Word: viruses
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...opinion that this doesn't have to be a Mexico-originated virus," says Daszak. "Somehow it got to Mexico and then mixed with humans...
Birds are the natural reservoirs of the common flu strains that strike in winter - and those strains reassort themselves to hit humans particularly hard. But while humans are not susceptible to every strain of avian flu, pigs definitely are. When bird flu viruses replicate in pigs, they pick up the viral machinery that gives more selective flu strains the power to spread to other mammals, like us. That's what makes pigs such potent mixing bowls for flu. The roundabout bird-pig-human route may be less common than the straight bird-human jump, but it may be more problematic...
...this made the flu virus a tenacious foe from the outset, but once humans invented farming and learned to cultivate animals, we made a bad situation much worse. All at once, chickens, ducks and pigs - which never had much to do with one another - began living cheek to jowl in high numbers and often unsanitary conditions. Farm families and people working in live markets then began mingling with the critters. That's a pathogenic speed blender, and the viruses have taken full advantage of it. "It's really an ecological issue," says Daszak...
...fairly blame the pigs (indeed, the CDC has officially stopped calling the virus "swine flu," opting instead for the more hog-friendly 2009 H1N1 flu), can we blame Mexico? That charge doesn't stick either. Decades ago, numerous countries came together to develop the Global Influenza Surveillance Network (GISN), which allows epidemiological teams to spot new flu viruses as soon as they emerge and get vaccines ready in time. But the GISN only tracks human flu, meaning animal flu can slip by undetected. What's more, pigs that carry influenza tend not to die en masse the way flocks...
...have to pin the rap somewhere then, forget any one species or country and blame simple biology. But regardless of whence the virus came, the more salient question is, Where will it go? That's what concerns doctors as they work to stem the epidemic and make sure healthy people stay that...