The Rev

There's a new movie coming out called "Contagion" where, as I take it from the trailers, the bird flu reaches uber-pandemic levels and kills off the whole human race. This is not a new theme. We had "Outbreak" and "Hot Zone" and other movies like it in the past.

The thing is, as scary as this possibility is, and as much talk as it gets in the media (there have been several "scientific" books describing such scenarios, for example), I have never heard of such a thing ever happening. Does anyone know of any plague-like outbreak (other than Man) that has ever swept in a wiped out an entire mammal species?

As a person who hates fear-mongering in the media (and I think that movies like this just create more shit to worry about), I'd really like to know.



The Rev

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Dr. ShinDig

I get the feeling that man is like the mosquito. Despite new poisons and ways to kill them they never completely die out, you can never kill them all. Even if a fraction of 1 percent are immune, that still spells out survival for millions of people.

I find the plague movies to be boring and played out. Unless it's like a zombie plague

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deadhead94

No other animal is capable of spreading a pathogen around the entire world before a single incubation cycle is complete.

If we still used sails and horses to get around it wouldn't be a problem. Any epidemic would control itself before making its host extinct. But now we can make it a hell of a lot faster.

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osirus2020

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Mercury

i remember on some History Channel top 10 apocalyptic scenario show the number 1 most serious disaster that threatens humanity is biological warfare, disease, pandemics.... ABOVE nuclear war. very scary.

Qui-Bong Jinn

Well do they turn into zombies? I have never seen either of the other ones. I figure if a movie in which some outbreak of disease happens that doesn't have zombies in it as a result is not worth seeing.

I thought the new thing was Swine Flu, Bird Flu is so 2 years ago.

Roach

Swine influenza virus is common throughout pig populations worldwide. Transmission of the virus from pigs to humans is not common and does not always lead to human flu, often resulting only in the production of antibodies in the blood. If transmission does cause human flu, it is called zoonotic swine flu. People with regular exposure to pigs are at increased risk of swine flu infection. The meat of an infected animal poses no risk of infection when properly cooked.

During the mid-20th century, identification of influenza subtypes became possible, allowing accurate diagnosis of transmission to humans. Since then, only 50 such transmissions have been confirmed. These strains of swine flu rarely pass from human to human. Symptoms of zoonotic swine flu in humans are similar to those of influenza and of influenza-like illness in general, namely chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, weakness and general discomfort.

In August 2010 the World Health Organization declared the swine flu pandemic officially over.[3]

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Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, also known as "bird flu", A(H5N1) or simply H5N1, is a subtype of the influenza A virus which can cause illness in humans and many other animal species.[1] A bird-adapted strain of H5N1, called HPAI A(H5N1) for "highly pathogenic avian influenza virus of type A of subtype H5N1", is the causative agent of H5N1 flu, commonly known as "avian influenza" or "bird flu". It is enzootic in many bird populations, especially in Southeast Asia. One strain of HPAI A(H5N1) is spreading globally after first appearing in Asia. It is epizootic (an epidemic in nonhumans) and panzootic (affecting animals of many species, especially over a wide area), killing tens of millions of birds and spurring the culling of hundreds of millions of others to stem its spread. Most references to "bird flu" and H5N1 in the popular media refer to this strain.[2]

According to the FAO Avian Influenza Disease Emergency Situation Update, H5N1 pathogenicity is continuing to gradually rise in endemic areas but the avian influenza disease situation in farmed birds is being held in check by vaccination. Eleven outbreaks of H5N1 were reported worldwide in June 2008 in five countries (China, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam) compared to 65 outbreaks in June 2006 and 55 in June 2007. The "global HPAI situation can be said to have improved markedly in the first half of 2008 [but] cases of HPAI are still underestimated and underreported in many countries because of limitations in country disease surveillance systems".[3] On December 9, 2010 the WHO announced a total of 510 human cases which resulted in the deaths of 303 people since 2003.[4]

A filtered and purified Influenza A vaccine for humans is being developed and many countries have recommended it be stockpiled so, if an Avian influenza pandemic starts jumping to humans, the vaccine can quickly be administered to avoid loss of life. Avian influenza is sometimes called avian flu, and commonly bird flu.

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West Nile virus (WNV) is a virus of the family Flaviviridae. Part of the Japanese encephalitis (JE) antigenic complex of viruses, it is found in both tropical and temperate regions. It mainly infects birds, but is known to infect humans, horses, dogs, cats, bats, chipmunks, skunks, squirrels, domestic rabbits, crows, robins,[disambiguation needed] crocodiles[1] and alligators.[2] The main route of human infection is through the bite of an infected mosquito. Approximately 90% of West Nile Virus infections in humans are without any symptoms.[3]

Image reconstructions and cryoelectron microscopy reveal a 45–50 nm virion covered with a relatively smooth protein surface. This structure is similar to the dengue fever virus; both belong to the genus Flavivirus within the family Flaviviridae. The genetic material of WNV is a positive-sense, single strand of RNA, which is between 11,000 and 12,000 nucleotides long; these genes encode seven non-structural proteins and three structural proteins. The RNA strand is held within a nucleocapsid formed from 12 kDa protein blocks; the capsid is contained within a host-derived membrane altered by two viral glycoproteins.

WNV produces three different outcomes in humans. The first is an asymptomatic infection; the second is a mild febrile syndrome termed West Nile Fever;[4] the third is a neuroinvasive disease termed West Nile meningitis or encephalitis.[5] The population proportion of these three states is roughly 110:30:1.[6]

The second, febrile stage has an incubation period of 2 to 8 days followed by fever, headache, chills, diaphoresis (excessive sweating), weakness, lymphadenopathy (swollen lymph nodes), drowsiness, pain in the joints and symptoms like those of influenza or the flu. Occasionally there is a short-lived truncal rash and some patients experience gastrointestinal symptoms including nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, or diarrhea. Symptoms are generally resolved within 7 to 10 days, although fatigue can persist for some weeks and lymphadenopathy up to two months.

The more dangerous encephalitis is characterized by similar early symptoms but also a decreased level of consciousness, sometimes approaching near-coma. Deep tendon reflexes are hyperactive at first, later diminished. There are also extrapyramidal disorders. Recovery is marked by a long convalescence with fatigue.

More recent outbreaks have resulted in a deeper study of the disease and other, rarer, outcomes have been identified. The spinal cord may be infected, marked by anterior myelitis with or without encephalitis.[7] WNV-associated Guillain-Barré syndrome has been identified[8] and other rare effects include multifocal chorioretinitis (which has 100% specificity for identifying WNV infection in patients with possible WNV encephalitis),[9] hepatitis, myocarditis, nephritis, pancreatitis, and splenomegaly.[10][11][12]

West Nile virus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents (most notably rats) and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death and devastation it brought. Until June 2007, plague was one of only three diseases specifically reportable to the World Health Organization (the two other ones were cholera and yellow fever).[1] Depending on lung infection, or sanitary conditions, plague also can be spread in the air, by direct contact, or by contaminated undercooked food or materials. The symptoms of plague depend on the concentrated areas of infection in each person: such as bubonic plague in lymph nodes, septicemic plague in blood vessels, pneumonic plague in lungs, and so on. Medicines can cure plague if detected early. Plague is still endemic in some parts of the world.

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The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. It is widely thought to have been an outbreak of plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, an argument supported by recent forensic research, although this view has been challenged by a number of scholars. Thought to have started in China, it travelled along the Silk Road and had reached the Crimea by 1346. From there, probably carried by Oriental rat fleas living on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant ships, it spread throughout the Mediterranean and Europe.

The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% – 60% of Europe's population,[1] reducing the world's population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in 1400. This has been seen as having created a series of religious, social and economic upheavals, which had profound effects on the course of European history. It took 150 years for Europe's population to recover. The plague returned at various times, killing more people, until it left Europe in the 19th century.

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Kompressor

Well i don't think there's a direct connection, but there are many cases of viruses and parasites causing drastic population loss [like the Plague or zombie ant viruses] which led to the extinction in certain habitats. But like in the movies, a few usually adapt and survive.

They never had to rebuild civilization, though.

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