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curl-6 on 13 April 2013
| JEMC said: I'm really in two minds about this. This "bird/pig/whatever flu" alarms have been appearing during the last 3-4 years, and since they are more lethal than regular viruses it's worrying. But since these ills appears in remote locations it's hard to know if they are old illness that were confused with the seasonal flu or are something really new. |
Flu viruses have a very high mutation rate, that's why new ones emerge so often.
There is the possibility that what we're seeing are only the worse cases, that most of those infected are so mild they're not even being detected, and that the kill rate is in actuality far lower than it appears at present. Let's hope so.
The worrying part is that its apparently more efficient at infecting people than other avian flus. That could hint that its a shorter step for it to go from a bird disease to one that can transfer between people.
