For several months in 2008 and 2006, the fear caused by the term ‘bird flu’ rivaled that caused by cancer or AIDS. Panic spread like wildfire and the main question on everyone’s minds was how the flu was going to affect their lives.
Basically, bird flu, also known as avian influenza, is a type of influenza that occurs in wild birds. Since the virus is highly contagious, it can be passed into domestic birds and poultry. The wild birds act as carriers and are usually less affected by it, whereas domestic birds, once infected with the virus, die within a small time period. While human infection of bird flu is very rare, in case of a major outbreak of bird flu in poultry, the people handling the birds directly often become unsuspecting candidates for bird flu infection.
The major concern at the time of the epidemic was how the human population of the world would be affected by the disease. Having already determined that bird flu was highly contagious in birds; scientists became concerned with mutated forms of the disease. Like all flu and influenza viruses, bird flu was also suspected to be of a highly unstable nature. Scientists began to become concerned with a possible mutation of the flu that could transfer in and between humans. Such a mutation would cause an uncontainable, worldwide epidemic.
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