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What Is the Bird Flu?

The bird flu is making noise around the world. This is quite a deadly virus that is moving from country to country making its rounds. But, what is it and where in the world did it come from? Having the knowledge you need about this virus can help you to better understand and prepare for it, should the time come. The bird flu is actually the H5N1 virus. It is a subtype of the Influenza A virus. It is also well known as the avian influenza or avian flu. It all means the same thing.

The bird flu is a virus. A virus is one of the most difficult of all illnesses in the world to treat because it is continuously mutating. By the time you take medications or antivirals to fight it off, it may have changed enough to become immune to the medications. This is the problem with the common cold. While it may be something many of us face, it is impossible to cure it because of how fast it mutates. The cold is a virus as well.

What Makes Bird Flu So Bad?

Now, the common flu and the common cold are things that most of us will deal with on a regular basis. But, serious flu strains, as they are called when the virus has mutated and is different from others, can also be deadly. The bird flu happens to be one of those deadly cases of flu. It is believed to be strong enough and fast enough moving in the body to cause a person to become sick quickly and then worsen until it becomes fatal.

That does not mean that you need to be worried about the bird flu just yet. The bird flu currently only has been able to be transmitted from bird to bird and bird to human. This means that those that have birds or come into contact with birds of large amounts on a regular basis are the most vulnerable. Yet, even this does not mean that you may be able to ‘catch’ the bird flu. Currently, most of the cases that have been found have been in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

What worries many is the possibility that the bird flu could mutate enough to become a virus that spreads from human to human. If it does this, there is a great possibility of a worldwide pandemic. It is possible that up to 150 million people world wide can die from the bird flu if it reaches this level. There is not way to know if this will happen or when it will. The bird flu has yet to unfold into something much bigger as it could possibly do.