Re: How Dangerous is Bird Flu (H5N1) to Global Public Health? Part 2
Re: How Dangerous is Bird Flu (H5N1) to Global Public Health? Part 2
For a pandemic of Zoonotic origin there are two distinct phases.
First you need the animal to human contact.
Second you need human to human contact.
At stage two you have a basically non human disease attempting to spread among humans. Its Ro is likely to be low and it needs lots of contacts (of what ever transmission system it employs) to perfect its infection skills, and so up its Ro. Densely packed humanity is obviously the best place for it to go from zoonotic infection to human pandemic.
The ideal for stages one and two (in avian flu's case) is a city where the population have lots of contact with birds, preferably ducks as they can be infectious and apparently healthy.
Rice growing areas are a problem as ducks are a secondary crop as they keep down pests in the paddy and then become entrenched in the local culture and cuisine so even when these population become city dwellers they retain the duck keeping, and eating, tradition.
Re: How Dangerous is Bird Flu (H5N1) to Global Public Health? Part 2
For a pandemic of Zoonotic origin there are two distinct phases.
First you need the animal to human contact.
Second you need human to human contact.
At stage two you have a basically non human disease attempting to spread among humans. Its Ro is likely to be low and it needs lots of contacts (of what ever transmission system it employs) to perfect its infection skills, and so up its Ro. Densely packed humanity is obviously the best place for it to go from zoonotic infection to human pandemic.
The ideal for stages one and two (in avian flu's case) is a city where the population have lots of contact with birds, preferably ducks as they can be infectious and apparently healthy.
Rice growing areas are a problem as ducks are a secondary crop as they keep down pests in the paddy and then become entrenched in the local culture and cuisine so even when these population become city dwellers they retain the duck keeping, and eating, tradition.