H5N1 Summary Part III - Captain Trips?
H5N1 has also spread to the Philippines and India, but in poultry only. Reports of contagion are also coming out of Indonesia, Japan, Laos and South Korea.
Dr David Heymann, executive director of WHO's communicable diseases programmes, said the virus was spreading rapidly around the world, the fear being that H5N1 had the capability to enter humans from chickens and reassort to form a human influenza causing large scale deaths.
China has been the target of a recent WHO inquiry regarding its avian influenza prevention strategies. The Washington Post recently reported that the Chinese government condoned and encouraged the widespread use of the human antiviral medication, amantadine, in domestic poultry.
The drug, which was fed to poultry, may have caused the H5N1 virus to adapt and become resistant to amantadine, rendering the medication useless to combat bird flu infection in humans. Researchers have already determined that the flu circulating in Vietnam and Thailand is resistant to amantadine.
Dr David Heymann, executive director of WHO's communicable diseases programmes, said the virus was spreading rapidly around the world, the fear being that H5N1 had the capability to enter humans from chickens and reassort to form a human influenza causing large scale deaths.
China has been the target of a recent WHO inquiry regarding its avian influenza prevention strategies. The Washington Post recently reported that the Chinese government condoned and encouraged the widespread use of the human antiviral medication, amantadine, in domestic poultry.
The drug, which was fed to poultry, may have caused the H5N1 virus to adapt and become resistant to amantadine, rendering the medication useless to combat bird flu infection in humans. Researchers have already determined that the flu circulating in Vietnam and Thailand is resistant to amantadine.
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