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	Bird Flu: Myth and Reality. There Is No Bird Flu Virus yet, and there is No Remedy to Protect from It Director-General of World Health Organisation Lee Jong-wook also considers that the pandemic of human Bird Flu is inevitable. “It’s just a matter of time when the Bird flu virus, most likely the H5N1 strain, will begin to transfer from human to human, causing flu pandemic among people,” he said in his recent report at an international conference on treatment of Bird Flu. in Geneva. Lee Jong-wook is positive it will definitely happen, even if he doesn’t know when. But is that so? There is also another point of view. At a big international conference on the problems of flu and other virus infections last year, scientists from the St. Petersburg Influenza Research Institute offered their report to the world community, in which they plainly, clearly and, above all, expertly proved that avian virus doesn’t threaten the mankind, at least not in the nearest decade. Here are their arguments. First. Yes, flu virus, which affects chickens—A(H5N1)—can sometimes infect humans who come in contact with sick birds. Indeed, the disease takes a serious form and often has a lethal outcome. However, the contagiousness, so to speak, of avian virus is so low that there is no reason to speak of a disastrous epidemic. These viruses cannot spread among people and provoke even small epidemic outbreaks. About 150 million birds were destroyed in 2003-2004 because of the Bird flu. But only 63 people caught an infection from chicken, and only 30 of them were confirmed to have died of infection. And now let’s compare: hundreds of thousands of people die of flu epidemics annually. In Moscow alone, 3 million people catch flu every year, and it’s an old flu virus to which people have immunity. That is to say, the numbers of infected and lethal outcomes are incommensurable. So far, scientists have no evidence to prove that any epidemic or pandemic virus appeared as a result of direct transfer of flu causative agent from birds to humans. Second. For this virus to appear, a number of circumstances are necessary. The epidemics of human and avian influenza must happen simultaneously and at the same place. It will be necessary for two related viruses to multiply in one and the same cell, which will result in a mutation. And not just any weak mutation, but one with a powerful biotic potential, which will enable it to develop and multiply aggressively. Last year the epidemics of avian and similar human viruses coincided, but the pandemic virus never appeared. It turned out to be not that simple. Avian viruses as such are not transferred from human to human, and neither is mutated human virus in an avian layer. Third. Scientists believe that if a virus with pandemic characteristics appears in the nearest future, it will most likely be a mutation of a human and animal virus. Having analyzed all present scientific data, including those of the nature and the mechanisms of pandemic virus creation, the scientists in St. Petersburg concluded that the risk of flu pandemic appearing in the years to come is minimal. The following facts were presented as evidence. The mankind has a community immunity to the previous pandemic viruses, A(H1N1) and A(H3N2). The return of the earlier pandemic virus of A(H2N2) subtype into human population may pose an increased threat, as this virus circulated about 30 years ago and the mankind has already lost the community immunity to it. However, it is unlikely that the virus survived in human population; therefore its sudden appearance as the flu pandemic causative agent is next to impossible. The appearance of pandemic virus as a mutation of human and avian influenza virus is quite possible, but the risk of its sudden creation is obviously exaggerated. For it to emerge naturally, too many circumstances will have to coincide, which can never happen so fast.