Word: lethal
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...they don't think the danger has passed. In fact, the critical period could just now be arriving in Hong Kong. This is the start of the traditional flu season, when the new virus could, in theory, combine with ordinary human strains to create a supervirus that is both lethal and highly contagious...
...full story of the Hong Kong Incident begins in 1918 with the most lethal epidemic in human history, one that eclipsed even the medieval Black Death. "It's why we do what we do every year," says Roland A. Levandowski, the Food and Drug Administration's chief flu expert and a member of the pandemic planning group. "This experience in Hong Kong, even if it doesn't go anywhere, is a reminder that these things can happen...
...disappeared from our collective memory as well, prompting Crosby to title his history The Forgotten Epidemic. Among flu experts, however, its mysteries are still current and utterly significant. It has always stood as a vivid warning of what the next pandemic could be like. What made the virus so lethal? Why was it able to kill so quickly? And where in nature did it originate...
Last year, on two of the three farms stricken in Hong Kong, mortality was 100%. The scientists knew the virus had a variation of the H gene known as H5--one that is notoriously lethal to chickens. Shortridge did briefly wonder if the virus might eventually cause problems for humans. In an earlier study, conducted with great discretion, his lab had found that residents of rural Hong Kong had antibodies to all the known bird-flu viruses. What that suggested, says Shortridge, was that "any virus could cross the species barrier to humans. But whether it could...
...virus did not seem readily transmittable from person to person was a consolation, but flu experts know that influenza viruses are utterly unpredictable. In Hong Kong the big question was this: Would the H5 reassort with a common human strain to produce a new virus that was as lethal as H5 but could be passed along by a human sneeze? Or would this new H5 virus, through repeated exposure, find some other way to adapt to human hosts? "That's an interesting point," says Shortridge, "because it raises questions about the 1918 pandemic. Did a similar sort of thing happen...