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Killer called H5N1

08/Sep/2006: The H5N1 avian flu virus seems to be winning the race. It has started establishing itself in epidemic proportions around the world. Once concentrated in South East Asia, the virus has expanded its territory in to Europe, Africa and North & South America.

It has already started to decimate wild bird populations in Europe and Africa. Nobody at this instance seems to be bothered about the ecological damage that could be caused by this ‘Killer’ if it could spread to more wild population of birds. Every one seems to be contained with controlling the spread of the virus among the domestic birds and this could eventually allow the H5N1 strain to establish itself as an epidemic among wild birds and then mutate in to a more deadly strain.

The speed at which the virus has spread has amazed everyone. When scientist were issuing warnings on the possible pandemic of H5N1, a couple of years back, many people were not listening to them, but today this strain has proved how destructive it could be, by spreading among bird populations around the world within a short span of time. Still scientists around the world are struggling to find how far this virus has made inroads in to different parts of the world.

It is impossible to find how many wild bird species around the world are infected with this strain. If this strain continues to spread at this pace it could wipe out many wild bird population around the world. We have already pushed many wild species of bird to brink of extinction and now this killer may push them still farther.

The current developments in the spread of the H5N1 strain are in line with what the scientists had expected earlier and we could soon be in middle of a pandemic that could kill millions and that day does not seem to be far away!

Kesavan Siva

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