My Brush with Bird Flu

I once had a close brush with avian influenza, bird flu. No, I didn’t get sick. The small outdoor poultry market where bird flu was first detected in chickens in Hong Kong was located in my neighborhood. I often walked past it to go to the post office next door.

I think about that tiny market as I read about the growing concern that people have about the spread of bird flu to this country. There is good reason for concern, and for preparedness. But there is also plenty of opportunity for undue panic. Let me explain.

The first recorded instance of human infection of the H5N1 virus from birds took place in Hong Kong in 1997. Some 18 people were infected and six died. Again in early 2003 the virus infected two people, one of whom died. But by then, bird flu was already being reported throughout Southeast Asia.

The bird flu outbreak was not nearly as scary or as deadly for us as the SARS crisis that hit Hong Kong a couple years later. As I remember, it was mainly an occasion for bashing the new Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa for incompetence, much as President George W. Bush has been criticized for his handling Hurricane Katrina.

The latest outbreaks, which began in mid-2003, are the largest and most severe on record. The virus is now considered endemic in parts of Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia, where the virus was also detected, have taken countermeasures and are presently considered disease-free.

The outbreaks are spreading beyond Asia, as anyone who reads a newspaper knows. Russia reported its first case in July, Kazakhstan and Mongolia in August. This month H5N1 was confirmed in Turkey, Romania and some Aegean Sea islands of Greece. Tests are being conducted in Croatia and Bulgaria.

It seems only a matter of time before the first bird flu case is confirmed in North America, and given the recent news and hysterical talk about using the army to quarantine people, it will probably cause consternation and fear. But it need not cause panic.

At the moment, people can get the bird flu virus only through direct contact with fowl, or surfaces and objects contaminated by their feces. To date, most human cases have occurred in rural parts of Asia where many households keep small chicken flocks, which often roam freely, sometimes entering homes or sharing outdoor areas where children play.

Even in a place as cosmopolitan as Hong Kong, many people still buy their chicken from a wet market, where they point to the bird they want in a cage. The butcher then plucks the feathers and chops its head off in front of you. Very few Americans get their chicken this way, and there is no evidence that cooked poultry is a source of infection.

It is worth remembering that in the current outbreak, laboratory-confirmed cases of human infection have been reported in just four countries: Cambodia, Indonesia Thailand and Vietnam. As mentioned earlier, three countries have staunched the spread without any single person being infected.

Hong Kong slaughtered every chicken in the territory, and that brought the outbreak to a halt. Elsewhere in Asia, officials have killed about 150 million chickens. I haven’t noticed a spike in the price of my McNuggets, although I imagine the first consequence of bird flu in the U.S. would be felt in a rise in poultry prices or shortages as birds – not people – are quarantined.

The European Community has already banned importation of poultry from Turkey, Romania and the Greek islands. It can’t be long before all poultry from Greece is banned too. Certainly mass cullings or embargoes on poultry could be one consequence of the spread of bird flu.

Of course, there are other things to worry about than just the price of chicken. In the present outbreak, more than half of those infected with the virus – about 60 out of 100 people -- have died. And most of the victims have been previously healthy children and young adults.

Countries all over the world are scrambling to produce a vaccine against H5N1 and stockpiles of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu, often used to treat seasonal flu and thought to improve the survival prospects of bird flu victims if administered early.

But if the virus morphs into something that is more easily transferable from human to human, like the common cold, all bets are off. With the virus now entrenched in large parts of Asia, the risk that of more humans coming down with bird flu is increasing. Each additional human case gives the virus the opportunity to improve its transmissibility to humans and thus develop a pandemic strain.

If bird flu should make the jump from birds to humans turning the limited outbreak into a global pandemic infecting and possibly killing millions of people, as some are now predicting, that grubby little poultry market in Hong Kong will take on a grim significance. It was there that it all began.

Todd Crowell worked as a Senior Writer for Asiaweek in Hong Kong. He currently comments on Asian affairs at Asia Cable (www.asiacable.blogspot.com)