Avian Bird Flu: What You Need to Know, Part 1 of 2

Reprint Rights and InstructionsI, DK Fynn, am the author of this article, and I grant permission to all e-zine editors, site owners, info publishers, and physical print publishers to publish this article IN IT'S ENTIRETY, in any format/media, as long as you leave all links in place, and include the resource boxes as seen below, and do not modify any of the contentOf course, reasonable editions can be made: for example, this article is in 2 parts, so at the end of part 1, you can link to where you put part 2 on your site, or you can link to where part 2 is on my site. But you should still leave the resource box in place, even if you choose to puta link in the article body that leads to where part 2 is on my site. Also, you can make the link in the resource boxes either live, with the text "click here," or inactive(text that needs to be copied and pasted into the browser'saddress bar).===========================================================article body word count (not including resource boxes): part 1: 750; part 2: 698character width (lines wrapped at):60resource boxes:5 lines link to part 2, and How To PrepareFor The Bird Fluspellcheck: correctarticle request address:http://www.infostop.info/request-article/bird-virus/===========================================================Avian Bird Flu: What You Need to Know, and How To Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones,Part 1Copyright 2006 DK Fynn Avian bird flu will mutate and kill people you know, andeven your loved ones...unless you take action. If you live in any urban area (especially in a city withan airport or public transit system), you live in anenvironment where a contagious airborne virus can spreadrapidly. The purpose of this article is to inform you as to what exactly bird flu is, to tell you why you are at risk, and to tell you what you need to learn to minimize/lower your risk of infection (if you plan on traveling, you need to pay especially close attention). So, What Is Avian Bird Flu? To begin, I have to correct a misconception: this avianbird flu isn't a just a flu, but something worse--it's avirus. Influenza A Virus H5N1. Just as a computer virus isa malicious program that spreads electronically, a virus issimply two things: 1. A set of instructions to reproduce itself, regardlessof the symptoms, sickness and death it may bring. 2. A delivery mechanism. In our case, the virus can bedelivered through air, water, contaminated surfaces,uncooked meat, feces, and dead carcases. Those are theonly ones we know of for now. That's a good definition of what avian bird virus is. It's symptoms include respiratory problems, major organfailure, and death. Before I tell you what the risk factors are, I want tomention that the influenza of 1918 killed more people thanthe Great War (WWI), that avian bird virus is more of athreat than terrorism, and that H5N1 is the strain that hasgained the most attention. How You're At Risk Essentially, you're at risk by simply being a member ofthe world community, unless you live on your own islandsomewhere. As I said, if you live in an urban area, you're at anincreased risk. If you're a health care worker anywhere inthe world, you're at an increased risk. If you'retraveling to Asia, one of the 8 infected European Unioncountries, or to Nigeria, where the first African case ofbird virus is said to have been found, then you'reobviously at an even higher risk. A key word to consider here is mutate. To mutate issimply to change. A virus mutates when it changes it'smethod of delivery and/or changes the species it caninfect. So let's look at the avian bird virus. It obviously spreads between birds. So it's bird-to-bird. That's bad for the birds, but not too bad for us, isit? Well, did you know that bird virus also infects pigs andhorses? So it's bird-to-animal, or animal-to-animal. Isthat bad? Yes, when you consider that if a virus caninfect more than one species, then it can mutate from onespecies to another. Do you see where I'm getting at? You've heard of people dying from avian bird virus. Atleast the good thing is that it seems to only infect peoplewho come into direct contact with infected birds. So fornow, the virus is bird-to-human. This is where the risk comes in. The virus is bird-to-bird, but it is also able to gofrom bird-to-animal. We know that it can go from bird-to-human. This is proof that the virus can spread from onespecies to another. The fear that the World HealthOrganization, US President Bush, health leaders, and arecent guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show is... Human-to-human spread of the virus. If a virus can spread from one species to another, thenit can obviously spread among the same species. The fearis that the virus will mutate (change) so that instead ofspreading from bird to human (which is the only way tocurrently be infected), it will spread from human to human,exactly how colds spread through the air. When you hearH5N1 in the news, that is the strain of the virus that ismost likely to cause this. The H5N1 strain of the virus isthe most virulent (changing) strain of the virus there is.When this mutation takes place, a pandemic will occur. Human-to-human. Part 2 of this article discusses: 1. Who's At The Greatest Risk? 2. How Your Government Is Supposed To Protect You 3. How To Protect Yourself and Your Loved OnesTo Get Part 2, click here: [Webmaster: put link to part 2,or link to: http://www.infostop.info/what-is/virus/bird-flu-virus/p2/]

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