Bird Flu Fears
By Carole Nickerson, GlobalBirdFlu.com, Thu Dec 8th

Remember the good old days when a cold consisted of a runnynose, stuffed up sinuses, and a few aches & pains?

Or how about the flu? I remember as a kid, the worst horrorstory I ever heard of was someone having a week of diarrhea &vomiting. That was scary stuff, and not even so much in the factthat you would feel downright rotten, but the embarassment of itall.

Times have changed....

It seems every year you hear about some crazy new viral mutationor "superbug" sweeping into the population, ready and willing tonot just make us sick, but to outright kill us.

Infectious diseases have always been a threat to mankind. In thepast 10 years we have seen many new & reemerging diseases cometo the surface - SARS, Monkeypox, Malaria, Tuberculosis, WestNile Virus, and the most popular of our time - HIV/AIDS. Areport from the National Institute of Allergy and InfectiousDiseases published a 10-year perspective where it showed thatnearly 25% of all worldwide deaths are caused by infectious ¶sitic diseases. That's about 15 million out of some 57million annual deaths.

In comes "Bird Flu"......

Technically known as "avian influenza" H5N1, it is the latestinfectious threat on the scene, making headlines around theworld - and for good reason. There have been reports that itcould kill anywhere between 50% - 90% of those infected. It'simportant to remember that opinions & theories are going to varybecause there just isn't enough data to work with inestablishing a true perspective on what h5N1 could do. We doknow that out of 117 reported human cases, 60 were fatal. Thatis indeed a scary number.

There is a lot of controversy over the numbers though. Somescientists claim the threat of bird flu is much lower, whileothers predict a global outbreak in the very near future thatcould kill millions. It appears to be yet another issue wherethe "experts" can only guess.

People become infected when they come into contact with infectedpoultry and poultry feces, usually during the process ofslaughtering and preparing meat. The World Health Organizationreports though that this does not occur in everyone exposedthough. For many years it has essentially been a diseaseaffecting birds, but over time managed to cross over into athreat to humans.

So why the worry?

What worries scientists is that if given the right conditions,the H5N1 virus could mutate

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into a new form which would allowhuman-to-human infection, sparking a global pandemic. There hasbeen at least one reported case of human-to-human infection inThailand already, so the question now is not "if", but "when" itwill occur. H5N1 is now firmly established in large parts ofAsia, with each human infection giving the virus moreopportunity to adapt and mutate. Based on it's history, makeupand what we've learned from it's cousins & past pandemics, it'sability & likelihood of mutating is very high, making the riskfor a global pandemic a very real possibility.

Don't they have anything to treat this?

Unfortunately, there is no commercially available product whichcan prevent H5N1 infection in humans. It is under development inseveral countries, but no vaccines are expected to be availablefor several months until after the onset of a pandemic. Theproblem is that they can only guess as to what the virus willlook & behave like in a mutated form. It's like trying to figureout what a 2 month old child will look like when they are 20 andbuying the clothes long before you even know if they'll fit.

Most recently, a drug called Tamiflu was being stockpiled bysome countries to combat H5N1, but there are reports that it maynot be very effective at all. Tamiflu was really designed foryour "average joe" flu that we all have has at some point. Inhigher doses, it may work to some degree. Then again, it mightnot. We just don't know that yet. As with everything - there iscontroversy, mixed messages & conflicting expert opinions. Therehave been a number of other vaccines (old & new) being discussedin the news recently. To keep up on the vaccine situation, itprobably best to keep your eye on the WHO website at:http://www.wpro.who.int/health_topics/avian_influenza/

If there is one thing everyone can agree on is that the world isnot prepared. WHO has urged all countries to establishpreparedness plans, but only around 40 have done so and mostdeveloping countries simply don't have the resources to preparethemselves and even fewer have access to vaccines.

How ironic that "chicken soup" has been the choice for curingcolds and flus for so many generations.

About the author:Carole Nickerson is a writer & web developer who has beenwriting on various topics of interest since 1998. To read moreon the avian bird flu topic, visit GlobalBirdFlu.comKeywords: Bird flu, avian bird flu, asian bird flu, pandemic,bird flu pandemic, birdflu