And now the news for Iraqi parrots: bird flu in Iraq

[general_kill]

now they have to deal with the most deadly imaginary disease known to man!

Oh right, forget about the plague that killed 1/3 of europe and smallpox which killed 300 million world wide. A flu is the worst thing this world has seen.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

That's correct. And the rest of my post explains why I think such death toll is very unlikely to happen in the present, even if the virus mutates and starts to spread from human to human.

Surely. But it will be because there are histeric people who will take the means to avoid it.

 

[luiz]

I think it is highly likely. Even given our current technology and medicine, such a virus would likely spread across the globe within a few weeks due to plane travel and such. Even if you find a cure fairly quickly, we don't have the capabilities to make a cure for a billion people.

Let's make an online bet, than. I bet 100 bucks that from 2006 to 2015 malaria will have killed more than the bird flu. Deal?

On a more serious note, I'm all for precautions. I just hate doom prophecies. Bird flu is definately not the greatest threat facing mankind right now.

 

[The Yankee]

An outbreak of bird flu has killed four people in Turkey, which borders Iraq.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4623336.stm

Four people is an outbreak nowadays?

Research must continue but for months and months, this has been brought to quite a proportion.

 

[carlosMM]

Its been leaping to humans from close contact with birds, but not human to human. It probably never will, its all hype.

The bird flu has killed around 80 people since 2003. Compare this to the death toll of malaria only in the last month, and have a surprise.

The fear of a global epidemy of bird flu is the stupidest, most irrational fear since Y2K.

as pointed out by others, the Spanish Flu, a pandemic that killed more people than WWI, is H1N1. A typical bird flu virus mutated to be transferable to humans, and then again to transfer from human to human.

Every few years, a pig or bird flu will kill a few humans, usually in Shanghai or HongKong. Usually, the world lucks out. But do you really want to count on 'lucking out'?