Bird flu. Doesn’t sound very threatening, does it? Perhaps you’re more concerned about the possibility of getting West Nile virus or SARS (sudden acute respiratory syndrome). But you should be worried about bird flu, or the H5N1 virus, as it’s known. Very worried.
Avian flu virus has every earmark of becoming a pandemic, or worldwide epidemic. The last pandemic the United States experienced was the influenza epidemic of 1918, which killed 675,000 Americans and several million people worldwide. The H5N1 virus could easily top that, as humans have absolutely no resistance to the virus. It’s too new.
H5N1 only emerged in Asia a couple of years ago. Like swine flu, it is a trans-species virus that mutated and crossed over from birds into humans from close contact. It can be transmitted through feces or sputum, from touching, eating or just being close to infected birds. Not all infected birds show symptoms. It has already crossed over to swine in China — only a short hop from there to people.
At this writing, 54 people have died from bird flu in Asia since December 2003. Millions of domesticated and wild fowl have been killed to stop infection or have died of the infection. Millions more have been vaccinated with a vaccine developed in China that has not been proved effective. Indeed, some health experts think it could spread a vaccine-resistant super-version of the illness.
Where is it? Infections have been detected in Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, China and, most disturbing, eastern Russia, Siberia and Kazakhstan. Human deaths have been confined so far to Vietnam, Indonesia, Hong Kong and China.
H5N1 has been found in flocks of migratory geese, and when those birds migrate, well, they take the virus with them. Hence, the pandemic scenario, with eastern Europe having a high probability of infection in 2005. Health experts also fear that the virus is being spread through illegal meat imports.
What can you do? Nothing. The virus is spreading and will continue to spread, inexorably, across the planet. Take vitamins, exercise and read this News Watch column regularly, as this topic is still under the radar of Western journalists.
We will post the latest information on avian flu here, as it becomes available, from a variety of international new sources.
When the pandemic hits, no doubt the government will say, ‘we had no idea.’
THERE have always been epidemics and pandemics and one interesting thing is they don’t kill everyone. Just the ones with weakened immune systems. Meanwhile, the american immune system is going down 5% a year, way below what it was back in the fifties when farmers still worked the land and rotated crops, and waited til the food was ripe to pick it.
The best defense is a good immune system, and science already knows how to build one.