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Bird Flu Fears Rising

October 10, 2005

I was out for dinner with friends on Saturday and the topic of an Avian Flu pandemic cornered our attention for much of the evening. We discussed medications, actions in case of an outbreak, and doom and gloom scenarios. Sunday morning, I found myself searching online for information. One of the first places I turned was Hitwise - are others worried and if so where are they getting information?

Seems that interest and concern are picking up for Avian Flu. The top two search terms that included the keyword 'flu' last week were 'bird flu' and 'avian flu'. Searches for 'avian flu' were up 301% from the four weeks ending 6 August 2005 to the week ending 8 October 2005. Searches for 'bird flu' were up 229% over that same time period. To put this into context, searches for 'britney spears' were 3 and a half times more common than those for 'bird flu' and nearly 10 times more common than searches for 'avian flu'. Also, the volume of searches is still much lower than it was in March (see chart below).

The favoured destination of searches for 'bird flu' were Google News UK, PRB Pharmaceuticals and the Center for Disease Control in the US. Another online pharmacy, Europharma2U was also among the top 10 destinations. The remaining 8 sites among the top 10 receiving visits from searches for 'avian flu' were news and information sites. Also, Hitwise did not register enough searches on 'tamilflu' (a commonly cited anti-viral drug) to report on its volume. This indicates to that interest is mostly informational at this stage though UK internet users are monitoring the disease's progress.

Those of you in the retail and travel sectors in particular will want to monitor this closely. Rising fears of a flu pandemic won't be good for in-store footfall or winter holidays.

In the meantime, our dinner party conversations can lighten up a bit and turn to Britney Spears, Paris Hilton or footie - all much more popular topics online!

Avian Flu Chart.JPG

Bird Flu Destinations.JPG

Posted by Heather Hopkins at 12:00 PM | (1) | (2)

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Comments

I will never understand why nobody is even concidering to inform farmers that there is another asolution to Bird Flu instead of the unreliable vaccines etc.
Colloidal Silver is an ancient natural antibiotic thatkills ALL bacteria, viruses and germs without any harm to the bird or human on the contrary.
Please visit the following websites it will tell you all about it.
http://darrendixon.supanet.com/colloidalsilver.htm

http://www.all-natural.com/silver-1.html

http://alchemistsworkshop.com/_wsn/page3.html

http://www.soul-guidance.com/health/colloidalsilver.htm

Yours sincerely,
Eva Brett

Posted by Eva Brett | April 9, 2006 07:40 AM

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