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The Bird Flu As It Is

The Bird Flu story is one that is continuously changing. Because the Bird Flu is a virus, it has the ability to mutate into whatever it would like to be. The world is full of various viruses. In the United States and most modern countries, the most common viruses that you probably know about are those that you get every winter. That is, the common cold and the annual or common flu. These two are usually slightly different each year. Unlike a disease that is caused by bacteria, there is no cure for these viruses because of just how fast they can mutate. For example, should a doctor find a cure for the common cold, it would likely be rendered useless by the next cold season.

The Bird Flu also known as the Avian Flu is the same type of thing. It is a condition in which the virus can easily spread from one person to another person easily. It is important to note that the Bird Flu is not believed to have made that drastic leap from the bird infecting humans to the human infecting other humans. This is an important element because, unlike other viruses, the Bird Flu virus can be lethal to human beings. With that said, it is important to note that this can happen. Many scientists actually believe that it will happen within the next several months.

So, what’s so bad about the Bird Flu virus?

Many scientists believe that the flu has a cycle of 20-30 years in which it will worsen to a stain that is so deadly that the virus can actually kill large numbers of people. It is this way because of how fast it can move through the population and how fast it can wreak havoc on the human body. In short, it happens hard and fast. The last pandemic level of the flu happened in 1957 with the Asian Flu. In this flu, some one million to four million people are thought to have died from it. It originated in China and was eradicated by 1970.

The Bird Flu that we are seeing today is a much more lethal strain. There is no way to tell the probability of the spread of the Bird Flu if in fact it does mutate enough to become something that can be transmitted from human to human. There is no way to know how many people could potentially die from it. It is estimated that the worst case scenario would be that 150 million people, which is 2% of the world’s population, would in fact die from a Bird Flu pandemic.

It is important that the probability of a Bird Flu pandemic be considered in business continuity planning and family emergency preparedness.