WHO study points to threats of avian flu

A new study by the World Health Organization concludes that the number of avian flu cases is likely to spike again this winter as the average age of the victims who die of the virus slowly drops. Overall, bird flu killed 56 percent of the people who caught it, with most falling in the age range of 10 to 19. The virus is difficult to catch, the report adds, but notes that with the H5N1 virus widely spread in poultry, the chances of it mutating into a form that can trigger a human pandemic remains high. These trends reflect the development of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed 2 percent of all the people who caught it and 5.7 percent of young people.

- read the article on avian flu from The New York Times

PLUS: A group of health experts meeting in Paris say that it could take 10 years to develop a vaccine that would protect the world's population from a bird flu pandemic. Report