Innocent Numbers and Letters that Reflect a Serious Flu

Like humans and other species, birds are susceptible to flu. There are 15 types of bird, or avian, flu. The most contagious strains, which are usually fatal in birds, are H5 and H7. There are nine different types of H5. The nine all take different forms - some are highly pathogenic, while some are pretty harmless.

The type currently causing concern is the deadly strain H5N1, which can prove fatal to humans. Migratory wildfowl, especially wild ducks, are natural carriers of the viruses, but are unlikely to actually develop an infection. The risk is that they pass it on to domestic birds, which are much more susceptible to the virus.

Diseased birds increase the opportunities for human infection and provide chances for H5N1 to change into a structure more hazardous to people. The virus is reported to have killed a person about every four days this year, more than double the 2005 rate. Millions could die if H5N1 becomes easily transmissible between people, sparking a lethal pandemic.

The H5N1 virus is known to have infected 256 people in 10 countries in the past three years, killing 152 of them, according to the World Health Organization. . Last year, 42 fatalities were confirmed, after 32 in 2004 and four in 2003. More than five of every 10 reported cases were fatal.

The fatality rate of officially reported bird flu in humans is 59 percent through October of 2006.

Over the past two years the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu has spread from South East Asia to Europe, the Middle East and West Africa, sparking fears of a global pandemic. The bird flu is spreading at an alarming pace.

The latest numbers, as of October 11, 2006, report that there have been a total of 253 cases of reported Bird flu worldwide. According to the World Health Organization 148 people have died.

As of October 2006 deaths from this virus have been limited to the countries of Azerbaijan, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Turkey, China, Iraq and Cambodia.

Bird flu pops up in the U.S. occasionally. The last time an extreme strain appeared was in February 2004, near Houston, Texas. This involved a different virus strain than the one circulating in Asia. By April 2004, the outbreak had been eradicated. No human infections were detected.

Many are comparing the spread of H5N1 to the Spanish flu virus of 1918. At least four of the eight genes now contain mutations seen in the deadly strain that circled the globe during the outbreak in 1918. These genetic changes are frightening because the Spanish flu killed 50 million people almost a century ago.

It appears that the H5N1 virus might be acquiring the ability to adapt to humans, increasing their pandemic risk in what has been described by some as the deadliest epidemic since the Black Death.

According to experts if the next pandemic resembles the birdlike 1918 Spanish flu, as many as 1.9 million could die, and millions more would be seriously ill.

H5N1 is a serious flu and currently there is no vaccine to prevent it, or medicine to cure it. Although a vaccine against the H5N1 virus known as the bird flu is under development in several countries, no vaccine is ready for commercial production and no vaccines are expected to be widely available until several months after the start of a pandemic. This means an outbreak would have to already be in progress before a vaccine would be widely available to the public.

In February 2006, President Bush approved an extraordinary amount of funds to support vaccine research, development, and procurement. That funding will support research on more resourceful ways to produce vaccine as well as ways to extend a given supply of vaccine to all who need it. Hopefully these funds will aid in saving lives from the serious H5N1 virus.