Backgrounder: The Potential Avian Flu Pandemic
Council on Foreign Relations
Author: Carin Zissis, Staff Writer
November 21, 2006
Introduction
Global public health organizations and researchers have spent the past few years monitoring a highly pathogenic type of avian influenza that originated in Southeast Asia. Hundreds of millions of chickens have succumbed to the virus, and the world is worried humans may be next if the flu evolves to allow human-to-human transmission. So far, the number of human cases grows slowly each year, but a virus mutation could set off a pandemic. For public health researchers and policymakers, questions about how the disease spreads, as well as how to treat and control it, remain unanswered.
What is avian flu?
“Bird flu,” as it is more commonly known, is a highly contagious virus that spreads among birds, particularly poultry, and passes from one geographic region to another through migration of the natural host species—aquatic ducks and geese—as well as by animal smuggling. The virus does not affect humans on a large scale. To date, human instances of the virus are largely a result of contact with infected birds. However, if a strain of the virus evolves that can be transferred easily from one person to another, experts fear it could spread rapidly into a global health threat and prove exceptionally difficult to contain. In this dark scenario, avian flu could lead to a lethal pandemic if a deadly strain were to emerge.
Experts note that the influenza pandemic of 1918 was a form of avian flu that killed as many as fifty million people worldwide. Now, they warn, action is needed to prevent a similar pandemic based on an avian flu subtype known as H5N1. This bird flu, first identified in Hong Kong, has claimed more than 150 lives, primarily through contact with infected poultry.
Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.
Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.
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