Bird flu becoming a global threat

Confirmed H5N1 strain only Human cases: laboratory-confirmed since Dec 2003 Much of the globe has now been hit by the lethal strain of bird flu that is fast becoming a major avian killer around the world.

Millions of birds have died or been destroyed as a result of outbreaks in dozens of countries since the H5N1 strain emerged in South-East Asia in 2003, before spreading to Europe and Africa. The number of cases among humans is also rising, and the death toll passed 150 in October 2006, with a mortality rate of almost 60%.

First human deaths

The first human deaths from H5N1 outside Asia, in January 2006, heightened concern about the spread of the disease, but the World Health Organization pointed out that the deaths, in Turkey, were among people who had been in close contact with infected birds, and were not passed from human to human.

However, a cluster of deaths in Indonesia in May sparked fears that the virus might now be being transmitted between humans, although the WHO has since declared there is no evidence of sustained spread from person to person, and scientists do not believe it is mutating into a version that spreads more easily among humans.

The killer virus has now hit three continents - reaching Nigeria in February 2006 and making major inroads into Europe in the same month.

The main concern is that each new human case increases the chances of the feared "human" mutation.

Confirmed H5N1 strain only Human cases: laboratory-confirmed since Dec 2003 The first outbreaks in the European Union were recorded in January 2006 when cases were confirmed in wild swans in Italy, Greece, Germany and Austria.

Within weeks, cases were confirmed in Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, and France, where mass vaccination of ducks and geese on farms was carried out.

First case...

At the end of February, the first case involving a cat in Europe was discovered on the German island where a number of wild birds died from the disease earlier in the month.

And in mid-March, human deaths were confirmed in Azerbaijan, where what is believed to be the first canine case was also diagnosed, in a stray dog. The first case in the UK was confirmed on 6 April, in a swan found dead on the eastern coast of Scotland.

Courtesy: BBC News