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January 28, 2004
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Sneezing fowl
Bird flu: it's this year's Asia disease. Avian influenza is an infectious disease of birds caused by type A strains of the influenza virus. The disease, which was first identified in Italy more than 100 years ago, occurs worldwide. All birds are thought to be susceptible to infection with avian influenza, though some species are more resistant to infection than others.There's plenty more. Hong Kong had a bird flu scare i 1997, where 18 people were infected and 6 died. They culled 1.5 million chickens in 3 days, probably averting a wider pandemic. The bad news is another pandemic is expected, following the big one in 1918-19 and others in 1957 and 1968. And there's this: at least four months would be needed to produce a new vaccine, in significant quantities, capable of conferring protection against a new virus subtype.End result: it's potentially scary but so long as the various countries infected slaughter their poultry populations quickly it can be contained. Of course it doesn't bode well that Asian nations have a bad track record when it comes to infectious diseases. In this case Thailand, where it seems to have started, deliberately kept quiet about it for a few weeks. Hopefully Governments are all aware of the need to deal with things quickly. But as I said, they don't have a good track record. The lessons of SARS weren't so obvious, apparently. History repeating itself. UPDATE: Adam has more. posted by Simon on 01.28.04 at 12:20 PM in the
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