Bird Flu Facts from Fiction

Bird flu-Should we be in a flap?

How is it spread?

Is Australia at risk of bird flu?

Is it safe to eat chicken?

Are there alternatives to flu vaccinations or Tamiflu?

Despite what you may have read or heard, Tamiflu is not a cure. With no certain defence against bird flu on the horizon, health experts are saying our best option is to improve our immune health.

I have prepared this information to provide answers to some of the questions we have received about the H5N1 strain of avian bird flu.

Is Australia at risk of bird flu?

Yes. Although to date, there are no known reports of the current H5N1 strain of bird flu in Australia, in either in humans or birds. Australian Customs officials did quarantine a shipment of pigeons from Canada.

They did not have the bird flu and will most likely be destroyed having never left quarantine. Yet, its just such situations that need to be watched closely as domestic birds are actually more susceptible to this flu than wild birds. The fact that birds are migratory means that the whole world is at risk of bird flu. Humans are also migratory, travelling the world travel enclosed in flying steel cabins with recycling air systems. If a mutation which allows for the virus to spread between humans does occur, then we are at even greater risk of a pandemic.

Bird Flu (aka Avian influenza) Strain H5N1
It’s no longer a foreign concept that viral infections can spread from animals to human hosts. We have already seen this when faced with HIV, SARS, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) also known as mad cow disease, just to name a few.

With the last pandemic of this magnitude being in 1918 when over 40 million people lost their lives, scientists have warned that we are overdue for another pandemic, such as the one we currently face with the H5N1 strain of avian or bird flu. Potentially, this pandemic version of the flu could wipe out over 20% of the world’s population, that is 100 million people according the World Health Organisation.