Old bird flu cases raise questions
September 18th, 2006
The recent discovery of a number of mild bird flu cases from past months, that have only recently come in the spotlight, in Indonesia and South Korea, have prompted some to question the true mortality rate of the disease. It might be that the death rate is somewhat inflated by the fact that such mild cases are being missed. Experts however claim this is not the case, but that, at the same time, it is important to keep searching for those mild occurrences of the disease, in order to understand the real number of human infections and the symptoms that the patients experience. These kind of cases could also provide an early warning in the event of a shift in the nature of the virus, as a high number of mild bird flu could be a signal that the virus is adapting on its way to becoming a human flu strain.