Avian Flu update

Usually a glorious sight, the great migration of birds from western China to Siberia this brings a shuddering premonition of  fear and death.

At least 5000 wild birds and geese died in western China from infections with the H5N1 virus. 

H5N1 is the variant of avian flu that is the most worrisome because it's fatal to humans, and has killed to date some 57 people in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia.  Last week,  two more people died in Vietnam.  Both had eaten sick chicken before falling ill.

Because chicken and duck farms can be quarantined and infected birds destroyed, public health scientists and government officials hold tight to slim hopes that the outbreaks of avian flu can be localized and a global pandemic averted.

But the virus jumps from domesticated birds to wild birds and geese,  hopes begin to die.  When infected birds migrant from Qinchan Lake in western China to central  Siberia, they bring the highly contagious virus with them.  About two weeks ago, large numbers of ducks, turkeys, chicken and geese began dying in the Novosibirsk region in Russia.    They were all incinerated to keep the virus from spreading. 

The great fear is that H5N1 will spread to the country's main poultry farms in the heavily populated European part of Russia.

UK and US teams,  using computer models to work out various scenarios if the H5N1 virus mutates to allow human-to-human transmission,  say a global pandemic could claim 20 to 40 million lives,   They also say, surveillance and a targeted use of anti-viral drugs requiring close cooperation of governments and decisive action within days could still stop a global pandemic. 

We can hope and pray this works, but nothing can beat being prepared.

UPDATE: Quarantine imposed on all poultry farms in Russia via Sigmund, Carl and Alfred