Ireland longer than six months, between the years 1980 and December 1996. This ban on donating blood is for life!
In an article by Lynette J. Dumble entitled "Mad Cow Disease: A Manmade Pandemic Set to Put AIDS in the Shade," 1 microbiologist Dr. Stephen Dealler states, "At the moment the number of cases of CJD we are seeing are doubling every year. If they double for a long time then the numbers are in millions...."
AIDS
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On June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a notice on page two of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report about a strange outbreak of killer pneumonia striking homosexual men. |
From that obscure beginning, AIDS grew into the public
health disaster of our time, a global phenomenon that has
tested social, cultural, religious and scientific beliefs.
Twenty years later -- with expensive drug therapies, but no cure or vaccine in sight -- AIDS continues to spread
rapidly, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Many
researchers warn that the worst is yet to come.
"During
the past 10 years, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United
States has undergone a dramatic transformation from one
concentrated primarily among homosexual men to an epidemic
that is now closely associated with the inner city,"
said David Bloom, professor of economics and demography at
Harvard University's School of Public Health.
The cause of the continued spread of AIDS
"Low levels of education, high levels of multiple
sexual partnering, high rates of homosexuality/bisexuality
and high rates of injecting drug use account for the
relatively high rate of new infections among blacks and
Hispanics in the U.S.," Bloom said.
The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
estimates that 800,000 to 900,000 people in the United
States are currently infected with HIV, the virus that
causes AIDS. Each year, another 40,000 people become
infected.
Although African-Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S.
population, they represent 54 percent of the new HIV
infections. Hispanics, who represent about 12 percent of
the population, account for 19 percent of the new
infections.
"It's devastating," said Teresa Holmes, a
spokeswoman for the Balm in Gilead, a New York-based
organization that works with African-American churches to
provide training and assistance for HIV/AIDS programs.
AIDS is the No. 1 cause of death for African-Americans
aged 25-44, according to the CDC.
"One in 160 black women is infected with HIV and one
in 50 black men," Holmes said. "It's not just
the inner city, and it's not just the poor that are
affected. You could almost lose or wipe out
generations."
Thirty percent of gay black men in their 20s are infected
with HIV, compared to 7 percent of white gay men,
according to a recent CDC study of six large U.S. cities.
An African-American woman is 20 times more likely to
contract AIDS than a white woman. African-American
adolescents accounted for more than 60 percent of AIDS
cases reported in 1999 among 13- to 19-year-olds.
The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
estimates that out of the 36.1 million people infected
with HIV worldwide, 26 million of them live in Africa. One
fourth of the adults in South Africa are believed to be
living with HIV, the highest percentage in the world.
Quoting Mark Feinberg, a professor at Emory University
School of Medicine and an AIDS researcher since 1984;
"It's going to have a long lasting and devastating
impact on the human race. The impact on our future from
the AIDS epidemic is so enormous that even for someone
like myself who's been involved in it for 17 years, it is
impossible for me to truly conceive of the magnitude of
the epidemic."
AIDS
Virus
Facts
| |
Estimate |
Range |
|
People
living with HIV/AIDS in 2005
|
38.6
million |
33.4-46.0
million |
|
Adults
living with HIV/AIDS in 2005
|
36.3
million |
31.4-43.4
million |
|
Women
living with HIV/AIDS in 2005
|
17.3
million |
14.8-20.6
million |
|
Children
living with HIV/AIDS in 2005
|
2.3
million |
1.7-3.5
million |
|
People
newly infected with HIV in 2005
|
4.1
million |
3.4-6.2
million |
|
AIDS
deaths in 2005
|
2.8
million |
2.4-3.3
million |
|
More than 25
million people have died of AIDS since 1981.
Africa has 12
million AIDS orphans.
By the end of
2005, women accounted for 48%
of all adults living with HIV worldwide, and for 59%
in sub-Saharan Africa.
Young people
(15-24 years old) account for half
of all new HIV infections worldwide - around 6,000
become infected with HIV every day.
In developing and
transitional countries, 6.8 million
people are in immediate need of life-saving AIDS
drugs; of these, only 1.65 million
are receiving the drugs.
Global trends
The number of
people living with HIV rose from around 8 million in 1990
to 38.6 million in 2005, and is still growing. Around 63%
of people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Regional
statistics for HIV & AIDS, end of 2005
|
Region
|
Adults
& children
living with HIV/AIDS
|
Adults
& children
newly infected
|
Adult
(15-49)
prevalence*
|
Deaths
of
adults & children
|
|
Sub-Saharan
Africa
|
24.5
million
|
2.7
million
|
6.1%
|
2.0
million
|
|
North
Africa & Middle East
|
440,000
|
64,000
|
0.2%
|
37,000
|
|
Asia
|
8.3
million
|
930,000
|
0.4%
|
600,000
|
|
Oceania
|
78,000
|
7,200
|
0.3%
|
3,400
|
|
Latin
America
|
1.6
million
|
140,000
|
0.5%
|
59,000
|
|
Caribbean
|
330,000
|
37,000
|
1.6%
|
27,000
|
|
East
Europe & Central Asia
|
1.5
million
|
220,000
|
0.8%
|
53,000
|
|
N.
America, West & Central Europe
|
2.0
million
|
65,000
|
0.5%
|
30,000
|
|
Global
Total
|
38.6
million
|
4.1
million
|
1.0%
|
2.8
million
|
|
|
*
Proportion of adults aged 15-49 who were living
with HIV/AIDS
|
For
further informative reading on the AIDS epidemic we
suggest the TIME Magazine article Death Stalks a Nation:
http://www.time.com/time/2001/aidsinafrica/
OTHER:
1968
The Hong Kong flu became the third flu pandemic of
the 20th century. The World Health Organization estimated
that a total of 1.5 million died in the Asian and Hong
Kong flu pandemics.
1957-1958
The Asian flu swept around the world, making it the
second flu pandemic of the century.
World
wide statistics 2005:
Number of people without access to safe water:
1,400,000,000
Number of people without access to adequate sanitation:
2,900,000,000
Number of children under the age of 5 who die each year from easily preventable diseases such as diarrhea, malaria and measles:
13,000,000
BANGKOK, Thailand 02/20/2006 --
The World Health Organization has issued a dramatic warning that bird flu will trigger an international pandemic that could kill up to seven million people.
The influenza pandemic could occur anywhere from next week to the coming years, WHO said.
"There is no doubt there will be another pandemic," Klaus Stohr of the WHO Global Influenza Program said on the sidelines of a regional bird flu meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.
"Even with the best case scenario, the most optimistic scenario, the pandemic will cause a public health emergency with estimates which will put the number of deaths in the range of two and seven million," he said.
"The number of people affected will go beyond billions because between 25 percent and 30 percent will fall ill."
Pandemics occur when a completely new flu strain emerges for which humans have no immunity.
It also comes just a few months after the first probable instance of human-to-human transmission of the bird-flu virus emerged.
The virus killed 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam earlier this year and led to the slaughter of millions of poultry birds across the region.
" There is a conclusion now that we are closer to the next pandemic than we have ever been before," Stohr told reporters.
"There is no reason to believe that we are going to be spared."
Stohr said if bird flu triggers the next pandemic, the virus would likely originate in Asia.
"An influenza pandemic will spare nobody. Every country will be affected," he said.
There have been other pandemics within the last half
century, all spread worldwide within a year of being detected.
The Asian flu pandemic of 1957 claimed nearly 70,000 lives in the United States and one million worldwide after spreading from China.
In 1968, the Hong Kong flu pandemic is also said to have killed around one million.
Both pandemics were believed to be mutations of pig viruses.
It is important that countries act quickly to guard against a possible pandemic and take stock of their inventories of
antiviral, Stohr said.
Health ministers and senior officials from 10 Southeast Asian countries, along with China, Japan and South Korea, are among the more than 100 people attending this week's meeting to develop strategies against flu and other infectious diseases.
BANGKOK, Thailand 02/20/2006 --
The World Health Organization has issued a dramatic warning that bird flu will trigger an international pandemic that could kill up to seven million people.
The influenza pandemic could occur anywhere from next week to the coming years, WHO said.
"There is no doubt there will be another pandemic," Klaus Stohr of the WHO Global Influenza Program said on the sidelines of a regional bird flu meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.
"Even with the best case scenario, the most optimistic scenario, the pandemic will cause a public health emergency with estimates which will put the number of deaths in the range of two and seven million," he said.
"The number of people affected will go beyond billions because between 25 percent and 30 percent will fall ill."
Pandemics occur when a completely new flu strain emerges for which humans have no immunity.
It also comes just a few months after the first probable instance of human-to-human transmission of the bird-flu virus emerged.
The virus killed 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam earlier this year and led to the slaughter of millions of poultry birds across the region.
" There is a conclusion now that we are closer to the next pandemic than we have ever been before," Stohr told reporters.
"There is no reason to believe that we are going to be spared."
Stohr said if bird flu triggers the next pandemic, the virus would likely originate in Asia.
"An influenza pandemic will spare nobody. Every country will be affected," he said.
There have been other pandemics within the last half
century, all spread worldwide within a year of being detected.
The Asian flu pandemic of 1957 claimed nearly 70,000 lives in the United States and one million worldwide after spreading from China.
In 1968, the Hong Kong flu pandemic is also said to have killed around one million.
Both pandemics were believed to be mutations of pig viruses.
It is important that countries act quickly to guard against a possible pandemic and take stock of their inventories of
antiviral, Stohr said.
Health ministers and senior officials from 10 Southeast Asian countries, along with China, Japan and South Korea, are among the more than 100 people attending this week's meeting to develop strategies against flu and other infectious diseases.
|
