In the last few years, various strains of the flu virus have made it to the news because of their rapid spread across the globe.
One of the most notorious strains is the bird flu strain which has been much publicized along with its mammal borne cousin, swine flu.
The problem here is that bird flu is notorious not because it kills the victim instantly upon infection but it waits for some time before any symptoms become visible on the infected person. In the meanwhile, the bird flu virus spreads from one infected person to another and then another and so on. It lies dormant for some time in which its infection and spread goes on completely unrestricted by any means.
The bird flu virus or the H5N1 as it is known to the health care professionals is very deadly. It has infected various flocks of birds and has killed them in one go like a planned and synchronized killing. Once a flock of the birds became infected, all the birds of the flock died in one day. The deadliness of a virus is proven by the speed and the manner in which the it spreads which may be through air, water or any other form of physical or sexual contact. The more the ways in which a virus spreads, the worse it is.
For humans, the worst case here is that of the Spanish Flu version of bird flu. This version is being counted among the most deadly versions of flu known to man today. In its early stages, this flu has killed only 20 % of the infected but the speed at which this infection spreads means that this 20 % figure can soon rise and even if it does not, the number of people who die, even though the infection to fatality ratio remains 20 % can get so high that the results would be devastating!
Across the globe, government and international health care bodies are working tirelessly to stop the spread of this infection as well as to ensure that people are aware of infection symptoms, treatment and preventive and precautionary measures related to bird flu.
The good news is that the Americas remains safe from H5N1 along with Australia. Most parts of Africa also remain safe along with nearly every Scandinavian country. Rest of the Europe and most of the Asian countries have seen cases of H5N1 with known cases of human fatalities in Asia.
The WHO has declared H5N1 as a pandemic and medicine companies are working very hard to find a vaccine to prevent cases of any further spread of infection and fatalities by this virus.
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