Bird flu outbreak continues in Turkey

Fears grow in Europe as health officials in Turkey announced that the country's H5N1 outbreak appears to have spread, leading some health experts to argue that the virus mutated into a form capable of more efficient transmission. As many as 70 people were hospitalized around the country yesterday with symptoms of the disease. World Health Organization officials continue to insist that there is no evidence that the disease has acquired the dreaded capability for human-to-human transmission necessary for the disease to reach epidemic levels. There are encouraging signs that the virus may not be as deadly as some worst case predictions had supposed.

Talking Points: Hospitals continue to watch developments in Europe nervously. Experts have argued that a pandemic would hit hospitals with ferocity, straining resources to the point of collapse, as happened during earlier influenza pandemics.

- see this article from The Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)

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