Avian Flu Still a Threat?

from the February 05, 2008 eNews issue

Is the much-debated avian influenza, also known as the bird flu, still a threat? Experts say yes, it is, and we can't afford to be complacent. According to the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, the likelihood of an influenza pandemic within the next five to ten years is very high.

CDC and WHO officials believe that the avian influenza could become a global epidemic if a new strain of the virus emerges that can jump readily from human to human. If there is an outbreak health officials estimate that it would spread rapidly and could infect nearly one-third of the world's population. It could kill anywhere from 2 million to 50 million people. The disease has infected bird populations in most of Asia, Europe, the Middle East and parts of Africa. Tens of millions of chickens and other poultry have already been killed by the flu or slaughtered in order to stop the disease from spreading. Experts suspect it is only a matter of time before migratory birds bring the disease to the United States.

In recent years the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has spread to more than 60 countries and has resulted in the deaths of millions of birds. Since the year 2003, there have been about 350 confirmed cases of the bird flu virus in humans and more than 200 deaths. The human death toll from the avian flu actually declined in 2007. However experts say that is not because the threat has decreased, it is because our response has improved. Experts also say that many cases are not reported, and the actual number of human infections could be much higher. Southeast Asia has been hit hardest, particularly Indonesia and Vietnam, which have the highest numbers of human fatalities. While most victims contracted the virus through direct contact with infected birds, there have been several isolated incidents in which the disease was reportedly transferred from human to human.

Avian flu could be the cause of the next pandemic, which experts say will probably happen in the near future. There have been four pandemics during the last century, which emerge, on average, every 30 years. Perhaps the most deadly pandemic in human history was the 1918 Spanish flu which emerged just after the end of World War I. It killed between 20 and 50 million people, more than the Black Plague or AIDS. When scientists reconstructed the 1918 virus they discovered that, unlike the last flu pandemic which hit Hong Kong in 1968, the 1918 flu virus was a bird flu that jumped directly to humans. This discovery has lead many to believe that the next pandemic will be similar to that of the deadly 1918 outbreak.

With the advent of antibiotics 50 years ago, scientists predicted the end of death and suffering from infectious diseases. During the past 25 years, however, we have witnessed the reemergence and geographical spread of well-known diseases, including tuberculosis, malaria, and cholera, often in more virulent and drug-resistant forms. Scientists have also identified more than 30 previously unknown diseases, like HIV and Ebola, for which there is no known cure.

According to the National Institute of Health infectious diseases remain the leading cause of death worldwide, and the third leading cause of death in the United States. Diseases thought to be obsolete have once again become a global threat, and in recent years new pathogens have emerged, some of which carry antibiotic-resistant genes or mutations enabling them to move across different species.