I’m one of very few bloggers covering this story and it deserves much wider dissemination than it is getting in the American media (which is virtually none at all.)

Fears of deadly outbreak as avian flu kills infected man in Vietnam
By our foreign staff

23 January 2005

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has raised the spectre of human-to-human transmission of deadly avian influenza following confirmation that two Vietnamese brothers had contracted the virus and one had died.

The WHO confirmed that laboratory results had found the two brothers from northern Vietnam had been infected with the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The older one, a 47-year-old, died on 9 January. The younger one, 42, is recovering. The WHO said transmission probably occurred during a family meal when raw duck products were eaten.

“As a precautionary measure, similar culinary practices involving dishes containing raw poultry parts or organs should be avoided in all countries experiencing outbreaks,” the WHO said.

The virus has killed 27 people in Vietnam and 12 in Thailand over the past year, and experts fear it appears to be evolving in ways that increasingly favour the start of a deadly human influenza outbreak. The situation “may resemble that leading to the 1918 pandemic”, which killed more than 40 million people, the WHO said.

What the WHO fears most is that the virus could mutate if it infected a person sick with ordinary flu, or got into an animal hosting a human flu virus, such as a pig.

If the H5N1 were to merge with a human flu virus, it could produce a strain capable of sweeping through a human population without immunity, possibly killing millions worldwide.

Here’s why you need to pay attention to this story: the lethality rate for this virus, in its current genetic form, is over 70%. Think about that for a moment: the 1918 flu pandemic killed between 2 and 5% of the people who contracted it and probably killed as many as a 100 million people worldwide. In a pandemic, usually 30-50% of the world’s population contracts the illness. Do the math.

As of today, there is no vaccine for this strain of influenza, and only one of the extant retrovirals works against it, and there is a massive shortage of the drug for pandemic treatment. The only effective form of prevention is the Nanomask, which is made by only one manufacturer. Ordering a box of them now before the panic hits is not a bad idea.

John Hart is following all things influenza on his new blog, Pathogen Alert, and has a new ebook out on how to beat this bug. This is definitely worth your time.

My co-blogger, Dr. Charles Roten, promises a review of the book at Just a Bump in the Beltway later today or tomorrow.

This is not scare mongering. Of course, there is no guarantee that this will turn into a world-wide pandemic, but neither I nor the World Health Organization are liking the odds right now.