Was bird flu Mutation responsible for the drop on Friday?

Discussion in 'Wall St. News' started by mahram, Jun 24, 2006.

  1. Just wondering what you guys think? The same time it broke, the markets started to fall down a bit. Worst case scenerio, what would happen to the stock market, if it became widely known that an all out outbreak of bird flu has occurred. dow down 911 style or down regular panic style?
    ELIZABETH JACKSON: The World Health Organisation says it has evidence that the deadly bird flu virus has mutated and has been passed from one person to another.

    It's the first evidence of human-to-human transmission of a mutated virus, and follows an investigation into the deaths of seven family members in Sumatra earlier this year.

    But despite the alarming finding, WHO officials insist this evidence does not signal a major change in the spread of the disease or an increase in the possibility of a pandemic, as Paula Kruger reports.

    PAULA KRUGER: Ever since bird flu caught international attention, the main fear of health officials around the world has been that the virus could mutate and in its new form trigger a flu pandemic potentially putting millions of human lives at risk.

    The virus is largely thought to be limited to wild birds and poultry, but can infect people with close contact to the birds. It is hard for it to spread between people in its present form.

    But new evidence has surfaced at a bird flu conference that has just ended in the Indonesian capital Jakarta.

    After investigating the death of seven family members in Sumatra in May this year, the WHO has found the first evidence that someone can catch bird flu from another person and then pass it on to someone else.

    Dr David Nabarro is the UN's coordinator for bird flu.

    DAVID NABARRO: The woman got infected with the bird flu virus, and as a result of her being infected and her close contact with blood relatives, she infected six other people, including a young boy.

    That's not uncommon. We have seen human-to-human transmission of this H5N1 virus before, but usually what happens is, that the person who gets the virus then does not pass it to anybody else.

    However, one of the people who got to virus was a 10-year-old boy, who apparently then passed it on to his father.

    The father did not pass it onto anybody else. But the reason why this is all quite interesting is that the virus appeared to change when it was inside the 10-year-old boy.

    The genetic analysis of the virus from samples that were taken from the boy changed over time and that represented therefore a mutation.

    PAULA KRUGER: The cluster of seven deaths raised a flurry of concern among scientists, even before the genetic tests confirmed it was a case of human-to-human transmission.

    But health authorities insist there is no need for alarm and that this find does not increase the chance of a human pandemic.

    Dr Nabarro again.

    DAVID NABARRO: This was not a mutation that led to the virus having better capacity to be transmitted from human-to-human.

    And therefore we're not seeing the emergence of the kind of virus that we're a little alarmed about possibly coming, which is a virus that could cause a human influenza pandemic.

    PAULA KRUGER: The WHO says the focus should remain on implementing national strategies to contain bird flu, and adding to defences so authorities are better equipped to tackle a pandemic if it does arrive.

    ELIZABETH JACKSON: Paula Kruger with that report.
  2. MahRam;
    Actually if you study the subject;
    1] Most of the things people worry about never happen.

    2] Most of these incidents happen in muslim, Asian countries.

    3] As former HHS Exec Tommy Thompson said much of its caused by simple violations of basic Judeo-Christian simple sanitation.
    [translation when you work- play in chicken waste, wash hands.]
    4]No ,
    to answer your question .
    During a downtrend like below 50dma;
    its going to downtrend, even when someopne mentions good news like the media was hyping this low probability event in 1997 also!!!!!!!

    5] If you like to worry about things ;
    200 dma SPY,DIA is a bigger threat to longs than any low probability /media hyped event.
    Wisdom is profitable to direct

    Partial disclosure, study health/nutrition also, which includes much more than medicine;
    so even in a worst case scenerio, dont consider it much of a threat, no matter how much CNBC ''predicts it'':p
  3. Pabst


    Astute as always Murray.......

    Believe this or not.
    A headline in the local paper [Gannet owned ]says;
    ''June 25, Slight mutation in bird Flu Virus does not worry experts''
    Even in that muslim family, one family member survived.:cool: ;
    maybe ES goes up on that news Monday a point or 3????
  5. I'd say inflation, fears about the housing market, higher interest rates, and threats against Iran are a lot more concerning these days.

    At least until Avian Flu arrives in the USA...

    Then all of America's worries will rest in the hands of the ever dependable media...