Results tagged “solesearch”

After yesterday's confident announcement on China's ability to contain bird flu, Shanghaiist winced as we thought we heard rumbling overhead, and then we went straight to various sources searching for news of more bird flu outbreaks. The last time China tempted the gods made an announcement like this in November, Shanghaiist seems to recall the beginning of a rash of new outbreaks throughout the country. Just a day after yesterday's big announcement, China has reported its first new outbreak of bird flu in two weeks in Suichuan county in Jiangxi province. Along with this outbreak comes news of China's sixth reported human case of bird flu.

It seems everyone, including UN health officials, are giving the Chinese government kudos in terms of embracing greater media transparency in avian flu reports. This new style of Chinese government was even lauded on US network news, where they noted that the Chinese, rather than trying to keep things hush-hush like with SARS, were now showing everything the government was doing with gusto, a reality TV show about the formerly corrupt and ineffective government that turned a corner and changed its ways.

Shanghaiist is sick of bird flu. But we're dedicated to weeding out the most interesting and useful stories amid the media hysteria surrounding the whole issue. (And we also have to keep up with it for work ... but that doesn't negate our dedication to our readers.) In no particular order of importance, a quick run through of some of the information floating around this week.

China has finally announced its long-awaited (and in Shanghaiist’s opinion very long overdue) first human case of bird flu. While the CNN story does not confirm the flu strain, the unlinkable subscription-only South China Morning Post (which has some of the best, most up-to-date information on bird flu) reports that the boy in Hunan province tested positive for the H5N1 strain. While the boy has successfully recovered after falling ill at the end of October from eating part of a chicken that had sickened and died, his 12-year old sister did not … though at the moment her death can only be presumed to be caused by bird flu. Three other suspected human H5N1 cases have not yet been confirmed.

For most of you who read Shanghaiist, there is really no reason to worry about actually being in any situation where you are likely to catch bird flu from a sick bird of some type. You are lucky enough to be able to just follow some basic common sense guidelines: don't eat raw poultry products, wash your hands regularly and don't keep close company with bunches of birds. (Shanghaiist wishes such simple statements would suffice in panicked-client-demanded-reports on bird flu for our real job.)

Shanghaiist's left shoulder is a little sore right now. Why? We got injected with a flu vaccine today. For free. And we didn't have to wait in line. (And no, we didn't get the shot from this guy.) We'd tell you where we went to get this shot, but we figure you don't feel like driving to Pennsylvania.