The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) issued a bulletin last week that stirred a lot of press attention. It warned of “a major resurgence of the H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza amid signs that a mutant strain of the deadly bird flu virus is spreading in Asia and beyond, with unpredictable risks to human health.” Other international health organizations, however, hurried to play down the significance of this alert. FAO Chief Veterinary Officer Juan Lubroth defended the warning, implying they meant not to cause a frenzy.
Science has published a news analysis upon the topic. They reported that FAO posted the statement, titled “Bird Flu rears its head again,” on its Web site on 29 August. The post reveals that H5N1 outbreaks among poultry and wild birds have been increasing since 2008 and that the virus has re-emerged in many countries. Furthermore, a variant of the virus, dubbed clade 2.3.2.1, circulating in China and Vietnam has mutated in a way that renders current poultry vaccines less effective. And since H5N1 appeared in 2003, it has killed or led to the culling of more than 400 million domestic poultry, causing an estimated $20 billion in losses, and killed 331 people, roughly 60% of those it infected. The agency predicted that a flareup of H5N1 is likely this fall and winter.
Read the original post:http://bit.ly/o7IaF1
Read the Science analysis:
http://bit.ly/pwxs9s
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