Word: strains
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...thing is certain about avian influenza: it's deadly. All three people who contracted the H5N1 strain of the virus in China last year died. In the first six weeks of 2009, eight people have come down with bird flu, and five have died. Another thing is that while the disease has yet to go pandemic, as many doctors fear it could, it remains worrisomely persistent. Every year since 2003, about 100 people in Asia, the Middle East and Africa contract the disease. Last year, in a rare exception, the number dropped below...
...among some public-health experts that mainland health and veterinary authorities could be missing - or even concealing - the spread of the disease through poultry and wild birds. Hong Kong, where the first human cases of H5N1 infection were found in 1997, reported finding a dozen birds with the deadly strain of the virus earlier this year - a strong indication that the virus is very likely present in adjacent Guangdong province. But so far, Guangdong has reported no bird cases. Equally unusual is that after such a busy month of infections in China, reports of human cases have gone silent...
...crowd has gotten crankier in the face of the brash indifference to its fury. It seems that the mighty have been hit with some virulent strain of arrogance common to those told that they were Too Big to Fail. First the auto executives swooped into town in their Gulfstream IVs to ask for $25 billion; then Merrill Lynch superman John Thain spent $1,405 on a trash can and suggested he deserved a $40 million bonus for losing $15 billion in the fourth quarter. Even Tom Daschle, whose loyal Senate brethren were set to confirm him to the Cabinet, discovered...
Junior seminars in economics—the only small undergraduate courses taught by the department’s faculty—may become yet another victim of the University-wide strain borne of the financial crisis. With faculty departing and Harvard’s hiring slowdown hindering their replacement, the already stretched department does not have enough faculty members to teach the seminars, according to some department members. “We have a shrinking pool of faculty to teach the same pool of students,” said Economics Professor Claudia Goldin, who taught a seminar this fall...
...Even in the best of times, staging an Olympic Games is an extraordinary feat. Hosting thousands of athletes and millions of spectators takes billions of dollars in investment to pull off. But with public and private funding under heavy strain in the global downturn, it's hardly the ideal time to be putting on a show. China lavished some $40 billion on last year's Beijing Games. These days "we are in a mode for lean games," IOC president Jacques Rogge said in December. (See pictures of the Beijing Olympics...