New Pandemic Outbreaks
Today we learned about new H5N1 outbreaks in China with birds – two farms in the Jiangsu province – and in Egypt - where a 16 year old girl died from Bird Flu. It seems like it was last December where we also had a series of new outbreaks that were both zoonotic and human. There will no doubt be more of them in the coming weeks and months.
What experts are looking for are the building blocks of the Bird Flu that make it more likely than it was last year to be able to transmit easily from one person to another. Without evidence of this, we can only wait and prepare, as we should all be doing, for what we know is coming.
Experts say a pandemic of some form will come and in fact is overdue. Therefore it is prudent that we prepare for it, since it is a certainty. Granted, we don’t know how deadly it will be, or when it will be here, but since it is a 100% certainty to be on its way, then we best be prepared.
Next blog, I’ll discuss some ways we can be prepared for a pandemic, bird flu or otherwise.