The Bird Flu’s Short History And Uncertain Future

It took science hundreds of years to finally conquer the influenza disease with a vaccine. While society waited for a solution, thousands of people died in several major epidemics throughout history, including the famous pandemic flu.

Now, a new epidemic has become a prominent problem throughout the world. It is called bird flu. Throughout history, bird flu was confined to poultry such as turkeys and chickens and hens only. However, this variation of influenza has managed to spread to humans as well, posing a deadly problem for the world’s future generations.

Avian Outbreaks

Despite a long history of influenza in the United States, bird flu did not become evident until 1878. At the time, the disease (which only affected poultry) was deemed the fowl plague, now it is known as HPAI avian influenza. The first bird flu outbreak in United States history occurred in 1924. It did not affect humans. By the end of the 1970s, researchers and scientists had discovered that large pools of the flu virus are constantly circulating in wild birds.

In 1983, just seven years after a vaccine for influenza was created, the second bird flu outbreak in U.S. history took place. Though the epidemic still only affected birds, 17 million of them in Virginia and Pennsylvania were killed in order to contain the virus.

A Dangerous Transition

In 1997, a victim in Hong Kong died of influenza. However, the victim did not die of the flu that was now preventable by inoculation. The victim was the first human in history to die of bird flu. Throughout the year, six more people died of the disease.

By 2003, another bird flu epidemic began in Vietnam, where five people died. More cases of the avian flu that affected humans were seen in Cambodia, Thailand and the Netherlands. Thousands of birds were killed in order to prevent the disease from spreading.

What Does This Mean?

It is difficult to say what the transition of the avian flu from bird to human means for future safety. While it took several hundred years for scientists to develop a preventative method for influenza, modern technology might allow them to do the same with the avian flu more quickly.

However, as the history of bird flu shows, not everything will always go according to plan. If a disease formerly limited to birds can adapt itself in order to affect the human body, then what other surprises might viruses have in store?