H5N1 may not trigger a “Spanish flu” style pandemic

Filed Under Bird Flu

If you’ve been worrying about the possible parallels between the current H5N1 bird flu outbreaks and the “Spanish flu” pandemic of 1918, then I recommend that you read this article.

The author presents a clear argument to state that the conditions in 1918, at the end of that dreadful war are hugely different from the conditions throughout the world now.

He also adds that the N5N1 virus has had many years to make the leap from bird lethality into a human transmissable variant, and that hasn’t happened. Indeed he argues that H5N1 is just as likely to mutate into a less lethal strain as it is into a human killer.

Read the excellent article and feel slightly more re-assured.