Word: h5n1
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...appearance of avian flu in July, and the apparent Vietnamese cover-up, would mean that this virus has had months to roll through the chicken population, possibly mutating and becoming more pathogenic as it goes. The culprit this time is the same as in Hong Kong in 1997: the H5N1 influenza virus. Historically, this virus has wreaked havoc mainly on poultry. Among chickens, the disease manifests itself as a hemorrhagic fever, turning a pen of healthy birds into a bloody mass of goop and feathers within 24 hours. Since the 1960s, each reported appearance of the disease has drawn...
...does a chicken flu become a human flu? The answer is in the RNA of the virus itself. Influenza viruses are known as shape-shifters, possessing the rare ability to swap proteins with other influenza viruses to create, essentially, new influenza viruses. As long as an H5N1 virus stays in its host species?ducks?then there is little risk of a human pandemic arising. But once that virus has infected chickens, then the chances of jumping to human beings, usually through contact with chicken feces, rise considerably. In humans, the virus is more likely to swap proteins with a human...
...with China. The mainland was the source of Hong Kong's previous outbreaks, and Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department officials in the city sometimes turn back containers of chickens and ducks that have tested positive for antibodies to avian flu. China refuses to officially acknowledge that it has an H5N1 problem. But as recently as last March, according to a document obtained by TIME, China's Ministry of Health was requesting from the WHO H5N1 reagents, which are used to test for presence of antibodies to the virus. That would indicate, at the very least, that China suspected this type...
...Hong Kong was almost the birthplace of a disastrous pandemic. A strain of avian flu called H5N1 leaped the species barrier and infected 18 people, killing six, before the slaughter of the city's 1.4 million chickens helped stop the spread. Last week, alarm bells rang anew when a local 33-year-old man and his nine-year-old son contracted a similar virus. The father died of pneumonia Feb. 17, while the son remains in stable condition. Officials say the victims were probably infected through contact with chickens while visiting China's Fujian province, and that until H5N1...
...Mainland officials well know that chicken flu is bad for business. After each H5N1 outbreak, Hong Kong has banned poultry imports from China, if only temporarily. When Macau detected H5N1 in Chinese geese last May, Chinese waterfowl imports were banned for three months. And after avian flu was detected in Chinese duck meat by Seoul authorities in mid-2001, Japan and South Korea imposed a two-month ban. Within days of Hong Kong's latest outbreak, sales of chicken plunged 80%?an estimated loss to retailers of $13 million. "This is supposed to be our peak season," says Wong...