Avian flu weblog

Tyler Cowen from Marginal Revolution and some other people have been running an excellent blog specific to Avian flu -- current outbreaks and past events. A sample article: "Avian flu outbreaks in perspective"

Avian flu outbreaks seem to be occurring at a faster rate than in the past:

Asia's lethal H5N1 is grabbing most of the headlines, but it is not the only strain of so-called highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) on the march worldwide. There have been 15 known outbreaks of HPAI between 2000 and 2004, which killed or led to the culling of some 200 million birds, Ilaria Capua of the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Venezie in Italy said at the meeting. In the 40 years before, she said, there were just 18 outbreaks, affecting 23 million birds: "We've gone from a few snowflakes to an avalanche." [My emphasis.]

Several strains other than H5N1 -- including H9N2 in China and Hong Kong, H7N2 in the United States, H7N3 in Canada, and H7N7 in the Netherlands -- have also caused human infection, disease, or even death.

The author of this post -- Silviu Dochia -- gives this link to the story quoted which has more information. Good stuff and something we need to keep track of. With world travel being as open as it is, a hot-spot in one place can rapidly diffuse to the rest of the world even before anyone knows something is wrong. Given a couple day incubation period, someone cousin could infect a person planning a trip to Los Angeles and the slight cough they had on the airplane could get several hundred people all of whom had other travel plans... A worst-case scenario for sure but still within the bounds of probability.