Thousands of turkeys have died recently on a farm in Suffolk, England. The cause of death is reported to be the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, the variety that can pass to humans and has killed 164 people to date.
The farm in question is run by England's biggest turkey producer, which would indicate that there are a great many turkeys congregated into one small area. A three kilometer protection zone has been set up around the farm, and Ireland's Minister for Agriculture, Mary Coughlan, has been meeting with the National Disease Control Centre to get all the ducks in a row, so to speak.
With so much commerce across the Irish Sea, both human and animal, Ms. Coughlan is concerned that the disease will quickly spread to Ireland, and steps will have to be taken to prevent that. She's also going to have to tell people that they can safely eat poultry, because misunderstandings will savage the poultry industry on the island. There won't be any imported birds of any kind going from England to anyplace beyond the protection zone in Suffolk, but the fear remains that some infected person, a la Typhoid Mary, might bring in the virus.
Tourism will likely fall, as it did during the hoof and mouth crisis. 24-hour news channels will now have something to fill the empty hours, with doomsday scenarios and talking heads discussing the 1919 epidemic and what might happen if this bird flu takes off like it did then?
Recently, genetic researchers discovered that people descended from those who survived the Black Death carry a duplicate copy of a gene needed to fight viral infections. The same folks have ancestors who survived the flu epidemic, and they carry the double gene to this day, a possible hedge against the next flu outbreak. 'Tis grand, this evolution business. There's something to be said for examining all the branches of your family tree.
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