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.     ATLANTA, Oct. 2, 2008 (UPI) More than 1,000,000 (1 million) people in the United States have HIV Centers for Disease Control One Million people in USA have HIV, but one in five are unaware of their infections, federal health officials said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released Thursday estimated that 1,106,400 people were living with HIV in the United States in 2006. The new estimate is based on a significantly improved national HIV reporting data set, as well as several additional years of data since the prior 2003 estimate. Based on this refined data set, researchers estimate HIV prevalence increased by 11 percent, or 112,000 people, since 2003. The percentage of people unaware of their infections has declined, from 25 percent in 2003 to 21 percent in 2006, due to both increased diagnoses and a decline in deaths among persons living with HIV. The most severe impact continues to be felt among men who have sex with men, who represented 48 percent of those living with HIV, as well as blacks — 46 percent — and Hispanics, 18 percent. The reports said the growing number of people living with HIV underscores the critical need to reach infected individuals with testing, treatment, and prevention services to reduce the impact of the disease. Deadly amoeba infection is killing swimmers Ray Herrera does not mince words about what his 12-year-old son, Jack, went through. Jack Herrera is one of six people to die this year because of the naegleria fowleri amoeba. In August, Jack returned from summer camp that included swims in Texas' Lake LBJ. Five days after coming home he was dead, killed by a microscopic amoeba. Jack is one of six people to die this summer in the United States from the naegleria fowleri amoeba. All were believed by health officials to have contracted an infection from the amoeba from swimming in warm, freshwater lakes, rivers or natural springs. See timeline of the sudden deaths » The amoeba enters the human body through the nose. It then travels to the brain, where it begins to feed. Symptoms of the amoeba's rampage begin 1 to 14 days after infection and resemble the flu. At the onset of those symptoms the amoeba victim's health swiftly declines. Video Watch how to reduce risk of contracting the amoeba » At this point, says Dr. Kevin Sherin of the Orange County Health Department who is investigating three deaths this summer in Florida, "It's progressing very rapidly and then there's a downhill course for them there. Folks lapse into a coma, there are abnormal movements of the eyes and a terrible cascade of events leading to the actual death of parts of the brain." Although exposure to the amoeba is usually fatal, Sherin says a cocktail of drugs can fight the amoeba if administered in time. The key, he says, is identifying the amoeba early. In the hot summer months when the amoeba flourishes, he said, doctors need to learn to look for the symptoms of an amoeba-related illness. "Physicians have to consider it. The public needs to consider it," Sherin said. "If you have a flu-like illness or a bad headache following swimming in a freshwater body and the temperature is over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, be aware of this." Health officials cannot explain the spike in cases this summer, except that weather plays a factor. "Because it's been such a hot summer, that has contributed to warmer water temperatures and lower water levels and that makes an ideal environment for the amoeba," said Dr. Rebecca Sunenshine of the Arizona Department of Health, which is investigating a death last month there tied to the amoeba. Health officials say federal or local governments have few tools to combat the amoeba. Even testing the water for amoeba levels, said the CDC's Dr. Michael Beach, would be of minimal benefit to swimmers. "It would be very difficult because the testing procedures wouldn't tell you what's going on until days after people would actually be in that water." Beach said this week on CNN's American Morning. "So, you have to assume that it's there and try and reduce these risks even further. This is an extremely rare infection, so we have to keep that in perspective as well, although it's very severe," Beach said. In Orange County, Florida, county health department officials have rejected calls to close the lakes this summer. Dr. Kevin Sherin said the department does not have the authority to deny access to public lakes and that privately owned lake areas would remain open regardless of any action to close the lakes. Instead, the health department has posted signs at 15 swimming and boating areas where people may face exposure to the amoeba. advertisement The effectiveness of the signs appears mixed. When a CNN crew recently visited a bathing area near a natural spring, the water was packed with families. As he sunbathed near a sign warning of amoebas, John Walters seemed unconcerned about danger possibly lurking beneath the clear, inviting waters. "It's no worse I suppose than the gator signs over there and somebody did get attacked here once."    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 Lethal global flu epidemics tend to occur three or four times a century. Some scientists believe a new one 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. 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. 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.    Bird Flu spreads around the globe:

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.

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.

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.