There hasn’t been much bird flu news recently, and I’m just as happy about that as it’s more fun to be writing about “I Am Legend” than it is about actual plagues that are killing actual birds (and sometimes humans).

However, there is unfortunately some new bird flu news. India is seeing a significant outbreak of bird flu, affecting 13 of West Bengal’s 19 districts. The government says that more than 2.5 million birds will have to be put to death.

The good news is that there are no cases of it spreading to humans this time. The bad news is that it’s heading towards Calcutta, and we all know how populated Calcutta is (maybe we don’t; just in case that’s true, the population of Calcutta and the area around is is over 15 million people - it’s one of the most densely populated cities in the world). Farms with poultry dead from bird flu are within two hours of Calcutta.

If there’s one thing that’s more creepy than people walking around in contamination suits in Western cities (and more likely, Western television shows), it’s people walking around in contamination suits in Indian villages. Hopefully this is a variation of H5N1 which doesn’t leap to humans and will remain contained in the bird population.

Via: BBC NEWS | South Asia | India bird flu disease ‘alarming’
[tags]bird flu, avian flu, h5n1, calcutta, india, outbreak[/tags]

|