Sunday, January 18, 2009

BIRD FLU IS STILL A THREAT TO HUMANS

Two women, ages 27 and 19 have died in China after handling birds. A 2 year old has been infected but still lives. When a stricken person dies, as a lay person I wonder if that means that the viruses that may have mutated within that body will also die. I hope the 2 year old lives, but I question whether the virus will have evolved more fully within that little human body to become a more significant threat to humans. Perhaps someone with medical knowledge about viral mutations will publish something soon. Bird flu often resurges in the winter months in China, but not every case is fatal.

"A lethal strain of bird flu has been spreading across the globe for more than four years, killing millions of birds and hundreds of humans.
However, fears of a new pandemic, which could claim millions of lives, have not been realized so far, even though the mortality rate of the disease among humans has risen above 60%." Read this for more details.

We are fortunate that there is no danger that the US is in immediate danger of the disease. Nevertheless every vaccine making company has been working on producing the HSN1 strain. Fortunately for research, the strain was caught before mutation

To read information from the CDC, got to their site.

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