The Bird Flu Pandemic
The virus responsible for the pandemic is believed to have evolved from the strain of influenza that caused the 1957 pandemic through antigenic shift an abrupt major change in the virus that.
The bird flu pandemic. There is no pattern. The highly pathogenic influenza a virus subtype h5n1 is an emerging avian influenza virus that is causing global concern as a potential pandemic threat. Epidemic of a flu that spreads on a worldwide scale and infects a large proportion of the human population. With pandemics explosively spreading a virus from human to human it s never a matter of if but when greger writes.
The government is to pay poultry farmers whose flocks have been affected with a strain of a virus that has pandemic potential. J ust over a dozen years ago a bird flu virus known as h5n1 was charting a destructive course through asia north africa and the middle east ravaging poultry in apocalyptic numbers and killing 6. A new flu strain in chinese pigs shares genes with the virus that caused the 2009 h1n1 pandemic and several bird flus scientists found. Flu pandemics happen when they happen and pandemic planning is ever ongoing.
Avian flu and influenza pandemics as avian flu kills a growing number of people and outbreaks of the virus are reported in birds from china to turkey public health officials fear a new global influenza pandemic could already be brewing. At least 13 flocks have been affected by a particular strain of. The spanish flu of 1918 which caused an estimated 50 million deaths demonstrates why pandemic influenza viruses have been the focus of the world health organization and governments around the world.