Friday, September 30, 2005
Asian Avian Flu
The headline certainly catches your attention: New Flu Pandemic Could Kill 150 Million. But the news is actually slightly less sensational. It all comes from the World Health Organization and Dr. David Nabarro. WHO?
Here is his big quote: "We expect the next influenza pandemic to come at any time now, and it's likely to be caused by a mutant of the virus that is currently causing bird flu in Asia."
They're waiting for Asian Avian Flu (the H5N1 strain) to mutate. That has to occur (and it certainly can) for the AAF to become a deadly pandemic. Right now it's not that scary.
Here's the reality behind the headline: "[The AAF] has swept through poultry populations in Asia since 2003, infecting humans and killing at least 65 people, mostly poultry workers, and resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of birds. The virus does not pass from person to person easily..."
65 people in three years is not quite the Spanish Influenza. However, everyone at WHO, it seems, expects the Spanish Influenza to reappear in the form of a mutated H5N1 strain of AAF. Or the bird flu could go the way of Swine Flu, where the cure was more deadly than the disease. There is no scientifically valid way to judge the likelihood that a certain virus will mutate towards greater communicability. No way at all.
Here's another headline, perhaps a few orders of magnitude less likely, but just as eye-catching: Seven Billion to Freeze to Death if Sun Dims Just a Little.
Here is his big quote: "We expect the next influenza pandemic to come at any time now, and it's likely to be caused by a mutant of the virus that is currently causing bird flu in Asia."
They're waiting for Asian Avian Flu (the H5N1 strain) to mutate. That has to occur (and it certainly can) for the AAF to become a deadly pandemic. Right now it's not that scary.
Here's the reality behind the headline: "[The AAF] has swept through poultry populations in Asia since 2003, infecting humans and killing at least 65 people, mostly poultry workers, and resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of birds. The virus does not pass from person to person easily..."
65 people in three years is not quite the Spanish Influenza. However, everyone at WHO, it seems, expects the Spanish Influenza to reappear in the form of a mutated H5N1 strain of AAF. Or the bird flu could go the way of Swine Flu, where the cure was more deadly than the disease. There is no scientifically valid way to judge the likelihood that a certain virus will mutate towards greater communicability. No way at all.
Here's another headline, perhaps a few orders of magnitude less likely, but just as eye-catching: Seven Billion to Freeze to Death if Sun Dims Just a Little.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 5:49 AM 
