12 MONKEYS AND A CHICKEN WALK INTO A BAR Anxiety is rippling through the scientific community over the epidemic of avian influenza currently affecting the Northern Hemisphere. This epidemic consists of a few discrete strains, any one of which could jump species and embark upon human-to-human transmission.
One of the strains, designated as H5N1, has a remarkable pathogenicity. Should it make the "one small step to man, one giant leap to mankind," as the New England Journal of Medicine so cleverly put it, H5N1 would dwarf all previous pandemics with hundreds of millions of fatalities—about one in every eight people.
In an interview with BBC online, Dr. John McCauley, of the British Institute for Animal Health noted: "There's no reason to say the virus will not continue to evolve so that it can transmit directly from one person to another. There's a realistic chance that could happen. If it does—if the virus becomes adapted to man and can transmit efficiently—there'll be no point in selling a vaccine. You might as well give it away at that stage, because money would be meaningless. The world order would change."
The mutation—a mix of avian and human forms of the influenza virus—occurs when a person infected with a human flu virus contracts an avian flu virus at the same time. Scientists think it's happened before—in 1957 and 1968—and such a situation may have triggered the great Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. New Scientist magazine reports that the World Health Organization is asking countries in the Southern Hemisphere to donate a portion of their human flu vaccine to vaccinate poultry handlers in southeast Asia, to reduce the possibility of simultaneous contraction.
WHO considered administering the antiviral drugs rimantidine and amantidine to those at high risk, but the avian virus has developed an immunity. Klaus Stohr, a senior virologist with WHO, told New Scientist: "Never in history have we seen such outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza over such a wide area simultaneously."
An AP story on April 20 confirms that a Westchester County man was infected with avian influenza back in November, the second such case reported in the U.S. (The first involved a poultry worker in Virginia.) He had no known contact with birds or poultry. CDC influenza expert Nancy Cox was quoted as saying, "We can't figure out how he was exposed and why he's an isolated case. We need to understand how he got infected."
A fairly bright person with access to human subjects, some infected birds and a run-of-the-mill human flu strain could actively engineer this mutation just about anywhere. The experts have assiduously avoided any discussion of intentional facilitation.
