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Health and infectious disease experts around the world stress that the risk of a human influenza pandemic is one of their main concerns.
The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 killed about 50 million people and the world is now better prepared to cope with an influenza pandemic, but it faces challenges of another type, such as change. climate.
The biggest fear right now is that a deadly strain of bird flu is passed from humans to wild birds, and then turns into a virus that can be easily airborne to humans.
Caroline van de Sandt, a professor at the Doherty Institute of the University of Melbourne, said climate change affects underlying viruses and bird migration patterns, which would spread the spread of the disease to new areas. and species of birds. This requires constant monitoring of all parts of the world, according to the researchers.
"The flu virus is at the center of the largest number of studies and we have deepened our understanding of it," said virologist David Evans of the University of St Andrews, Scotland. But we realized that it was very difficult to control. "
"If we can prevent the flu virus from passing wild birds to chickens, we will stop the pandemic that is the source," said Barkley. The concerns of poultry producers in terms of public acceptance have been a major impediment to this approach.
"People eat foods from farm animals that have been modified over several decades of traditional hybridization, but who may be afraid of consuming genetically modified foods," she said. declared.
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