WORLD SCIENCE

"Long before it's in the papers"
August 03, 2010

Oct. 26, 2005
Courtesy Nature
and World Science Staff

Migrating birds will probably carry the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus into east Africa within weeks, according to a news report published in the Oct. 27 issue of the research journal Nature.

This would increase the chance that the virus could mutate into a form highly infectious among humans, causing a pandemic, researchers told the journal.

If it reaches Africa, the health and economic consequences of the disease could be even worse than in southeast Asia, where most cases of the flu have arisen, according to the report.

Rural communities around the lakes of east Africa’s Rift Valley region depend heavily on poultry to survive, the report noted, so the consequences if many poultry are infected would be severe.

“Losing poultry would have a devastating effect on livelihoods in the area,” Lea Borkenhagen, sustainable-living development manager at the charity Oxfam, UK, told Nature.

People in the region also live in close contact with both domestic and migratory birds. Thus there would be a high risk of the virus spreading to humans, researchers told the journal—increasing the chances that it might mutate and trigger a worldwide pandemic. 

In contrast to southeast Asian countries affected by the disease, most countries in east Africa have no system in place to monitor birds or test for H5N1. Literacy and income levels are also lower than in Asia, making it difficult for officials to spread warnings about the disease. 

“The situation in Africa could be worse,” a poultry researcher from Addis Ababa, Ethopia, told Nature.

Scientists globally have expressed concern that the bird flu virus could mutate into a form easily transmissible among humans. The resulting pandemic, some scientists have estimated, could kill more than 7 million people and leave 30 million hospitalized.

In its current form, the virus isn’t easily transmissible to humans. But those who work closely with infected birds are at risk. According to World Health Organization statistics, 62 people have died of it in the past two years, out of 121 reported cases.

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WORLD SCIENCE

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