Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[bazaar]

To what degree do you certain about the bird flu?Do you think it is serious(basically compared with SARS,AIDS)?To to honst,i haven't eaten chicken for half a month. Do the common view it as a severe case in your country?

[RedRose]

[element105]

It will become more terrible when the virus could infect among humanity.

[stellara]

yeah, element is absolutely right!
avian flu is contagious only from bird to bird or from bird to human if this human was in contact with sick birds. so if you don't go to a chicken farm and play around with sick birds, it can't so easily infect you, i believe. but if you can get bird flu if you eat fried/boiled bird meat, i can't say.. i think not, because normally viruses are killed in heat.
the main problem with avian flu is that the virus may mutate so it can be passed not only between birds, or birds and humans, but also between humans themselves.
from what i read and learned in school a mutation is always coincidental firstly, and the chance for the virus to mutate just in that way that allowes it later to be passed among humans is very little.
i hope it's right, and please correct me if it's wrong!
for example, an avian flu virus (type H5N1 i think) has to have contact with an human flu virus, then they have to have the the ability to exchange their DNA and then, at last, they have to exchange their DNA in exactly that way that gives the avian virus the attribute to pass from human to human. so, as much as i understood there have to be many coincidences to make that deciding mutation that would cause a pandemia.
but if it makes that mutation, it will be very dangerous to humans. the human immune system had had to dial with influenza viruses type H1 and H3, but so far never (or seldom) with H5, so there's no immunity against that kind of avian flu.
but i see no reason to get panicked now, honestly. it's reasonable to pay attention to what you eat, also in times of BSE.

greets
_________________
Don't cry because it's over - smile because it happened!

MOKEY ROCKS!!!

[Snake777]

[certus]

I have been reading http://www.birdfluinsider.com and I read that bird flu may make healthy people die because thier immune system goes crazy.
_________________
one fact in one place

[stellara]

yeah, i thought so too

[element105]

I prefer to use 'evolve' rather than 'mutate',it's their way to live on under destructing by human medicines,they are noble lives.The only way we could finally get rid of them is to enhance our self-immunity system,not developing more and more various and advanced medicines