The next bird flu pandemic will likely start under a cloud of confusion. We all know how hard it is for people to agree on anything let alone how a pandemic will start. But looks for some doctors, many politicians and massive numbers of the general public avoiding obvious signs and not believing it until it has actually started. The pandemic could come from the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus mutating and becoming easily transmissible from human to human or it could come from another bird flu virus like the H7 which is less dangerous now but could become much more dangerous after it mutates to something easily transmissible among humans.
Viruses use a process known as passage to adapt to its environment. When an organism has a weak ability to cause a disease in an animal and it passes from one animal to another, it will often become more proficient in growing and spreading. This will often increase its ability to kill.
However, it can work other ways, and passage can also cause the virus to be less dangerous to a person. In 1918 when the virus leaped from being a bird’s only disease to a human disease it became less poisonous.
This is the normal progression of a lethal bird flu pandemic virus. The death rate now of people who catch the H5N1 virus is about 50 to 60%. Obviously this is a horrifying number but do not worry about that number lasting because history tells us that a truly dangerous pandemic virus will kill a much lower percentage.
In order for a virus to truly make it around the world, it has to hide from detection. In other words the victims must not be aware they have it initially and the virus must be very easy to catch.
The clustering of people sick with a virus means that the virus has mutated into something that is more easily transmissible than usual. The larger the clustering of people sick with the H5N1 virus, the more contagious the virus could be. This increases the chances it could lead to the next pandemic. The largest cluster of people who died of the H5N1 virus was seven out of eight members of the same family in may of 2006. That means the rate of people who got the disease was 87.5%. At the time the WHO or World Health Organization said that this was the "most worrying incident so far.”
In reference to the seventeen people in Makassar, the hospital immediately quarantined the patients away from other people to stop a possible bird flu outbreak around the world. Even though all of the 17 patients tested positive to the H5N1 virus infection, they decided not to trust their normal detection procedures because of the SERIOUSNESS of the situation. They are now waiting for the final decision from the Health Ministry.
When a virus first makes its appearance, it is searching for the most effective growing and therefor killing machines. It will not be its most effective right out of the box. It must experiment first. Then after the first or second waves of influenza activity it will reach its peak. Then generally it will diminish.
The key here is the mortality rate. In 2006 the cluster mortality rate was nearly 90% and As I stated above when the mortality rate drops substantially, watch out.
Subsequent reports say that the kids are recovering, except one. That’s very interesting. Before now if you caught the H5N1 bird flu virus, you had at best a 50% chance of passing away. It looks as if the H5N1 virus is getting ready to SHOCK THE WORLD. This all depends on the final reports. Did all the patients have the H5N1 bird flu or not? If they did and no one died or one passed away, then I believe the virus is getting very close to a pandemic state. If the test turns out to be negative, then at least more people will understand how it could probably start.
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