Win32 Virus Removal

Avian flu in Japan is continuing its devastating spread and now fears are being voiced that it may spread across the country. Already more than half a million domestic birds have been destroyed in an effort to slow the spread of the bird flu. Yet in spite of the health authorities best efforts 160 farms remain in quarartine stopping the removal of chickens or their eggs from the premises. Today outbreaks in Kagoshima Prefecture are reported.

Bird flu may be carried by wild birds who do not always get sick from the virus. The Japan Times is reporting that hooded cranes which winter near one of the affected farms have tested positive for the disease.

Avian influenza comes in many different strains. Some are confined to birds only, others can be spread to other animals. The strain that Japan is currently coping with is the H5N1 strain which rarely spreads to humans, but when it does it is often fatal. Health authorities are concerned that the influenza virus could mutate and give it the ability to easily infect people setting off an epidemic worldwide.

Last year the World Health Organization declared a pandemic when a new variety of influenza believed originating in a factory pig farm in Mexico spread efficiently and with deadly results for many, throughout the world. Many countries worked feverishly to vaccinate their populations against the virus. That swine virus was labelled H1N1. In the past, some of the most deadly strains have been combinations of a pig and an avian virus.

Many people are now looking at the conditions that the animals confined to industrialized meat or egg production as ideal for nurturing a killer virus similar to that which devastated the world in 1918.