Screaming Penguin

Hey dont just dismiss the stories I post outright, it is after all "Pandemic Flu Awareness Week". http://www.fluwikie.com/ What’s going on Influenza is caused by a number of different flu viruses. The human immune system is ready to deal with a few of them, but there are others. Many of these other viruses don’t affect humans because their surface is not compatible with our surface, and they sort of “bounce off�. Even if we get in touch with those viruses, we don’t fall ill. So far, so good. Some bird flu viruses however are “learning�. Their surface has changed so that it is a bit more compatible with our surface. So far, one specific virus (named H5N1) has “learned� to cause disease when it passes from birds (i.e. birds that carry the virus) to humans. Even in this case, it doesn’t cause human disease easily, at least as of September 2005. The World Health Organization has documented more than 100 human cases and more than 50 human deaths caused by avian influenza since January 2004. It doesn’t look like much because it is not much. This is because the virus has not yet learned to pass from one infected human to another. So far, most human cases have been caused by bird-to-human transmission only.