Bird Flu

We all know how the avian bird flu virus is highly contagious among birds and humans. There have been three bird flu pandemics (the worst being in 1918) which has taken a huge toll around the world killing millions of people. The cause of bird flu is not clearly known as it is known to occur naturally in birds but what is clear is that it is spreading rapidly among birds and is a contagious virus. It is only a matter of time before a strain starts to develop among humans which could be transmitted easily creating another pandemic. Some of the worst bird flu symptoms are death due to illness, fever, failure to lay eggs, hemorrhages, etc. One strain of the bird flu virus called H5N1 is found to infect humans as well. Over 150 people have been killed by this infection across Southeast Asia (referred to as the Asian bird flu) including Japan, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, etc. Most recently it has affected several parts of India too. Since it has been proven (temporarily) that the virus cannot be transmitted between humans the best way to prevent the virus is pretty obvious, to restrict oneself from eating chicken or turkey. I, after a long period of relishing meat and sea food, have managed to convert into a vegetarian and its been pretty successful I must say. I just had the 6 month annv since I was last tempted by any kind of meat.

Coming back to the important issue at hand, there have been only hand full of labs that have managed to identify the bird flu vaccines but they are still under clinical trials. The FDA after the trials is yet another battle. But even after all this trouble if the scientists managed to come up with something concrete, it is estimated that only certain amount of vaccine can be produced worldwide at a given time ~to treat 5 million people/week that is 1% of US population, and a fraction of the Indian population. Just seems a little scary but maybe I am just thinking too many steps ahead and there will never be a bird flu pandemic.

On the other hand, there should be a global policy to stem the advancement of the virus. It is going to be challenge to vaccinate all of the birds in especially rural areas where farmers are more concerned about their day to day living rather than vaccinating their farm birds. The importance of vaccination and the spread of the virus has got to be pointed to the rural communities and it has to be a joint effort by global organizations like WHO and the local governmental organizations within each developing nation. Scientists should also think of a way to come up with vaccines that could be used in smaller amounts rather than larger subsequently making the manufacturing and distribution process a lot simpler. Lastly, the developed nations have to bring their support in dsitributing wealth and knowledge to the poorer nations bringing in reform to trade laws to subsidize the costs for these vaccines. In this age of biotechnology and automation, they should not wait for the pandemic to happen like they did with AIDS.