Bird Flu Overblown
The reports of potential human to human transmission of the bird flu in one Indonesian family have the world on edge.
From health officials to financial markets, the trickle down effect has been significant.
This bird flu virus has potential to be a disaster…but as of right now, it’s truly not a huge threat to humans from Indonesia to America.
Dr. Stephen Baum, an infectious disease expert at beth israel hospital, says, “It is completely probable that within a year a bird will land in America carrying H5N1 avian flu virus because birds don’t need passports and they don’t need visas and they’re migrating. Of somewhat lesser probability but still quite probable is that one of those birds will infect an American domestic bird. Of slightly lesser probability is that bird will infect a human being in exactly the same way as in Asia. And then of lowest probability certainly in the short run but possible is that in fact human to human spread will take place.”
That would require, in all likelihood, a mutation of the virus, which hasn’t happened yet.
Dr. Baum says the big concern is not the ability for it to spread, because it doesn’t do that easily. It’s that it has a high mortality rate…especially seen in the latest cluster of cases in Indonesia which has raised the suspicion of human to human transmission.
“This virus seems to have a mortality of at least fifty percent and in this latest outbreak it’s more like 85 or 90 percent of the people who are infected even thought eh numbers are very small. It also seems to have some genetic likeness to the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918 where again the mortality was extremely high and the people who were infected most were young adults,” says Dr. Baum.
But another 1918 might not ever occur. So for now, the best advice is clear.
“At the moment I don’t think there is sufficient evidence to raise the level of concern there is still one cluster of individuals all of whom see to know one another. I think people need to chill out, I think that worry without anything to do about the worry is not to our advantage, I think the health authorities are revved up to think about this very seriously and are doing mostly the right things,” says Dr. Baum.
As far as the latest cluster of cases in Indonesia, there is no evidence it has spread to anyone else, another reassuring sign it likely is not spreading from person to person.
Many experts believe it is did spread that way, it would have affected and killed many more people in that village.
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