healthpolitics.com
In humans, the appearance was less dramatic. H5N1 first infected a human population in Hong Kong in 1997. There were 18 documented cases and six deaths. It reappeared in 2 cases, causing one death in 2003, but shortly thereafter broke out in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. As of June 2005, there were 100 documented human cases with a 54 percent mortality rate. Most transmission has been the result of direct contact with infected poultry. 1,2
But 100 deaths does not a pandemic make. You need three things for a pandemic. First, a highly virulent organism. Second, lack of human immunity to the organism. And third, the ability for easy transmission from human to human. 3 In 1918, H1N1 had all three. That’s why 20 to 40 million people died. In 2005, H5N1 has the first two, but not the third – at least not yet. |
