The truth about bird flu

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Title: The truth about bird flu

Word Count: 622

Author: Piper

Email: john@...

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The truth about bird flu

Copyright 2006 Piper

There has been much written about the threat of a bird flu

pandemic. Much of it is either alarmist or inaccurate.

However the truth is not a great deal more digestible.

First I will examine the facts as they stand. The virus in

this case has been labelled H5N1 and it is a fairly close

relation to the virus H1N1 which caused the “Spanish” flu

pandemic in 1918/19. That outbreak followed the Great War

(aka World War I) and killed many more than that war

itself. Most estimates of the death toll of H1N1 range from

50 million to 100 million!

H5N1 is currently decimating bird stocks around the world

and is spreading alarmingly with recent outbreaks in

Turkey, Cyprus and now Africa and Italy. In its current

form H5N1 is not a great threat to mankind and those who

have become infected with the virus have been in close

contact with infected birds. But we must not underestimate

or ignore the human misery caused by those who have died

through infection and the loss to livelihood caused by the

destruction of avian farming stocks.

So what is all the fuss about? Simply that viruses tend to

evolve and, over time, it is likely that H5N1 will “learn”

to infect humans far more easily. Viruses can learn in a

variety of ways. One way is through normal evolution and

they evolve far quicker than we do – indeed some strains of

H5N1 are already showing resistance to Tamiflu – the

current antiviral of choice. A quicker route is if the

virus should find itself inhabiting the same body as a

human flu virus – perhaps in a human being or perhaps in a

pig – among other possibilities. When this happens the

viruses often swap information.

The consensus of opinion among the great and the good of

the scientific community is that it is only a matter of

time before H5N1 becomes capable of human-to-human

transmission – that it is inevitable!

Once that happens the pandemic begins.

But even then a great deal of uncertainty exists. There are

two key statistics when it comes to a virus rather as there

are two key statistics when it comes to marketing a web

site. In the case of the web site the first key statistic

is how many people reading your banner ad/your email promo

click through to your web site. The second is how may of

those actually buy.

In the case of the virus it is far more morbid. The two key

statistics are the infection rate and the mortality rate.

There have been three recognised pandemics in the last 100

years. All three had infection rates of around 25%. The

1918/19 pandemic also had a mortality rate of between 2.5%

- 5% which is why it was so deadly. The pandemics of

1957/58 and 1968/69 had mortality rates of around 0.37%.

These statistics are really the source of all the hype and

concern because currently H5N1 is killing around 50% of

those it infects!

Hence we get claims that 1.5 billion (sic) people will die.

The mathematics is simple. We assume an infection rate of

50%, and some say “Spanish” flu infected 50% of people, and

we apply the current mortality rate of 50% to the current

world population in excess of 6 billion people. Result: one

in four dies.

But this over looks a key point. Usually a virus that

mutates to become capable of human-to-human transmission

becomes much less deadly in the process.

The bottom line – we simply do not know what we might face.

The key question – how much time and money do we spend on a

threat which may be a complete damp squib or may decimate

human population?

About the Author:

Piper is a freelance researcher and writer with four

books under his belt. He specialises in stock markets and

health. Feel free to contact the author at

john@... with any comments on this

article or visit

http://www.virusalert1.com for 's Book on bird flu.