The next pandemic?
From Brian Todd
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Top health officials have new concerns about a potentially devastating flu strain in Asia.
"Avian influenza in Asia poses a very significant public health threat. The disease is prevalent in several countries, it has never been so widespread at any time during the last century," says Dr. Klaus Stohr of the Global Influenza Program at the World Health Organization.
Officials at the WHO, which works first-hand with victims in Asia, say the so-called bird flu was identified in 10 countries last year, and is now present in four: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia.
The WHO says more than 50 people have been infected; more than 40 have died.
Thousands more have been exposed to this strain. And while Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Dr. Julie Gerberding agrees we're not on the brink of a flu pandemic, she says "We are however, very concerned about avian flu in Asia. There are more pigs, people and poultry in that environment than we've ever seen before. That is the formula for the emergence of new flu strains."
CDC officials say this is an airborne disease like other flu strains. In Asia, farmers and others have contracted it from animals' nose and throat secretions.
Experts are worried that avian influenza could evolve genetically.
"It's what's in it, namely that this virus can change, can mutate, and then acquire the capacity for rapid, sustained, permanent human-to-human transmission without the animal reservoir. That virus would travel around the world in less than six to eight months," says Dr. Stohr of the WHO.
That's due to more widespread air travel.
Most humans who've gotten this flu have died from it and at the moment, there is no vaccine.
One expert says the threat is not so urgent.
"I have to say that I think it's too soon to panic. I think that avian flu has been with us for a long time, very recently we've noticed that it can jump occasionally from birds to people and even more rarely, from one person to another, but so far there's no evidence of an epidemic," says Dr. Daniel Blumenthal of the Morehouse School of Medicine.
Officials at the CDC and WHO say they're sending teams of experts all over Asia to research this strain, and ordering clinical trials for vaccines.
