JEMC said:
curl-6 said:
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.
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I also hope that it is a one of those cases where it looks worse than it actually is.
The thing is, besides the pig flu that happened in America (I think), all of these rare flus have happened in China, where pollution and selling infected food are known problems. I don't know if those things as well as the possibility of using drugs on the animals are factors that are making these ills stronger/worse than they should be, it's the population that is weaker or (more probably) both things making it look worse.
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In China, and otehr East Asian countries, large populations of humans, birds, and pigs live in close contact with each other. This facilitates both the transfer of bird viruses to people, but the mixing of bird and human strains in pigs, which can result in a mutant hybrid combining the high lethality of an avian flu with the high transmissibility of human flu.
