Bird Flu Warning
After the SARS scare in 2002, the world was awaken to the possibility of a pandemic of epic proportions. That time, the SARS virus was limited in its reach, and the threat was successfully averted. But it seems that threat of a global pandemic is still lurking.
There has been increasing articles in the news about Avian Influenza, which first hit the headlines several years ago by infecting chicken livestock in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam and numerous Asian countries. Last year, Singapore banned imports of chicken from Malaysia because several areas had infected livestock. It caused some disruption in the supply of chicken, but it was not too much of an inconvenience.
In recent weeks, there’s been a startling number of articles from WHO and from Thailand with reports that the “bird flu” can now be transmitted between humans. If this is true, this could be the beginning of the global pandemic that health authorities have warned about. The WHO has called for countries to build stockpiles of the vaccine, anticipating that it will only be a matter of time before the virus becomes fully contagious.
This is terribly worrying, given the high fatality rate amongst those infected with it. It would make the SARS episode seem trivial in comparison. Oh, the vagaries of life.