Quote:
Originally Posted by Cedars
I dont know if I would call whats happened with H5N1 an authentic specie jump yet. Seems its poor handling of the poultry that is infecting people with a few cases of possible human to human transmission.
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It depends on how you define "species jump". Some would say a species jump had taken place once a disease had been transmitted from the host species to another species for the first time: In
this article, for instance rabies due to Australian bat lyssavirus is listed among diseases that had undergone a species jump, even though only two human cases (both transmitted through bat bites) have been recorded. One should also keep in mind the stringent measures some countries took to limit the spread of avian flu: Vietnam, for instance, culled its entire farmed bird population and started anew with imported hatchlings.
The WHO defined three stages and six phases in the development of a flu pandemic: By their definition, avian flu had reached stage two (pandemic warning period) and was entering phase 4 ("Minor outbreaks of limited distribution from human to human occur, although such outbreaks are highly localised. This appears to indicate a viral strain that is not yet well equipped to infect humans.") when the tide was turned.
