If you are a turkey you can normally expect life to be looking up after Christmas, not so in Suffolk this week where an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus has killed 2600 turkeys. The good news is that if you are not a turkey or a bird you should be OK as the virus has generally yet to make the leap to humans. Scientists are keeping a careful eye on the whole issue as if the virus could yet change or mutate into a form that humans can catch. Details of this story can be found here and a map showing the spread of the virus is also interesting to explore. The whole story has got me thinking about how useful maps are in showing the spread of things like this and how viruses can now spread much more quickly in our mobile society. By the way the study of disease occurrence (where diseases are found) and distribution (how they spread over space) is called epidemiology. All of which begs one question; where did I catch the flu that has made me so ill this week..?
No comments:
Post a Comment