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Avian flu - the ecology of an epidemic
Pat Thomas
1st December, 2005
Bird flu has been raging through Asia for more than a decade. But it is only recently that most of us have started to pay attention to the story. Pat Thomas seperates fact from fiction and asks whether this is a random act of nature or yet another man-made disaster.
The words ‘bird flu’ strike terror into many hearts for many different reasons. As the story of Avian influenza H5N1 gains momentum, the panic induced by the possibility of a virulent strain of influenza that not only jumps national borders but might also jump species has galvanised several influential sectors of society into action.
Farmers, fearful for their economic survival, are slaughtering hundreds of millions of birds in order to control the virus. Doctors, seeing an opportunity to save humanity from a potential pandemic and get published at the same time, are busy studying this and other related viruses. Drug companies, spying an unprecedented opportunity for profit, are busy attempting to produce experimental vaccines and anti-viral medicines for both animals and humans. The media, hungry for a good scare story, have been able to generate a more or less daily flow of such tales. Politicians looking for political capital are talking about quarantines, closing borders and waging war on a microscopic enemy.
But think about it. After several years of intense analysis and debate, how much do you really know about H5N1? If you are like most people you have probably, at some point in the...
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