The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, February 20, 2006, Page 3, Image 3
Bird flu possibly latest in number of diseases able to jump to humans
Andrew Bridges
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ST. LOUIS — Humans risk being
overrun by diseases from the animal
world, according to researchers who
have documented 38 illnesses that
have made that jump over the past 25
years.
That’s not good news for the spread
of bird flu, which experts fear could
mutate and be transmitted easily
among people.
There are 1,407 pathogens _ viruses,
bacteria, parasites, protozoa and fungi
_ that can infect humans, said Mark
Woolhouse of the University of
Edinburgh in Scotland. Of those, 58
percent come from animals. Scientists
consider 177 of the pathogens to be
“emerging” or “re-emerging.” Most
will never cause pandemics.
Experts fear bird flu could prove
an exception. Recent advances in the
worldwide march of the H5N1 strain
have rekindled fears of a pandemic.
The virus has spread across Asia into
Europe and Africa.
Controlling bird flu will require
renewed focus on the animal world,
including the chickens, ducks and other
poultry that have been sacrificed by the
tens of millions to stem the progress
of the virus, experts said at a news
conference late Sunday at the annual
meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science.
“The strategy has to be looking at
how to contain it in the animal world,
because once you get into the human
side, you’re dealing with vaccines
and antiretrovirals, which is a whole
new realm,” said Nina Marano, a
veterinarian and public health expert
with the National Center for Infectious
Diseases.
Bird flu has killed at least 91 people
_ most of them in Asia _ since 2003,
according to the World Health
i ■in.. _. ■ . "
Organization. It appears to kill about
half the people it infects. However,
should it mutate so it can pass from
human to human, it likely will grow far
less deadly, said Dr. Stanley Lemon,
of the University of Texas Medical
Branch at Galveston.
“It is very unlikely that it would
maintain that kind of case mortality
rate if it made the jump,” Lemon
said.
Each year, one or two new pathogens
and multiple variations of existing
threats infect humans for the first time.
That pace appears to be unsustainable
in the long run because it would imply
that people run the risk of being
overrun, Woolhouse told reporters.
“Humans have always been attacked
by novel pathogens. This process has
been going on for millennia. But it
does seem to be happening very fast in
these modern times,” Woolhouse said.
Woolhouse argues that either many
of those diseases and other afflictions
will not persist in humans or that there
is sometning peculiar today allowing so
many of them to take root in humans.
One explanation may be the recent
and wide-scale changes in how people
interact with the environment in a
more densely populated world that is
growing warmer and in which travel
is faster and move extensive, Marano
said. Those changes can ensure that
pathogens no longer stay restricted
to animals, she added. Examples from
recent human history include HIV,
Marburg, SARS and other viruses.
That prospect leaves open the
question of what future threats await
humans.
“It always surprises us. We think
that avian flu will be the next emerging
disease. My guess is something else
might come out before that,” said Alan
Barrett, of the University of Texas
Medical Branch at Galveston. “It’s very
hard to anticipate what comes next.”
Bela Szandelszky / The Associated Press
A Hungarian ranger, wearing a protection suit shows a dead swan found in a fishing lake near
the village of Nagybaracska (210 km south of Budapest), Hungary, on Sunday. The number of
dead birds is increasing as Hungarian authorities test for the presence of the deadly H5N1 bird
flu virus.
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