The threat of bird flu

Philippine Daily Inquirer, Asia News Network, Manila

The threat of bird flu is lapping at our shores, with other Asian countries reporting deaths from the virus that has jumped from fowl to humans at a pace worrisome to the World Health Organization.

As in anything for the most part yet to be satisfactorily explained by authorities, the general public is left to rely on hazy pronouncements-for example, that Philippine fowl, particularly chicken, is safe for consumption.

This is all very well, at least for those households who choose chicken as their staple dish and who can afford to do so, and, as well, the considerable portion of the population that raises poultry as livelihood and that stands to lose everything in, quite literally, one fell swoop. But for how long?

Even in the last decade, scientists warned that the indiscriminate use of antibiotics and other drugs has resulted in virus mutations resistant to the strongest medication. The warning has since provided fodder for science-fiction thrillers, except that there is nothing thrilling or fictional in the modern-day diseases that have since claimed human casualties in disturbing numbers. A case, so to speak, of life imitating celluloid.

The governments of countries with reported cases of bird flu -- Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam -- have ordered the culling of millions of chickens infected by the virus.

Global media have recorded and beamed to all points of the planet not only reports but also photographs and footage of slaughter, which, although presumably intended to show swift implementation of health measures, somehow portray humanity in panic-and a not insignificant tinge of savagery. (But this is hardly new. Years after the mad cow disease hit England in the 1990s and Prime Minister Tony Blair's order to slaughter resulted in the destruction of both infected and healthy cattle, a dramatic picture of a dead cow being hoisted by crane from a mountain of carcasses remains etched in the memory. And only recently came this chilling photograph from China, parts of which experienced a brief resurgence of SARS: Of a worker with one foot pinning down a cornered civet cat, poised to deliver the death blow.)

The latest buzz is that migratory and wild birds are causing the virus that has been described as "very hardy" and able to travel "very easily in the air and over great distances." Here is an Agence France Presse report on the matter: "Scientists suggest that migrating birds (taking the East Asian Flyway) could have introduced the virus in their droppings or passed it on to domesticated birds during stop-offs in their winter journeys south for the warm weather and summer flights north."

On top of all these, of course, is the prevailing "flu weather," with sudden heat interspersed between bursts of cold. The fear is that bird flu could link with the regular flu to produce a mutation fiercer than what is now known.

We better brace for the long haul. The prognosis appears to be that things will get worse before they get better.