Essay, Paragraph or Speech on “Bird Flu Danger” Complete Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Bird Flu Danger

After Sars the world is once again rocked by another pandemic avian havoc. This time it was bird flu. This disease is caused by H5NI influenza virus. Affected areas with this virus were South and South East Asia. Extermination of infected birds were ordered in South Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan, China and Pakistan.

Avian flu will mutate and become transmissible by human and the world has no time to lose to stop it becoming a pendemic.

The US worked to rally states behind a new plan to fight the disease which has already killed more than 60 people in Asia and spread to Russia and Europe.

Human influenze is coming we know that and no government, no lead-ers can afford to be caught off guard; we must pounce on human pandemic outbreaks with all the medicines at our disposal.

US President George Bush unveiled a plan under which countries and international agencies would pool resources and expertise to fight bird flu.

This deadly Avian flu virus that has killed millions and 60 people in Asia region has now reached and surfaced in Turkey at Europe’s door step. The current virulent H5NI flu strain is fatal to infected humans. The symptoms are fever, conjunctivitis, coughing and fluid-filled lungs. These symptoms manifest themselves in 3-5 days in an infected person. Mass Killing of poultry is being carried out in affected countries in South and South East Asia to prevent further spread of the disease. Soon we could be faced with human to human transmission leading to an epidemic reminiscent of the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak that killed upto 50 million people. U.S. scientists have resurrected the 1918 virus culled from the remains of an infected women in Alaska whose body was exhumed from ice.

The 10 year research effort has pieced together the entire genome sequence of the killer virus so that scientists discern the links between genetic changes and virus behaviour to develop and design vaccines against the disease. What if the born virus whose genome sequence is available on the Net is reconstructed by bioterrosists ? All technological advancements are being measured. Scientists are trying to understand what happened in nature and how to prevent another pandemic. Also, scientists are trying to understand the genetic mutations that enable the virus to jump from the fowls to the human. If unchecked, the virus routing itself through birds could mutate to a human contagion. Scientists say “mutation can be prevented once drugs and vaccines are in place”. In India the major medicine company Cipla has announced its intention to produce generic version of Tamil flu at a humanitarian price. The anti influenze drug patented by Roch (major medicine company is now selling for $ 60 a dose). Though India has not been infected by bird flu Cipla should go ahead with its plan that H5NI virus is killed before it gets out of control. It is not enough for WHO to describe it as potential catastrophe. Drugs and vaccines availability should be our priority. Even if it means that Roche will have to forgo its patent so be it.

The World Health Organization has sought to calm the fears saying all evidence so far showed that H5NI virus does not spread easily from birds to infect humans. It urged countries hit by the outbreak to monitor poultry.

The Turkish and French PM made a point of eating chicken. But the threat still causing consternations in Europe even though people do not live in close contact with poultry at their homes as in Asia where dozens have died from the virus. One Asian victim had consumed raw ducks blood—a delicacy not popular with Europeans.

Romania is on tenterhooks and has sent bird flu samples to Britain for testing to determine whether the virus found in three ducks in the Danube Delta last week was H5NI—the lethal virus which has killed 60 people in Asia since 2003.

The announcement came a week after H5NI was discovered on a farm in Turkey prompting EU to ban poultry imports from both Romania and Turkey. Another dangerous signal had emerged in a Southern Vietnam province where pigs deaths were reported. Spreading of the infection to pigs may have dangerous ramifications.

The H5NI pathogen mutates rapidly and has the tendency to acquire genes from viruses infecting other animal species through different agricultural practices; humans are said to have tempered with the ecosystems. This changed animal species leading to creation of an ideal atmosphere for the emergence of this influenze virus strains.

Though the virus does not move from person to person but scientists worry virus H5NI may mutate into a form that overcome this and may move from person to person