Fighting bird flu

Though SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) was nipped in the bud worldwide, it was the bird flu, which had created unsettling waves of panic globally. The main issue of concern to a layman is the flu virus, H5N1, which is capable of mutating in a way as to spread the flu from human to human. Though it is difficult to say if it could happen in the near future, there are several analogical issues that need to be addressed and clarified.

People of the older generation were greatly concerned at the bird flu epidemic as they were reminded of the bird flu epidemic that spread in 1918 when the virus H1N1 took 20-40 millions of lives creating the fear that the world was about to end.

The bird flu virus is more contagious than SARS but if humans were to be affected by bird flu, the casualties would be far greater than that caused by SARS. According the WHO, a worldwide outbreak could kill millions of people in a matter of days. In bird flu, also called avian influenza or avian flu, the respiratory disease is caused by an influenza virus, which was first identified in 1900 in Italy. The disease is very contagious among birds and may prove fatal to domestic birds like chickens, ducks, turkeys, etc. Normally not affecting species other than birds and pigs, the first case of human involvement was reported in Hong Kong in 1997.

Written by a senior physician of repute, the book under review stresses on the fact that a vaccine needs to be prepared and kept ready as it may be urgently required in case an epidemic breaks out. Even protection to those who have not yet suffered from the disease would be required to be given.