Word: avian
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...corner office in Hong Kong and a position as one of the most important influenza experts in the world. As we inch closer to a possible flu pandemic, Guan keeps gathering his data, doing his part to piece together the puzzle that is the avian flu. "I do this work for the whole world," he says. "For the first time, human beings have the ability to prevent a pandemic. How many lives will we save?" And how much time do we have left...
People give for all kinds of reasons. We give out of duty, pity, love or fear. The shrinking world crowds us closer to pain--and risk; SARS began in Asia but caught a flight to Canada and killed people there. If avian flu, now hitchhiking through Europe, migrates to Africa--where there is neither the money nor the medical infrastructure to track it, much less trap it--the already scary scenarios suddenly get even scarier. The "we're safe, it's far away" illusion has died; the sense of being stalked by a disease is now felt in rich countries...
Last month at the U.N., George W. Bush told "as many leaders as I could find" about the need to track the avian-flu virus so that "the world scientific community can analyze the facts." But the ability of scientists in poorer countries to do just that could suffer when federal funding for the Los Alamos Influenza Sequence Database runs out at the end of the month. Until now, access to the online database--used by researchers to compare the genetic codes of new flu strains with the world's biggest collection of flu sequences--has been free...
...insufficient investment" in U.S. readiness for a pandemic. Meanwhile, there are new reminders that birds--and viruses--don't respect borders. Croatia tested dead swans last week for the virulent H5N1 strain, Russia culled infected poultry, and a man in Thailand became the 67th human to die of avian...
When people living in the remote Danube Delta villages of Ceamurlia de Jos and Maliuc heard last week that their chickens and ducks would have to be destroyed to help prevent the spread of the Avian flu virus, they reacted in different ways. Some wept and prayed as they handed over their birds; others tried to hide them. Said Ceamurlia resident Gina Braileanu, "My uncle was caught hiding a hen close to his chest. He had to give...