Why would a bird flu pandemic be so dangerous?
So far, only a few people have caught bird flu, mostly, it seems by coming into direct contact with infected birds. However, those people developed severe symptoms, and many of them died as a result. Humans have no natural immunity to bird flu, so if / when H5N1 develops the ability to spread easily amongst humans, many, many more people will become ill and die. The limited information gathered from those people who have already caught bird flu suggests that it has a longer incubation period than ordinary seasonal influenza. This means that people infected with bird flu would not necessarily become ill for several days, during which time they would be innocently infecting the people around them as they went about their daily business. The first victims would be those living and working in the region where the new virus evolved, but they would quickly pass the infection on to others. It would not be long before an international traveller – perhaps someone whose company had business in t
