AvianBirdsFlu.com: key facts about Avian Influenza commonly called Bird Flu that created world health crises rivaled only by Plague and HIV.
Home Page News Virus Pandemic Vaccine Sympotms Links H5N1 Strain Forum	From animals to human: Bird Flu is next? - cont'd Smallpox. Humans caught this infection from a camel. The disease became known about 3 thousand years ago and for a long time was considered the main cause of children’s death. Many outstanding historical persons, for example, Louis the Fifteenth, King of France, became victims of smallpox. Historians estimate that, at the end of XIX century, about 50 million people were infected with smallpox annually. Mortality rate from smallpox exceeded 30% from the total number of infected people. The last case of smallpox was registered in 1977. Monkey smallpox. Humans caught this infection from gophers. Cases of disease were registered at the end of May in the USA. The course of the disease is similar to that of common smallpox, but in a milder form, and hasn’t yet caused fatal outcome. Plague. Humans caught this infection from rats and other rodents. The causative agent is transferred through a bite. The first epidemic, known under the name of the Plague of Justinian, happened in Byzantium in VI century, and within 50 years about 100 million people died of it. In XIV century, the world was hit by an epidemic of the Black Death—the bubonic plague, which destroyed about one third of the Asian population and one half of the European population. At the end of XIX century, the third world plague epidemic arose. Outbreaks were registered in more than 100 harbors of the world. In 1999, the outbreaks of plague were registered in more than 14 countries of the world, mostly in Africa. 2.6 thousand of people fell ill, 212 of whom died. Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (better known as the “Mad Cow Disease”). Humans caught this infection from a cow. There are several registered cases of fatal outcome for those who ate beef infected with a causative agent of this brain-affecting disease. From time to time cases of the “Mad Cow Disease” are registered in different countries of the world. The damage caused by this disease to the European agricultural sector is estimated at $60-120 billion. Encephalitis. Humans got the causative agents of encephalitis from rodents and birds. The virus carriers are mosquitoes and ticks. 100-200 thousand people become infected by different forms of encephalitis annually, 10-15 thousand of whom die. Salmonellosis. Humans caught this infection from cows, pigs, goats and domestic birds (ducks and geese). The infection by salmonellae happens when eating meat or eggs, in which living salmonellae remain. In some cases salmonellosis caused people’s death. Unlike many other contagious diseases, there are no measures that one can take to protect oneself from the flu infection. People know what to do not to catch AIDS, but there is no protection from flu.