April 17, 2009
The Trumpet
Bird flu may be becoming less fatal, a spokesman for the World Health Organization (who) told Reuters in an interview last week. Of the 11 people, mostly children, who contracted bird flu in Egypt this year, none has died. Ironically, a less-fatal bird flu could be more dangerous in the long run. The who warned that the virus’s milder status could mean that some humans are carrying the virus without showing any symptoms. If this is the case, it could give the flu a chance to mutate into a form that spreads easily among people.
Photo: Workers in India attempt to isolate the spread of an avian flu outbreak. (Deshakalyan Chowdhury / AFP / Getty Images)
There have been a total of 64 confirmed cases of H5N1 avian flu in Egypt – the most of any non-Asian country. Reuters reports that globally, more than 400 people have been infected since 2003 – 254 fatally. More than 300 million birds have been killed from culling or the virus itself.
The severe nature of Avian flu has meant that it has typically killed its victim quickly. A milder strain could give the disease the chance to mutate and spread, causing more deaths overall.
A who emerging-diseases specialist in Cairo said that although the virus has not yet mutated and there was no evidence the disease was communicable among humans, “If there is any subclinical [symptomless] case in Egypt, the aim is to treat immediately to stop the reproduction of the virus. Because whether (through) mutation or reassortment, this will lead to the pandemic strain.”
In 1918, a strain of avian flu known as the Spanish Flu killed around 40 million people in a global pandemic – more than twice the number of people killed in World War I. One in four Americans were affected by the disease.
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