Is Bird Flu Still a Threat?

Remember a couple of years ago, when there was a ton of media hype over the looming threat of Bird Flu?   We don’t hear much about it, probably because the pandemic didn’t manifest as quickly as the media would have liked, and their attention was diverted to other, more sensational topics.

It’s a shame that society seems to have developed such a short attention span.

Consider, for example, this story at CNN:

The AIDS virus has been circulating among people for about 100 years, decades longer than scientists had thought, a new study suggests.

Genetic analysis pushes the estimated origin of HIV back to between 1884 and 1924, with a more focused estimate at 1908.[…]

Scientists say HIV descended from a chimpanzee virus that jumped to humans in Africa, probably when people butchered chimps. Many individuals were probably infected that way, but so few other people caught the virus that it failed to get a lasting foothold, researchers say.

But the growth of African cities may have changed that by putting lots of people close together and promoting prostitution, Worobey suggested. "Cities are kind of ideal for a virus like HIV," providing more chances for infected people to pass the virus to others, he said.