While H1N1 spreads, H5N1 stews

SHOOT: Imagine a scenario where H1N1 sweeps the world, populations fight back with gusto, and then highly pathogenic H5N1 begins its culling spree. I've spoken about a 'sick' society. Mentally ill, distracted, doped up - these epidemics are a manifestation of our insistence to consume birds and beasts the way we do, and maintain our unhealthy addictions, as we're prone to doing. Currently 436 people have been infected with H5N1, of which 262 [60%] have died. In Egypt this year there were 30 cases. In all of 2008 there were 41 cases.

clipped from en.wikipedia.org Highly pathogenic H5N1  →  Countries with poultry or wild birds killed by H5N1.  →  Countries with humans, poultry and wild birds killed by H5N1. On September 27, 2007 researchers reported that the H5N1 bird flu virus can also pass through a pregnant woman's placenta to infect the fetus. They also found evidence of what doctors had long suspected—that the virus not only affects the lungs, but also passes throughout the body into the gastrointestinal tract, the brain, liver, and blood cells.[36] Influenza viruses have a relatively high mutation rate that is characteristic of RNA viruses. The segmentation of its genome facilitates genetic recombination by segment reassortment in hosts infected with two different influenza viruses at the same time.[30][29] A previously uncontagious strain may then be able to pass between humans, one of several possible paths to a pandemic. There is no highly effective treatment for H5N1 flu