Possible Human To Human H5N1 Infection
Written by Stuart Stevens | Tuesday, 04 September 2007 | There are 0 comments
the American study based their conclusions on statistical probabilities 
Recently there was a great scare in Indonesia after practically a whole family died from the deadly bird flu virus. The reason why this caused such consternation was that it was suspected that the family had not caught the bird flu virus individually from infected birds but that they may have actually passed the virus to each other among themselves. Scientists and health authorities around the world live in fear of the bird flu virus mutating into a form that allows it to be transmitted between humans. If this happens is far more likely for a worldwide pandemic of the deadly disease to break out.
Well the big news is that a study done by American researchers has concluded that the bird flu virus had spread from human to human in this Indonesian outbreak meaning that the bird flu virus has changed and is more deadly. However it is not that simple as the Indonesian health authorities immediately denied that the case in question where eight members of the same family died was due to human to human infection. They argued that if this was true then a full on pandemic would have broken out and as it did not happen the virus could not have changed into a more dangerous form.
Scientist however say that the bird flu virus is changing slightly every year and that it is only a matter of months before it becomes easy for humans to contract the disease from other humans. It appears that the American study based their conclusions on statistical probabilities and not on detailed analysis of the virus. They argued that there was no way that eight members of the same family could have been infected by chickens individually and that the law of probability said that been must have infected each other.
Obviously more needs to be done on this deadly virus before definite conclusions can be made but nevertheless the news is alarming and nations around the world must be extremely vigilant when it comes to the H5N1 bird flu virus.
