Bird Flu: The Current Situation

Experts agree that an influenza pandemic is inevitable and probably is imminent.  The H5N1 Avian Flu virus is mutating into forms that make it more likely to become communicable from human to human, just like any other common human cold or flu.

At the same time, the likelihood is increasing that that the H5N1 will combine genes with a common flu virus to create a new, frighteningly lethal viral infection that will spread worldwide. Either way, the result will be something our immune systems are not prepared to handle. All of the human population is at risk.

A human epidemic of bird flu in Asia would take just days to spread around the world via airline travel. It could spread world wide before being noticed.

We are several years away from having a workable vaccine available to the general population. The earliest date is 2008 for a viable vaccine, according to the U.S. Health and Human Services Director. The virus is expected to mutate into a pandemic before then.

H5N1 has already met two of three conditions necessary to start a pandemic and is advancing towards the third. 

1. First, it is a new strain unknown among humans for more than a century, meaning that no one is immune to it. 
2. Second, it has jumped species, from birds to humans and other mammals.
3. Virologists are scrutinizing each human case carefully, looking for signs that it has made the final step -- spreading easily from person to person.
   • Thai health officials have documented cases of humans catching H5N1 from the environment instead of directly from handling a bird. This may be a sign of further mutation.
   • Rumors abound that human deaths from bird flu have been covered up in China. World Health Organization statistics on human deaths from bird flu are based on laboratory confirmed H5N1 cases only.

Previous pandemics have typically hit world populations like an avalanche. Pandemics started abruptly without warning, swept through populations with ferocious velocity, and leave considerable damage in their wake.  Past pandemics have infected up to half the people in the world. Current human death rates from the H5N1 virus are over 50%.

It’s Not Too Late To Prepare.