Bird Flu:The Pandemic we need?
First it was SARS to scare us now the pharmaceutical companies have a new virus to help them sell their anti virals. Bird Flu, more specifically the H5N1 strain of avian influenza. Since there are many flu viruses that come from birds it is a bit of a misnomer to call it The Bird Flu.
This one has the scientific community a bit worried as it has kiiled 75% of the humans unfortunate enough to get infected by it. Their big concern is the virus will mutate and be able to spread human to human. Now, I am not a scientist but something bugs me about all this. Everyone is frantically racing to mass produce a vaccine for this strain but if it needs to mutate to spread from human to human then wouldn't it then be a new strain? A strain against which the newly created vaccine will not work?
From what I understand about viruses it is not in their interest to kill their hosts. The host dies, they die so wouldn't it be likely that the virus when it mutates would do so into a strain that is less likely to kill its intended host.
Personally I hope it mutates and stays just as deadly. The world is overcrowded and we could do with losing a significant percentage of the population. Would losing five to ten per cent of the population be such a bad thing for old mother earth? That is a lot less mouths to feed, a lot less people consuming limited resources.
We are after all a burden on this planet. The ecosystem that we try so deperately to control (and destroy in the process) just may well take care of us and wipe a few million of us out for the sake of everyone. One can pray.
This one has the scientific community a bit worried as it has kiiled 75% of the humans unfortunate enough to get infected by it. Their big concern is the virus will mutate and be able to spread human to human. Now, I am not a scientist but something bugs me about all this. Everyone is frantically racing to mass produce a vaccine for this strain but if it needs to mutate to spread from human to human then wouldn't it then be a new strain? A strain against which the newly created vaccine will not work?
From what I understand about viruses it is not in their interest to kill their hosts. The host dies, they die so wouldn't it be likely that the virus when it mutates would do so into a strain that is less likely to kill its intended host.
Personally I hope it mutates and stays just as deadly. The world is overcrowded and we could do with losing a significant percentage of the population. Would losing five to ten per cent of the population be such a bad thing for old mother earth? That is a lot less mouths to feed, a lot less people consuming limited resources.
We are after all a burden on this planet. The ecosystem that we try so deperately to control (and destroy in the process) just may well take care of us and wipe a few million of us out for the sake of everyone. One can pray.
posted by Darren at 12:07 AM
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