Bird flu hits britain

Bird flu reared its ugly ahead again this week, with an outbreak at Bernard Matthews plc Suffolk farm. It's the biggest outbreak ever in Europe, with an estimated 159,000 birds culled as a result.

I remember around this time last year, there were various rumblings about bird flu, and the possible pandemic it could cause. As leaflets were distributed and news items galore warned of the possibility of mutation into the human strain, I must admit feeling mildly panicky. I was pregnant at the time and may have over-reacted in my maternal state by constantly needing to discuss it with my partner, detailing all the possible doomsday scenarios. Eventually, the subject seemed to die down, there were no more news items about it and I recall commenting last summer that 'bird flu died a death'.

Now its back and I'm reading about the same issues, although now on a much larger scale. I'm comforting myself by agreeing with government calls for calm, thinking it's logical to assume we've nothing to fear when it hasn't even mutated into the human strain and even if it does it's extremely difficult to contract -

"At the moment in the United Kingdom, the general public still have more chance of winning the lottery than getting bird flu," said Jim Robertson, a virologist at Britain's national institute for biological standards and control.

Good ol' Jimbo - that makes me feel much much better..... Until I come across another field of thought where 'Scientists' believe it is only a matter of time before the present strain H5N1 mixes with human flu, mutates and then spreads from person to person! Although the estimated death toll from this varies greatly, from 50 million to 100's of millions worldwide, all of a sudden my chances of winning the lottery seem to have soared!