Friday, October 28, 2005

Bird-flu in Africa?

The UN is reporting that cases of bird-flu appearing in Africa are "imminent". This could be really bad news as I'm sure that a lot of Africa nations simply do not have the resources to contain it- oddly enough, the flu could be carried there by European birds, currently nesting in Russia and preparing to migrate to Africa. That's if the European birds are infected of course. Because of the migratory habits of the birds, the areas most likely to be infected are N. Africa and "maybe the western border of the Red Sea [in] Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia." So we could also be looking at infections in the Middle East if the disease mutates into a human-to-human form.

Europe seems to be doing its best to prepare for a pandemic (by buying a medication which may not be effective at all) but I wonder what can be said about similar preparations in the Middle East?

No comments: