Bird Flu News

Instapundit has a post Saturday about some of the latest news on the bird flu front (HT: Hugh Hewitt). It doesn't look good.

First, in China it looks as though the virus has spread to pigs, as the Epoch Times reported Friday.

Zoology experts at Hunan Agriculture University say that since pig genes are similar to human genes, and that viruses of many animals can live and mutate in pigs, it becomes dangerous for humans once the virus has been found (sic) its way to pigs.

The second concern is over who is likely to be hardest hit by the virus. Instapundit quotes from an article in Forbes Friday (emphasis added).

Experiments with human cells have found the H5N1 virus can trigger levelsof inflammatory proteins called cytokines and chemokines that are more than 10 times higher than those that occur during a bout of the common flu.

This massive increase in cytokine and chemokine activity can inflame airways, making it hard to breathe. It also contributes to the unusual severity of the avian flu, which can result in life-threatening pneumonia and acute respiratory distress.

"This is basically a cytokine storm induced by this specific virus, which then leads to respiratory distress syndrome," [director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Michael T.] Osterholm said. "This also makes sense of why you tend to see a preponderance of severe illness in those who tend to be the healthiest, because the ability to increase the production of cytokines is actually higher in those who are not immune-compromised. It's more likely in those who are otherwise healthy."

It's possible the bird flu won't amount to much. It's possible the mutations will remain within the bird community, or maybe just the birds and the pigs. It's possible the disease won't become as virulent as some are warning about. It's possible.

But we can't afford to take that chance, because it's just as possible that this could be devastating. I've explained it before, but the non-scientific basics are this:

The H and N numbers aren't just arbitrary identification numbers. They indicate the structure of the particular virus, and the same H/N numbers mean the different strains are related. So if there was an outbreak of a strain of H3N2 forty years ago, the people who were exposed to it and survived have antibodies in their systems. If another strain of H3N2 hits next year, even though it's a different virus, the people from forty years ago will be better equipped to fight off the new strain and won't have as severe a reaction as people who have never been exposed to any H3N2 flu.

H5N1 has not been seen since the medical community started identifying flu strains this way, about 1900. So nobody alive today has related antibodies, so everybody is at risk for having a severe reaction--especially healthy people. If this flu mutates into a human-to-human form that spreads with casual contact or through airborne means, we're in trouble.

The best we can hope for is that H5N1 becomes a much-hyped non-event.