Don't Play With the Chickens!!

A new strain of the avian bird flu has hit the earth. The H5N1 Avian flu virus is a mutated form of the well known avian flu which caused mass panic two years back. The bird flu, as it is known, is a strain of the influenza virus carried in birds. Usually, the high temperature of a bird's body (106F), is ideal for the virus to fester and grow. In humans, the average temperature is 10 degrees cooler than a bird's body, making it harder for the virus to live in the human throat or nose where it would be contracted. This new strain allows the virus to live in cooler temperatures that would make the temperature of the human body more accommodating to the flu.

So far the H5N1 virus has infected 329 people in 12 countries, killing 201 of them. If this new strain is able to be spread from person to person the effects may lead to a global epidemic, devastating the world's population. In 2005, a large group of waterfowl died in China from this new strain. They are from the same area as many other migrating birds are. Have these other birds caught the new strain of the avian flu? Only time will tell if an outbreak should occur in a city near you.