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How severe It Could Be

With the exception of HIV/AIDS perhaps, none of the other contagious diseases come closer to the alarming potential to spread and create such a wide spread threat to human life than Bird Flu. If uncontained and proper eradication measures are not found this could cause a major catastrophe only next to some major natural calamities.

The ailment starts like any other common flu without outward symptoms and like any other common flu, but can lead to life threatening complications if untreated without much delay.

Till date it is still thought to be difficult to contract the disease. It is only found to be present in birds, pigs and domesticated fowls, but infection and the spread from birds and animals to humans is supposed to be rare. But, mutation of the virus in animals and birds being very fast it is feared that in the very near future a new strain may be generated giving rise to an outbreak of an enormous outbreak which might be massive than the outbreak of 1918 and 1919.

The number of sub-types varies according to the high or low disease causing chances of the infection producing strains. The low disease causing virus may not be very harmful and may even be present dormant in the body of the virus carrier and only mild symptoms like falling of the feathers, weakened activity, and poor egg laying may be the outward symptoms. The high disease-causing virus can cause 100% mortality in susceptible species. The fatality in this case can be so fast that death may occur even on the same day on which the symptoms were visible. The cause is yet to be ascertained but death seems to be a certainty in very serious to seriously affected humans or birds and other species.

The infection takes 1 to 5 days to develop from the day of first evidence. The flu might start with a mild irritation and redness of the eyes like in the case of conjunctivitis. Other wise it can reveal as normal flu. But, in serious cases it can lead to viral pneumonia and other life threatening issues.

The severity of the disease can be seen in areas where people live in close proximity to poultry farms and domesticated pigsties. Pigs are found to be very susceptible to infection from both the bird and human viruses and are an ideal blenders and carriers for the genes. Some of the strains do not need a third medium for the passing of the infection.

In the recent years the disease has seen a rapid spread in almost all parts of the world. Since 2003 a minimum of some thousands to millions of birds and humans have fallen prey to this deadly contagious disease. This can prove devastating economically and ecologically. This can also prove devastating for humans too because the spread is very fast and rapid.

The Influenza ‘A’ virus is known to mutate very fast and is known to absorb large chunks of genetic code from viruses that infect other species, and this process is called re-assortment. This re-assortment has a tremendous power to combine with human flu virus and create a new strain that spreads faster from one person to another giving rise to a devastating pandemic.