Bird Flu article for laymen

hi all,

i have added a new article to my web site on the subject of bird flu and its relation to the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic:

http://www.ninthday.com/bird_flu.htm

i have had an interest in virulent strains of influenza for a long time now, having written a science thriller a while back in which the 1918 strain is resurrected by an ambitious biotech company. the idea was novel at time, but has now been superceded by actual events (Taubenberger's group completed the work last year and the 1918 strain is for all intents and purposes safely locked away in a lab where it can be studied for clues as to its extraordinary virulence).

anyway, as i had a page on the Spanish Flu pandemic, i though adding a companion Bird Flu page was appropriate.

hopefully people new to the subject will find it to be a decent introduction.

cheers,
Leonard Crane
author of Ninth Day of Creation

thanks Sophia. i was much less a layman 10 years ago when i actively researched this area. i came away from it believing that it is just a matter of time before we see something nasty arise and sweep the globe. hopefully it isn't any time soon because i am just as unprepared as everyone else at this point!

you are right. any guess is speculation. there is no telling at this stage whether H5N1 is sufficiently close--in a genetic sense--to a strain that can aerosolize easily in humans. if it is, then what determines how long it might take to acquire human-to-human transmission via aerosolized form is dependent to a good deal on the number of times it infects a human host (in its current form) and has the opportunity to use that infection as an "experimental testing ground". currently there has been less than a couple of hundred cases of bird-to-human transmission of the virus. if that number can be kept low, then the likelihood of a human-to-human strain can be kept low. but low is a relative term here, and depends in part on the genetic makeup of the virus.

what i worry about is not that governments don't take the risk seriously, but that there are a lot of places in the world to cover. migratory birds go everywhere. not everyone has the resources the U.S. does to try to get on top of this. also, it's not good news that scientifically-speaking the H5N1 strain shows some genetic parallels to the 1918 strain. whether those similarities are important, though, is not known yet.

so my basic answer here is that if we continue to see cases of bird-to-human transmission, we should continue to worry about this. the other thing to remember is that even if we get on top of the current outbreak, there is always next year, and the year after, to think about too. this is not a threat that will ever completely disappear.

finally, i have believed since 1995, when i first looked into this, that we were overdue for an influenza pandemic, and the current bird flu crisis does tend to confirm that this is not an idle fear that i habor.

hi cccc,

i don't mean to be cynical, but by the time you figure out you have an H5N1 strain it'll likely be too late to take any preventative measures.  virulent strains like this act quickly (if they did not, the body would have time to mount an offensive).  in the case of 1918,  some people would notice flu symptoms in the morning and be dead later that day.  i doubt there is any way to know that you have a particular strain other than for a virologist to tell you. symptoms are likely the same as regular flu, but come on much quicker and more intensely. only those who handle birds daily are likely to have a correct suspicion about which strain they have.

basically you do everything you can to ensure you never become infected. also  the effectiveness of drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza against virulent strains is presently unknown. but i'm sure they're better than nothing.

as far as medical therapies go, only a true bird flu vaccine is going to be effective as a preventative measure.