Avian flu threatens world

The avian flu is for the birds. That is to say, the disease is caused by a virus that usually affects only birds and the occasional pig.

For many years, scientists thought humans could only catch the flu from swine, but that changed in 1997 when 18 Hong Kong residents contracted the illness from a flock of poultry.   Five died, and the Chinese government killed its entire population of chickens.

After another outbreak of cases cropped up in Hong Kong in 2003, they initiated even more aggressive measures to contain the flu.   According to the China Daily, the nation  allocated more than $246 million for vaccines and disease surveillance by 2005.   Similarly, Australia’s Department of Health dedicated $211 million to fight the illness.   The United States took more drastic measures by designating $4 billion to counter the threat of a bird flu pandemic, according to a MSNBC.com report on Sept. 29, 2005.

When the U.S. appropriated those funds, the avian flu had killed 62 people out of 122 known cases of infection, according to the World Health Organization.

Bird flu walk-through

The strain of bird flu that can infect humans is called H5N1.   This name refers to the proteins that make up the virus: hemagglutinin type 5 and neuraminidase type 1.

Most of the H5N1 infections come from Asia because of the large populations of humans, pigs and chickens living together. It creates an incubator for the disease to spread.

Avian influenza A is typical of the wild waterfowl that fly through the region.   This strain affects chickens and pigs but not humans.   Domestic animals catch it when they come into contact with saliva or feces from an infected bird.

The probability of a person catching the flu is very low. Humans would have to come into contact with an infected bird in order to catch it. In addition, a human has yet to spread the flu to another human.

However, a possibility exists that avian influenza could mutate if it comes into contact with another strain that does infect humans.   This could happen if the virus invades a host who is already infected with the regular flu.   When that occurs, the disease will spread as quickly as the common cold – but it will be much, much deadlier.

The symptoms of the H5N1 strain are fevers, sore throats and other common cold characteristics, but it is likely to cause pneumonia and respiratory failure, too.  

Serious threat or needless fret?

People fear the avian flu because of its history of pandemics.

For example, the BBC described the Spanish flu of 1918 as a disease entirely derived from birds. It killed approximately 50 million people worldwide.

Another deadly influenza outbreak was the Asian flu.   Wikipedia.com says the virus killed between 1 million and 4 million people.

However, people have panicked needlessly in the past.   For instance, millions feared a pandemic from the swine flu of 1976, but it only killed one person.