Arablocator.com

Bird flu is a disease caused by a specific type of avian (bird) influenza virus, the so-called H5N1 virus. This virus was first discovered in birds in China in 1997 and since then has infected 125 people in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Indonesia, killing 64 of them. It is spread by infected migratory birds (including wild ducks and geese) to domestic poultry (primarily chickens, ducks, and turkeys), and then to humans.

Since 1997, and especially since the beginning of 2004, approximately 150 million birds have either died from the disease or been killed to prevent further spread. Nevertheless, this very infectious and deadly virus has spread relentlessly to China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Laos, Russia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Turkey, Romania, England, Croatia, Macedonia, and other countries. This ongoing geographic extension of the virus is of great concern around the world. It is feared that it will continue to spread to all continents, including the Western Hemisphere—and it no doubt will.

Normally, different types of viruses infect just one, or a limited number, of species specific to the particular virus type. The bird-flu virus, however, has infected a large number of birds and animals, including ducks, chickens, turkeys, tree sparrows, peregrine falcons, great black-headed gulls, brown-headed gulls, gray herons, Canada geese, bar-headed geese, little egrets, pigs, clouded leopards, white tigers, mice, domestic cats, crows, magpies, peacocks, blue pheasants, rare eagles, turtledoves, swans, terns, and others. This is another sign of the virulence or destructiveness of the virus.

Researchers, historians, and infectious-disease experts have determined that influenza pandemics (global epidemics) occur approximately once every 30 years. The most deadly pandemic ever recorded occurred in 1918-19, killing more than 100 million people across the globe in less than two years. Two other much less severe pandemics occurred, one in 1957, when approximately two million people died, and one in 1968, when about one million people died. Because we have already had three pandemics in less than 100 years, we are “overdue” for another one.
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