indiana territory

MORE NEWS ON THE BIRD FLU

After having found the article referred to below, I checked around and found this at Fox News. The Bird Flu is now in three African countries, Niger, Nigeria and Egypt.

Excerpted from the article:

Organization director (World Organization for Animal Health) Bernard Vallat said all of Nigeria's neighbors — which aside from Niger include Benin, Cameroon and Chad — "are under a very big threat."

"We know that the virus in Nigeria has invaded a large part of the country. The measures of confinement were not taken and transparency was not applied from the beginning," Vallat told AP Television News.

He said H5N1 is an immediate threat to rural Africans who depend on their poultry for survival. And he said the more the disease spreads, the greater chance of it "transforming itself into a virus more dangerous for mankind."

Scientists fear that H5N1 avian influenza could mutate into a form easily transmitted among humans, sparking a pandemic. Almost all human deaths from bird flu have been linked to contact with infected birds. The U.N. health agency on Monday raised its tally of confirmed human cases by three to 173, of which 93 were fatal.

What catches my attention more than the articles is my mother's reaction to the continuing mention of Bird Flu in news sources. Mother, who has lived through the Depression, WWII, the Cold War says, "It's scary."

This is not to stir panic, but maybe it is time to be more aware of the possibilities of the situation.

posted by Jody @ 4:33 PM