Word: outbreaks
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...news the world can handle as avian influenza has broken out in Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam. Already, the disease appears to have jumped the species barrier, killing at least four people, and the virus is suspected of causing another 10 deaths. Asia has stared down avian-flu outbreaks before, notably in Hong Kong in 1997 when the city's Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department officials culled 1.4 million chickens, as well as ducks, geese and other birds, after 18 human cases resulted in six fatalities. This time around, however, the spread of the outbreak to several countries has public...
...Their fear is that of all the diseases in the world today?from SARS to AIDS, anthrax to Ebola?the single microbe with the greatest potential to become, as epidemiologists say, a "slate wiper," is influenza. Previous pandemics, such as the global outbreak of 1918 that killed an estimated 60 million people, have precipitated some of the greatest die-offs in history. We've all had the flu, of course, but those few days off from work with the sniffles are a completely different illness from that caused by a novel influenza against which we have no immunity. Without antiviral...
...effort to curtail the current avian-flu outbreak before any killer mutations can occur, public-health officials, epidemiologists and virologists are now scrambling to figure out the origin and genomic sequence of the flu strains in Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam. A 14-strong WHO team, including experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is expected to arrive in Hanoi by midweek. If they can determine where this virus came from, then perhaps better surveillance and monitoring of the poultry trade can curtail future outbreaks...
...clue might be simple geography. Every afflicted country or territory is contiguous, either by land or sea, 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...
...Netherlands has launched a survey in which fecal samples are submitted from around the continent for testing. "We've found the proteins that indicate the presence of various avian influenzas," says Osterhaus. The prevalence of viruses in migratory birds may have been responsible for an avian-flu outbreak in the Netherlands last year that infected 80 people, killing one. The virus responsible, an H7, which was less deadly than the H5 strain, did achieve human-to-human transmission...