There is growing complacency re. avian flu, given that summer is arriving in Europe and North America and that the rate/ease of human death hasn't grown.
But......
"The" virus has now taken a firm foothold in its most Western appearance, Ghana..... looking like we're going to have two endemic hot spots in Africa, if not three.
It's back in Europe, more turkeys.
After a long lull, human deaths are again occurring in Vietnam.
Human deaths continue in virus-endemic Indonesia, fairly steady diet. Ditto Egypt, it seems.
IMO, it's critical that world public health leaders have public sentiment behind them. This is a great opportunity to make a dry run at pandemic preparedness. We have gambled for too long with the combo, increased density of human populations and ease/speed of travel.
Molecular biology/medicine has reached the point where we can be awesome in the face of bad bugs. We've done a great job of fighting bird flu to date. Great dry run, money spent with relative (!) wisdom IMO. Let's not take our eye off the ball..... we need to understand EXACTLY how human "receptors" and viral components don't match to date. Moreover, we must master the general riddle of "cytokine storm".
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