Word: virus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that has killed about half of those in Asia whose infections have been reported to the World Health Organization (who). By then it was too late; Mehmet Ali died on Jan. 1 and his sister four days later, setting off the latest upsurge of fear that the lethal virus might be invading Europe. The virus has already crept stealthily into the four corners of Turkey. As a stopover on migratory bird routes, the country has known for months that it was vulnerable to the natural spread of the disease. Last May, the Turkish Agriculture Ministry warned provincial officials...
...JUMP ON THE VIRUS At least scientists and doctors can profit from Turkey's troubles. "There will be huge lessons to come out of these outbreaks," says John Oxford, a professor of virology at London's Queen Mary's School of Medicine. "Even the dad whose children died can reassure himself of that." The most crucial item of scientific information: who officials say they have so far seen nothing to indicate that the Turkish victims contracted bird flu from other people, the potential nightmare that could lead to a pandemic. Virologists at the National Institute for Medical Research (nimr...
...reached even the most remote communities, virtually every Thai knows the danger bird flu presents - and how it can be fought. In Thailand, the world's fourth-largest poultry exporter before avian flu exploded at the end of 2003, more than 60 million birds have been killed by the virus or culled, while 22 people have been infected and 14 have died. But an ambitious and wide-ranging national response has drastically reduced both avian and human cases since the peak of the outbreak in the autumn of 2004. As H5N1 spreads to Europe's doorstep, learning from Thailand...
Anxiety about avian flu is spreading far faster than the disease. Watch enough reports on television about the outbreaks in Turkey, and you could worry yourself sick. In my opinion, the anxiety is unfounded. ? At the moment, the H5N1 influenza virus is mainly a threat to birds. The virus can infect and kill other animals but only if they have close contact with infected birds. The big concern is that it will gain the ability to pass easily from person to person, possibly by exchanging genes with an ordinary flu virus in the body of some unlucky person infected...
...addition, we would have a chance to stop the epidemic spread of a mutated avian-flu virus by containing it at its point of origin. A few mining towns in Colorado were able to avoid the 1918 flu by barring outsiders for a few months during the epidemic. Australia mostly escaped because of a strict quarantine of incoming ships...