Is a bird flu a fatal disease?
552349
It has been fatal in 56% of cases (up to 1st may)\n\nCheck out www.bbc.co.uk and search for bird flu. They have a detailed explanation of it that is easy to understand. Whats more, the information on it is correct!
1020451
Actually bird flu is affecting people. Well over 200 people world wide have been infected with the virus. The fatality rate is over 50%, and it has been spreading across Asia, Europe and Africa.\n\nMany of these infections have resulted from close contact with poultry, but there are several clusters of infection where the virus has been spread from person to person. \n\nOne recent cluster was on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. A woman contracted the disease and it spread from her to seven members of her family. Seven of the eight family members died.\n\nRight now we are seeing only limited person to person transmission. The fear is that the virus will mutate so that person to person transmission will happen easily and we will have a pandemic.\n\nEverytime a person gets avian flu (bird flu) there is a chance of it mutating so that it can be early spread.\n\nWe do not have a vaccine for this particular virus. They can't start working on a vaccine until it does mutate and it will take about 6-8 months to begin to produce vaccine.\n\nThe antiviral medicine Tamiflu may reduce the symptoms and reduce the chance of death, but there isn't enough Taniflu. At this point it looks as though medical personnel may get the first doses so that they can continue to take care of patients who have the flu.\n\nThe government has asked people to prepare for the flu by stocking supplies for our families in case we are asked to  practice "social distancing." That would be a quarantine where people are told to stay home to reduce the spread of the disease. Schools would close, there would be no church services, concerts, meetings, etc.\n\nWe are asked to have food, water, medicine, medical supplies, etc.\n\nIf you are interested in knowing more about bird flu, a good source of information is http://www.avianflutalk.com/  You will find current news, discussion, information about bird flu, and people who will be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
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!
254869
Viruses mutate.  What is a harmless virus today could change a gene-pair on its DNA and be a real killer tomorrow...  Same reason some diseases go away - like the flu pandemic that killed millions in 1918 or so - we haven't seen it since.\n\nThis is what is scary about the bird flu - right now humans only get it from direct contact with infected birds - that would mena that since most of us do not raise our own fowl anymore most of us were safe, right?  Wrong... If a person has it, and it mutates in that person's body to allow person-to-person transmission, the human population is at risk from other humans... and if it is spread easily, it could be huge.
222374
What's spooking the government, the scientists, and the media is that the bird flu is spreading very quickly, is very lethal, and has a very strong potential to mutate into a form that's transmissible from human to human. A good source of information about the bird flu is www.fluwikie.com.
203696
Bird flu was thought only to infect birds until the first human cases were seen in Hong Kong in 1997. \n\nHumans catch the disease through close contact with live infected birds. \n\nBirds excrete the virus in their faeces, which dry and become pulverised, and are then inhaled. \n\nSymptoms are similar to other types of flu - fever, malaise, sore throats and coughs. People can also develop conjunctivitis. \n\nResearchers are now concerned because scientists studying a case in Vietnam found the virus can affect all parts of the body, not just the lungs. \n\nThis could mean that many illnesses, and even deaths, thought to have been caused by something else, may have been due to the bird flu virus.
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
13027
There is no vaccine for it and low resistance. People who are weak will die more easily. It is not 100% fatal, just very severe.\nThe real danger may be that it could reduce the population of birds, both domestic and wild.  The damage to food production could be very bad.
186223
no, reason being, that the virus for the common cold is ever changing. this is the same reason why we are seeing new strains of flu every year. and also the reason for the current strain of the bird flu. new strains are formed from the old viruses and they become stronger and immune to whatever "cures" we come up with. unless you can completely kill the virus, it will come back.
353440
The Avian flu (H5N1) has the same symptoms as other types of the flu (respiratory issues, high fever, body aches).The symptoms become more severe and often people who have the Avian flu virus die from respiratory complications.
109083
Key Facts About Avian Influenza (Bird Flu) and Avian Influenza A (H5N1) Virus\nE-mail this page\nPrinter-friendly version\nWhat You Should Know About Avian Flu\nKey Facts\nInfections in Humans\nQuestions & Answers\nCurrent Situation\nThis fact sheet provides general information about avian influenza (bird flu) and information about one type of bird flu, called avian influenza A (H5N1), that has caused infections in birds in Asia and Europe and in humans in Asia. Also see Questions and Answers on the CDC website and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on the World Health Organization (WHO) website.\n\nAvian Influenza (Bird Flu)\nAvian influenza in birds\nAvian influenza is an infection caused by avian (bird) influenza (flu) viruses. These influenza viruses occur naturally among birds. Wild birds worldwide carry the viruses in their intestines, but usually do not get sick from them. However, avian influenza is very contagious among birds and can make some domesticated birds, including chickens, ducks, and turkeys, very sick and kill them.\n\nInfected birds shed influenza virus in their saliva, nasal secretions, and feces. Susceptible birds become infected when they have contact with contaminated secretions or excretions or with surfaces that are contaminated with secretions or excretions from infected birds. Domesticated birds may become infected with avian influenza virus through direct contact with infected waterfowl or other infected poultry, or through contact with surfaces (such as dirt or cages) or materials (such as water or feed) that have been contaminated with the virus.\n\nInfection with avian influenza viruses in domestic poultry causes two main forms of disease that are distinguished by low and high extremes of virulence. The “low pathogenic” form may go undetected and usually causes only mild symptoms (such as ruffled feathers and a drop in egg production). However, the highly pathogenic form spreads more rapidly through flocks of poultry. This form may cause disease that affects multiple internal organs and has a mortality rate that can reach 90-100% often within 48 hours.\n\nHuman infection with avian influenza viruses\nThere are many different subtypes of type A influenza viruses. These subtypes differ because of changes in certain proteins on the surface of the influenza A virus (hemagglutinin [HA] and neuraminidase [NA] proteins). There are 16 known HA subtypes and 9 known NA subtypes of influenza A viruses. Many different combinations of HA and NA proteins are possible. Each combination represents a different subtype. All known subtypes of influenza A viruses can be found in birds.\n\nUsually, “avian influenza virus” refers to influenza A viruses found chiefly in birds, but infections with these viruses can occur in humans. The risk from avian influenza is generally low to most people, because the viruses do not usually infect humans. However, confirmed cases of human infection from several subtypes of avian influenza infection have been reported since 1997. Most cases of avian influenza infection in humans have resulted from contact with infected poultry (e.g., domesticated chicken, ducks, and turkeys) or surfaces contaminated with secretion/excretions from infected birds. The spread of avian influenza viruses from one ill person to another has been reported very rarely, and transmission has not been observed to continue beyond one person.\n\n“Human influenza virus” usually refers to those subtypes that spread widely among humans. There are only three known A subtypes of influenza viruses (H1N1, H1N2, and H3N2) currently circulating among humans. It is likely that some genetic parts of current human influenza A viruses came from birds originally. Influenza A viruses are constantly changing, and they might adapt over time to infect and spread among humans.\n\nDuring an outbreak of avian influenza among poultry, there is a possible risk to people who have contact with infected birds or surfaces that
925628
Bird flu has to mutate into a disease that can spread from human to human before that can happen.  Right now it has only gone from birds to humans who have VERY close contact with those birds.  (Handling dead bodies of infected birds)\nIf it does mutate to a form that can be spread among humas, then it is hard to say how dangerous it could be.
371427
just go to a search engine and search for "bird flu". You'll find a ton of information
674911
Avian influenza (also known as bird flu, avian flu, influenzavirus A flu, type A flu, or genus A flu) is a flu due to a type of influenza virus that is hosted by birds, but may infect several species of mammals. It was first identified in Serbia Montenegro in the early 1900s and is now known to exist worldwide. A strain of the H5N1-type of avian influenzavirus that emerged in 1997 has been identified as the most likely source of a future influenza pandemic. \n\nAvian influenza viruses compose the Influenzavirus A genus of the Orthomyxoviridae family and are negative sense, single-stranded, segmented RNA viruses. "Influenza viruses are further categorised into subtypes according to the antigens of the haemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N) projections on their surfaces. There are 15 haemagglutinin subtypes and 9 neuraminidase subtypes of influenza A viruses, and AI [avian influenza] viruses have representatives in all of these subtypes. However, to date all highly pathogenic AI [avian influenza] viruses that cause generalised rather than respiratory disease belong to either the H5 or H7 subtypes. For example, the classical fowl plague virus is H7N7 and the virus responsible for the major epidemic in the eastern United States in 1983 84 was H5N2" Avian Influenza - Disease Card October 21st, 2005 InfectionStrains of avian influenzavirus may infect various type of animals, including birds, pigs, horses, seals, whales and humans. However, wild fowl act as natural asymptomatic carriers, spreading it to more susceptible domestic stocks. Avian influenzavirus spreads in the air and in manure. It can also be transmitted by contaminated feed, water, equipment and clothing; however, there is no evidence that the virus can survive in well cooked meat. The incubation period is 3 to 5 days. Symptoms in animals vary, but virulent strains can cause death within a few days. This was first founded in the 1900s. \n\n"Influenza A viruses normally seen in one species sometimes can cross over and cause illness in another species. For example, until 1998, only H1N1 viruses circulated widely in the U.S. pig population. However, in 1998, H3N2 viruses from humans were introduced into the pig population and caused widespread disease among pigs. Most recently, H3N8 viruses from horses have crossed over and caused outbreaks in dogs." [1] \n\nIn humans, avian flu viruses cause similar symptoms to other types of flu. [2] These include fever, cough, sore throat, muscle aches, conjunctivitis and, in severe cases, severe breathing problems and pneumonia that may be fatal. The severity of the infection will depend to a large part on the state of the infected person's immune system and if the victim has been exposed to the strain before, and is therefore partially immune. In one case, a boy with H5N1 experienced diarrhea followed rapidly by a coma without developing respiratory or flu-like symptoms, suggesting non-standard symptoms. [3] Subtypes pathogenic to humansAll avian influenza (AI) viruses are type A influenzavirus in the virus family of Orthomyxoviridae and all known strains of influenza A virus infect birds. Influenzavirus type A is subdivided into subtypes based on hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N) protein spikes from the central virus core. There are 16 H types, each with up to 9 N subtypes, yielding a potential for 144 different H and N combinations. \n\nIn addition, avian influenza viruses may fall into one of 2 pathotypes: low (LPAI) and high (HPAI) pathogenicity, based on their virulence in poultry populations. Avian influenzavirus H5 and H7 strains are found in both "low pathogenic” or “high pathogenic” forms; influenza H9 virus has been identified only in a “low pathogenic” form. \n\nIt is feared that if a strain of avian influenza virus to which humans have not been previously exposed undergoes antigenic shift to the point where it can cross the species barrier from birds to humans, the new subtype
658904
H5N1 is not currently a threat, but the possibility of becoming a threat is very real.  If bird flu were to mutate to a form transmissable from human to human, this could be a potential disaster--similar to the influenza pandemic of 1918 that killed more people than WWI.  The 1918 flu traveled around the world and 20-40 million people died.  It was so bad, it shortened the average life expectancy by 10 years.\n\nRecent DNA studies have shown that this 1918 flu was a bird flu that mutated to infect humans.  It began in people who were in contact with poultry.  This is the reason for all the concern about H5N1--there is the potential for it to happen all over again.  It hasn't happened yet, but if we don't come up with some kind of vaccine, it may be only a matter of time.
399351
if you are refering to the avian bird flu in the news, only about 100 ppl have died of this in the last 3 years. i think we have more to worry about such as the effects of drugs, alcohol and sexually transmitted dieases than birds killing us.
592668
Keep up to date on bird flu (don't rely on a WIKI!)\n\nSee the World Health Organisation site:\n\nhttp://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/en/\n\nIf you prefer an American site, see the Centers for Disease Control:\n\nhttp://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/index.htm