Bird flu virus mutating into human-unfriendly form

Bird flu virus mutating into human-unfriendly form

www.reuters.com

The H5N1 bird flu virus has mutated to infect people more easily, although it still has not transformed into a pandemic strain.

The viruses that are circulating in Africa and Europe are the ones closest to becoming a human virus.

The H5N1 avian flu virus, which mostly infects birds, has since 2003 infected 329 people in 12 countries, killing 201 of them. It very rarely passes from one person to another, but if it acquires the ability to do so easily, it likely will cause a global epidemic.

(visit the link for the full news article)

The outbreak is inevitable. The only question is: how many millions will die?

H5N1 (Bird Flu) Wiki

www.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I am going to give this thread a bump because I believe it still deserves attention. Notice I don't say panic I say attention. I remember some time ago myself and another ATS member were keeping abreast of the bird flu situation and nobody really paid attention UNTIL our media began saturating us with information, docudramas, documentaries and 20/20 specials and BAM this board and conversations about the bird flu exploded. It was suddently worthy of our attention because the sheeple that we are fell right in line with the way the media portrayed and angled the brutal way we were all going to die.

I have followed and still follow the bird flu to this day as I have since 2003. Nobody really knew about this back then either because it was happening somewhere else. I have watched it's progressive albeit (thankfully) slow evolution. It was going to mutate we just didn't know into what form. There are many threads out here on ATS about the different strains and proteins so I won't drudge up the dynamics of that I will say that people need to stay informed and alert.

This baby now has the adapatability to support itself in the upper respiratory tract of the human lung. This is very unfortunate because while currently it is predominate in cluster cases only it will be only a matter of time just as it has evolved since 2003. Back then it was strickly birds, fast forward to 2005 it evolved to birds/people(workers) in close proximity, 2006 family that had chickens or fowl close by, later 2006 family clusters (human to human transmission amongst close people), early 2007 medical care workers taking care of those with bird flu.
The above is loosely based but goes to show a rudimentary progression and it will only continue as this virus finds new genes to shift or drift with.

While I am as critical as most where it concerns the governments of our world, I find it hard to believe that this doomsday scene will play out. Many nations have been looking for ways to treat this for some years now, and I doubt they would all withhold information.

While there has not been a great deal said lately about this strain of the flue, I'm sure a lot of research has been done worldwide. This strain has been around long enough to give suffecient lead time for some combative measures to have been found, though not a true vaccine.

While there could be a lot of deaths from this if it ever gets a hold, I don't see it becoming a disaster on par with the 1918 flue epidemic. What I fear is something worse, a flue/virus that goes straight to human to human infection before enough is known about it to formulate a plan to combat it.There is always the next "bug" out there somewhere.

We struggle against a terror as old as humankind itself.