Bird Flu

I wanted to address the current potential public health issue that is foremost in the media right now. Bird Flu AKA: Avian Influenza AKA: Influenza strain H5N1.

This is why people are so scared: in Asia, this virus has has a 50% mortality rate, meaning 50% of people who got the virus have died!! There are very few diseases in this world that are that deadly. The only reason that more people haven't died yet is the virus does not have the right genes to allow for human to human transmission. But the virus in tricky, in that it can switch genes with other strains of flu, and get the genes it needs for human transmission. So far, most of the infections have been in chicken farmers who got the virus from their sick chickens, who probably got it from healthy ducks. This whole chain of infectivity is relatively poorly understood.

So far efforts have been focused on avoiding a flu outbreak in Asia, mostly by killing entire flocks of chickens and ducks. Obviously, this is difficult, because the birds can fly away. This week, bird flu was found in Romania, striking fears that it is spreading. The more the virus spreads, the more chances that it will acquire the genes it needs, and a pandemic will start. With the mobility in the world (air traffic etc), the virus could spread across the world in 6 months! That's not nearly enough time for development, manufacturing and distribution of a vaccine.

There is a good article in this month's National Geographic about the origins of the virus and the work towards a vaccine.