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BIRD FLU - Spreading Wings
The contagious disease, which has been single handedly responsible for generating such fear, is known as Bird Flu. This virus is technically called Avian Influenza (H5N1)...

Date : Jun 05, 2006

It was hard to imagine a few years back that the birds terrorized by humans till now would create so much panic that the mankind would be wary of even going close to the poultry leave alone allowing the chicken delicacies to be served on the menu.

The contagious disease, which has been single handedly responsible for generating such fear, is known as Bird Flu. This virus is technically called Avian Influenza (H5N1). H5 stands for the fifth of several known types of protein Hemagluttin and N1 represents protein Neuraminidose.The virus affects a wide variety of birds including chicken, ducks and turkey.

The influenza virus is a natural phenomenon among birds. The virus is carried in the intestines of the birds but one could rarely find a bird becoming sick. However, in the recent past Avian influenza has proved to be lethal - it makes the bird sick before eventually killing it.

The influenza virus is reported to be present in feces, nasal secretions and saliva of the infected birds. The virus spreads when an uninfected bird comes in contact with these secretions or excretions or with surfaces contaminated by the infected birds. There can be low and high extremes of influenza virus. The low virulent form is not as threatening as the high virulent form, which affects multiple organs and can cause death of a bird within 48 hours. The virus is known to spread from birds to humans and cases of person-to-person infection were not known.

Although Avian influenza virus was not considered to infect humans but the news of the initial cases of human infection started trickling in from year 1997 onwards in Special Administrative Region, Hong Kong. A direct contact between the infected poultry and the humans was suspected. The avian influenza virus causes fever, cough, sore throat; muscle aches, eye infections, pneumonia, respiratory distress and other life threatening complications Approximately 1.5 million birds were culled to prevent the outbreak of the disease. Various mutations of the influenza virus were reported subsequently from Asian and European countries like H9N2 in China and Hong Kong in 1999, H7N2 in Virginia in 2002, H7N7 in Netherlands in 2003 and many more..

Timely intervention and proper medication is very important in curtailing the effect of Avian Influenza on humans. The antiviral medications commonly used for treating the virus are Amantadine and Rimantadine. Research on the effect of medicines like Tamiflu and Zanamavir are on but is yet to be proved. The World Health Organization is proactive in the development and testing of medicines and is monitoring the progress closely.

The outbreak of bird flu has resulted in major trade loss across the world. Imports from Bird flu countries have been curtailed to the extent of hurting the economies of these countries. Restrictions have been imposed on the people traveling across these countries. The sale of poultry products is at the bottom resulting in loss of earning to the traders associated with poultry. Terror has actually dawned upon the mankind riding on wings.

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