why is there bird flu in germany?
81722
Bird flu is spread by migratory birds and traveling people.
167865
You do not have bird flu, because if you did, you would not be sitting here typing.  Bird Flu is a very aggressive virus. It will take you down like a buffalo full of twenty-odd buckshot.
664336
It is moving from   country to country via waterfowl migration.  It is likely to arrive in the US during the next migration back in the spring of 2007.  People who raise poultry have been working on plans to keep their flocks inside poultry houses to avoid contact with wild birds.\nShould bird flu be detected in the bird population, the public will be advised of sanitary procedures, such as not handling dead birds and wiping shoes before entering a home.
1179280
It has to do with the level of industrialization of countries, I think.  In the US, for instance, people don't have their children pluck chickens to eat, because we have machines that do it for us.  (The first and most common cases of bird flu in Asia are young boys who pluck chickens, it's this contact with the dead birds bloody body that passes the disease)  If there was a virus in chickens, a)it would die on the dead bird before people bought it because it couldn't feed off the dead bird's cells, or b) it would be killed in our ultra-efficient gas stoves.  We don't like to kill animals or handle their bodies in the US because our level of industrialization is such that we don't have to, so, less chance of bird flu.\n\nIn Africa, the spread of and the inception of diseases also has to do with industrialization because people tend to live closer to wild animals and to forest or jungle (We clear large swaths of land to build huge cities or suburban towns, but in smaller African towns people live nearer to wildlife).  This is why sometimes diseases like AIDS or Ebola will "come out of the jungle", meaning that someone had an encounter with a wild animal who had the disease, and they spread it to others in the town.  People tavelling from town to town or from towns to cities bring the diseases far, but they originate when people have encounters with wild animals.\n\nThe US is just so removed from wildlife because of our high level of industrialization that we don't often get diseases straight from animals: they have to be borne human-to-human to reach us, which I think in these cases is a good thing!
434197
Avian flu is any flu caused by a virus adapted to birds.\n\nIt is also called bird flu, avian influenza and bird influenza.\n\nThe only known such viruses are Influenza A viruses. All subtypes (but not all strains of all subtypes) of this species are adapted to birds, so for many purposes avian flu virus is Influenza A virus (the "A" does not stand for "avian").\n\nHowever most people use "avian flu" to mean H5N1 which is the subtype of the species Influenza A virus that is the world's major flu pandemic threat.\n\nSo "avian flu", "bird flu", "avian influenza", and "bird influenza" all mean the same thing; but are all used to mean these very different things:\n\nflu: \nflu from Influenza A viruses which are adapted to birds (the technically correct meaning) \nthe flu acquired from any Influenza A viruses \nthe H5N1 flu (flu acquired from H5N1) \nvirus: \nInfluenza A viruses which are adapted to birds \nthe Influenza A viruses \nthe H5N1 subtype of the Influenza A virus. \n[edit]\nDetailed explanation of terms\n"Flu" is short for "influenza". The two words mean exactly the same thing. No difference in meaning, only a difference in spelling and pronunciation.\n\n"Bird" and "avian" used as an adjective in front of either mean exactly the same thing. No difference in meaning, only a difference in spelling and pronunciation.\n\nSo that gives us four ways of saying the same thing.\n\nAll four mean (1)a disease called a flu (2)from an infection from a virus adapted to birds (which includes no viruses other than Influenza A viruses, which includes all subtypes of Influenza A viruses, but does not include all strains of Influenza A viruses).\n\nThese four terms do not mean the virus itself, although people often use it that way anyway. These four terms do not mean just any Influenza A virus flu. Some Influenza A viruses have adapted to animals other than birds.
220644
its called the H5N1 virus, and bird flu is more specifically known as the avian flu
369646
The flu virus family is a big one. Some are characteristically bird flus, others are swine flus, others are human flus, ...\n\nThere's a considerable similarity amongst them (a family, right!)  and under some circumstances, a bird flu can swap bits with a pig flu or a human flu, producing a new variant. It's likely that this happens most often in SE Asia where duck ponds, people (including children) and pigs all live in very close quarters. This is probably the way the major flu pandemics (remember the Hong Kong flu?) in humans get started. \n\nUsually, bird flus don't bother people or pigs, and vice versa. But sometimes, there's enough of a crossover that a bird flu acquires the ability to infect people and spread easily. It happened in 1918, and that flu epidemic spread rapidly and killed something on the order of 40 or 50 million around the world in about 18 months. We know it was a bird type flu because the virus has been reconstructed in a research lab. These guys went looking for folks who'd died from that flu in the Arctic North and been buried in the permafrost. It took more than a decade, but it's recently become clear this flu, the 'Spanish flu', was a bird type flu. \n\nin the case of the current avian flu, it's not yet (if it ever will) acquired the ability to spread easily from human to human. It seems that you must be in close contact with infected birds to have much of a chance of catching it. But if you do, it's very dangerous. The mortality reat in the first few hundred reported cases was something like 50% and that's very very high. More recent cases in Europe seem to have a lower mortality rate, but that may primarily be an artifact of better care (eg, learning from prior cases). \n\nThere is little understanding of what changes would be required for this bird flu variant to become human infectious. There has been some speculation that it may be a few as two different gene changes. And perhaps the change(s) will never happen; no one has much of a real idea about the chances. And it's possible that, if it becomes infectious in humans, it will lose the lethality it currently has in humans. Or not, which is the scary case. \n\nTreatment for flu viruses is traditionally best via vaccine. However, since flu viruses change regularly and the vaccines are typically variant specific, it hasn't been possible to get it precisely right. Which variant will be the major issue in the coming flu season is hard to predict, but having guessed, it takes quite a while to produce the vaccine. It's a bit of a guess and isn't always gotten right. The avian flu is no different. \n\nA vaccine against the current variant would be pointless for humans, as it doesn't infect us very well. And if the virus changes to become infectious in humans, we don't really know how to develop a vaccine against a virus variant we haven't yet seen. And after we see it, it will take some months to produce the vaccine for it. \n\nWhat are the chances of drug treatment against a human infective variant of this avian flu? Not good, just as there aren't very good drugs against any virus infection. We have one or two drugs, of which Tamiflu is thought to be the best of a not very good lot. Governments have begun stockpiling it, against possible need. \n\n======\n\npossibilities\n\n1) The virus never acquires the ability to infect humans easily and to be highly contagious. If so, the current plague among birds will eventually burn itself out and there won't be much further issue. \n\n2) The virus will never acquire the ability to be highly contagious, but will learn to infect people much better than it can manage now and will retain its lethality. More people will die before the pandemic among birds finally burns out. Death toll might be in the thousands or hundreds of thousands, as compared with hundreds to date. it think this unlikely as the flu viruses have all had excellent c
596086
All of the published medical journals I've read, report that after previous years, a vaccine, I believe, has been found to help control the illness. It's unfortunate about the individuals who became ill while working with domestic poultry, however research, particularly in Hong Kong, and other research facilities have made great headway. I hope that you are not someone who is at risk for illness. If you feel you're at risk, then go to your nearest public health facility in your country for help, and/or treatment. Best wishes!
521591
UPDATED The H5N1 strain of influenza - often referred to as bird flu - is first known to have jumped from chickens to humans\n\nin 1997. Since 2004 it has ripped through poultry and wild bird populations across Eurasia, and had a 53% mortality rate in the first 147 people it is known to have infected. Health authorities fear this strain, or its descendent, could cause a lethal new flu pandemic in people with the potential to kill billions.\n\nFlu has been a regular scourge of humanity for thousands of years. Flu viruses each possess a mere 10 genes encoded in RNA. All of the 16 known genetic subgroups originate in water birds, and especially in ducks. The virus is well adapted to their immune systems, and does not usually make them sick. This leaves the animals free to move around and spread the virus - just what it needs to persist.\n\nBut sometimes a bird flu virus jumps to an animal whose immune system it is not adapted to. In chickens - originally a forest bird and not a natural host - it causes a moderate disease but can readily mutate to a more severe, highly pathogenic strain. Just such a strain of H5N1 flu, named after its surface proteins, began rampaging through large chicken farms in east Asia sometime before 2003.\n\nThat was of concern because, in 1997, scientists found for the first time that H5 flu could infect humans. It was found in 18 people, six of whom died. All the poultry in Hong Kong were destroyed to stop the threat. But it continued to circulate, especially in China.\n\nThere were further human cases in China in 2003. Then in early 2004 Vietnam reported widespread poultry outbreaks and some human cases. After initial denials, Cambodia and Thailand admitted they had outbreaks too, followed by Indonesia, then China. That was immediately after China had denied a New Scientist report that scientists strongly suspected Chinese outbreaks.\n\nThe infection also reached Japan, Malaysia and South Korea, but mass culling stopped it spreading there. But outbreaks continued in China, Indonesia and Vietnam, where the virus persisted, most probably in ducks. In 2005, China and Indonesia reported their first human cases.\n\nEuropean invasion\nIn summer 2005 the virus swept across birds in Russia and Kazakhstan, reaching the Ukraine by January 2006. However, there were no reported human c ases outside East Asia until December 2005. Then, the virus suddenly appeared in poultry all over Turkey accompanied by the fastest upsurge in human cases yet seen.\n\nBut scientists insisted that the virus’s arrival in Europe did not pose a greater threat of a pandemic than its continued spread in Asia.\n\nAttempts to blame the rapid spread of the virus in the Far East on wild birds were discounted early on, so efforts to explain its spread across Eurasia in that way were greeted with suspicion. But in May 2005, thousands of geese died of H5N1 at Qinghai Lake in north-central China. The virus was very similar to isolated samples from southeast China, showing, despite official denials, that it originated there. But it had distinctive differences. This same strain then turned up in H5N1 isolates from poultry and wild birds across Russia, Turkey and Romania, suggesting that this time it probably was being carried by wild birds.\n\nMeanwhile east Asian H5N1 turned up in imported Taiwanese birds in quarantine in Britain. This, combined with a near-miss with infected eagles smuggled into Belgium, led to a European clamp-down on wild bird imports.\n\nThe virulent strain could to revert to a relatively harmless wild type in wild birds. However, while it is there, it could be carried to poultry far and wide. It has now reached Africa - where it is feared it could run riot. Wild birds are also implicated in its spread across Europe.\n\nYet governments resisted repeated UN calls for money to eradicate the poultry infection in poor countries. The World Bank renewed calls for such aid in early 2006, while all afflicted countries struggled to s
280593
The influenza virus has been around for a very long time. Various types of influenza occur in birds, pigs and cows. The closer the contact between humans and animals carrying their form of this virus, the greater the chance a human will be infected with a form of influenza.\n\nYou want to know the "reason" for the disease, I am afraid only someone who is omniscient could answer that question. This is like most diseases. Why is there a cold virus? I certainly don't know. What I do know is how it is transmitted.\n\nIf you wish to know everything known about avian influenza, its history and everything else, I will undertake a consulting contract and still not be able to answer all those questions as the answers are not know to medical science.\n\nWhat is your assignment? How many pages does your teacher wish and at what level? Please frame your question in somewhat specific terms. This is very much like asking what is the meaning of life.I can only answer parts of the question. Break it into parts and I will try to help you.
171228
Pigs can't fly.\n\nPeople are more concerned about birds that are migratory and can carry the disease form place to place.
212166
To be perfectly honest, im not sure why it has spread now. However it is likely to be due to the amount of H5N1 in the bird population slowly increasing. It has been around in china since 1997, and I guess now, people are more vigulant in looking for it.\n\nIt is entirely possible that the virus has undergone genetic drift, making it easier to pass between birds, enabling it to spread faster in the wild bird populaton.\n\nThe rapid spread is something to be concerned about since it will mean a greater chance of the H5N1 infecting a mammalian cell, at the same time as a mammalian flu. If this happens, genetic shift can take place, which could allow the H5N1 to spread between humans.\n\nThe wider it is spread, the less chance we have of controlling any outbreak....\n\nHope that goes someway to answering your question
1154187
People are worrying about it too much. The bird flu is genetically designed for birds. Only a couple hundred people have died from bird flu out of the millions who have had it.
198400
Yes it is. \nThere is a hysteria going around now that's ridiculous, and you get ignorant answers galore. \nBird flu transmission so from a sick or dead bird to a human handling the bird. NOT any eggs!!! The virus does not pass into the egg. \nEvery single human who got sick handled birds. \nAnother thing - you boil and eat the eggs - and they go into your stomach - here we have heat treatment (boiling) and an acid bath (stomach).\n"...When a bird is infected with bird flu, it sheds the flu virus in its faeces, saliva and mucus. Other birds become infected by eating or inhaling the virus.\nThe virus can infect people who are in close contact with infected birds - for example by people inhaling dried faeces that have become trampled into dust or stuck to the feathers or other parts of the body of the infected bird.1\nPeople cannot catch bird flu from eating cooked chickens..."
977961
a disease caused by eating birds that have the virus
301002
The reason we watch asian flus is b/c the farms there are set up w/ ponds where ducks rest and pigs drink. The duck/bird strains are more likely to mutate to the pig first than to a human- the catch is, a pig is actually very close to us as far as internal working go, and it is easier for a pig strain (origianlly from a bird) can then mutate to infect the farmers... and then spread to the general population. So the likelihood... good. Pray. Peace out.
590006
Doesn't much matter what I think, or what you think. There will, or won't be a mutation in the current avian flu which will make it contagious in humans. But learing something about it will probably help with worrying. If you eat poultry, make certain it is fully cooked, both to prevent salmonella infection and to lessen any chance of passing on the avian flu. \n\n=======\nflu viruses\n\nFirst some background on flu viruses. It's a large family.  There are flus which infect birds (we're looking at a really strong one now -- it's killing essentially all of some species, eg chickens), which infect pigs (there was a swine flu panic during Gerald Ford's Presidency), which infect humans, and ... Usually, bird flus infect only birds, as in this case. There are only about two hundred people, and a few cats, known to have been infected with this avian flu. it's ot very good at infecting us -- so far. The really scary thing is that about 1/2 of them have died. Very few diseases have a mortality rate that high.\n\nFlu viruses sometimes swap bits with each other and acquire the ability to do new things, like infect another species. A pig flu infects a bird and the two flus 'mix and match' and produce a new flu capable of infecting a human, perhaps. Or some other combination. Most of this seems to go on in SE Asia, where duck ponds, a few pigs, and the humans family live in very close quarters. This cross species stuff doesn't seem to be all that common. Human flus have undergone major changes only every few years (2 or 3 since WWII) for instance, and if those changes are the result of this shuffling business, there's an indication of the chances of thsi one branching out to people. Perhaps.\n\n=======\nprior bird flus in humans\n\nIn fact, we know of only one large pandemic caused by a bird flu, or at least by a flu which had bird characteristics. That's the one in 1918, which has only recently been pinned down as a bird flu. Some researchers went looking for bodies which had been buried in the Arctic and remained frozen since 1918. After a decade's work digging in the permafrost, samples from them finally yielded enough information to reconstruct the 1918 virus, and it was a characteristically bird sort. It's still not clear what made it so deadly, but at least we're pretty sure what it was now. It popped up, killed something like 50 million folks around the world in 18 months or 2 years, and vanished.\n\n===========\nfuture possibilities\n\nIf the present bird flu changes enough to infect humans, and stays very contagious as it is now in birds and as nearly all flu viruses are, it may be a rerun of 1918 for humans. And if it retains its current lethality in humans (50+% so far, in a very small sample), it will probably be a good deal worse than the 1918 experience. We have more people, packed more closely, and with little margin (extra food capacity, medical capacity, sewerage and water capacity, ...), so things should be worse, all things being equal -- as they obviously are not.\n\nThere are a few things this bird flu does which appear to be new. When infecting humans, it seems to be able to spread by food. Most flus, human flus anyway, don't. This is new. And, it attacks nearly all tissues, while most human flus have largely been respiratory diseases. This is also new. Finally, it is essentially 100% lethal for chickens, also new behavior. Whether a changed avian flu which readily infects humans will contiue to behave these ways, or whether there is something specially vulnerable about the 200 some folks known to have been infected with it, is not known. It may be that lots of people have been infected, shock it off as a cold or something, and never saw a doctor. We don't know.\n\n==========\ndefenses\n\nUnlike 1918, we understand what we can do to beat any new flu variant. Vaccines work pretty well on all the flus we've encountered so far. The problem with deve