Bird Flu Uncovered: The Silent Threat Lurking in Our Backyards and How You Can Outsmart It Today
The answer to where the 1918 virus came from was published in October 2005. Humanity’s greatest killer appeared to originally come from avian influenza—bird flu.
What Is Bird Flu?
Evidence now suggests that all pandemic influenza viruses—in fact all human and mammalian flu viruses in general—owe their origins to avian influenza. Back in 1918, schoolchildren jumped rope to a morbid little rhyme:
I had a little bird,
Its name was Enza.
I opened the window,
And in-flu-enza.
Is Bird Flu Worse Than Regular Flu?
As devastating as the 1918 pandemic was, the mortality rate was less than 5 percent on average. But the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus that first emerged in China in 1997 and spread to more than 60 countries seems to kill about 50 percent of its known human victims, on par with some strains of Ebola, making it potentially ten times as deadly as the worst plague in human history.
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