Source: CRI

04-05-2007 17:56

Avian flu is not a food-borne virus, so the risk from eating properly cooked poultry is considered negligible.

THE RISK

At present, H5N1 is not easily transmitted from bird to human. In other words, a person would have to pick up a lot of virus in order to be infected. Nor is it easily passed from human to human: there have been only three suspected cases in which this is believed to have happened. The big worry is that H5N1 could pick up genes from conventional human flu viruses, mutating into a form both highly lethal and highly infectious. As it would be a radically new pathogen, no one would have any immunity to it. The mutation could occur if H5N1 co-infects a human who already has ordinary flu or the agent is picked up from poultry by an animal such as a pig that can carry both bird and regular flu strains.

 

Editor:Du Xiaodan