Is
there a cure for Bird Flu ?
Avian influenza in humans can be detected
with standard influenza tests. However, these tests have
not always proved reliable. In March 2005, the World Health
Organization announced that seven Vietnamese who initially
tested negative for bird flu were later found to have carried
the virus. All seven have since recovered from the disease.
Antiviral
drugs are sometimes effective in both preventing and treating
the disease, but no virus has ever been really
cured in medical history. Vaccines, however, take at least
four months to produce and must be prepared for each subtype.
In
July 2004 researchers, headed by H. Deng of the Harbin
Veterinary Research Institute, Harbin, China and Professor
Robert Webster
of the St Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee,
reported results of experiments in which mice had been
exposed
to 21 isolates of confirmed H5N1 strains obtained from
ducks in China between 1999 and 2002. They found "a clear
temporal pattern of progressively increasing pathogenicity". |
