The Hill News

In the sobering annals of disaster prevention, genetic manipulation of the H5N1 influenza virus is looming as a seminal case. As has been widely reported, laboratory experiments have rendered the highly virulent avian strain transmissible among ferrets, strongly suggesting that it would be transmissible among humans as well. The potential is seriously alarming. The 1918 H1N1 strain is believed to have killed some 20 to 100 million people worldwide with a case fatality rate of 2- 20 percent, disproportionately young adults. The naturally occurring H5N1 virus has so far infected only about 600 people but half of them have died. If the virus could achieve efficient transmissibility while retaining anything like its current case fatality rate, it could inflict global disaster of unprecedented proportions.

Read more...