How We Can be Safe from the Bird Flu Virus - Essay Example

How we can be safe from the Bird Flu Virus What Is Flu? The way to understand the Bird Flu virus is to know what a virus is, how a virus can make yousick with the flu, what is bird flu virus and how it is different from human flu virus, and why the bird flu virus is making people all over the world very nervous. There are many types of germs that cause diseases. One is the bacterium and the other is the virus. Both are small and live inside animals, including people, but when they are inside the animal, they cause disease and make them sick. When an animal is sick with a disease, the sickness spreads quickly to other animals. Some diseases are serious that many animals and people get sick and die. For example, bacteria (plural of bacterium) can make people sick with diarrhea, while viruses cause Mad Cow Disease and AIDS. The bacterium and the virus are the same in many ways, but they have some big differences. The smallest bacterium is bigger than the biggest virus (ASM, 1999). The bacteria can stay alive even if it is outside the animal, but the virus cannot. Some bacteria are useful and helpful, for example lactobacilli bacteria that help people digest food, but all viruses are not helpful at all. Which of these two germs makes us sick with influenza or flu? The virus. The influenza virus causes the sickness called influenza or flu. Animals and humans can get sick with the flu. We know what happens when we have the flu: we get a fever, our body is in pain, and we cannot go to school or to work because we feel weak. Animals cannot tell us how they feel, but scientists know that animals sick with the flu feel weak because they do not move, staying in one place until they get well or die. There is another difference between the bacteria and the virus. When the virus is inside the animal, it can change itself and become another virus, something the bacterium does not do. This change is called mutation. When a virus changes or mutates, it becomes another virus, so the medicine used to cure the first virus cannot be used to cure the new virus. This is what makes viruses (plural of virus) dangerous. What is bird flu and how does it spread? Bird flu, also known as avian flu, is the sickness caused by the flu virus in birds. There are many types of flu viruses, and scientists know that a virus called H5N2 is what causes bird flu. Bird flu spreads quickly in some types of birds like chickens because chickens live very close together, for example in a poultry farm. We see the same with people. If someone in the house gets sick with the flu, I also get sick, and others in the house get sick too. The flu virus spreads from one sick animal or person to another who is healthy. Then, the healthy animal or person becomes sick. When the virus gets inside the body of a living animal, it starts multiplying. Scientists discovered many years ago that a virus is just a few pieces of DNA, just like what all living animals have inside each cell in the body. Once the virus is inside a living animal, it goes to the cell and starts to live and tell the cell to bring out new cells. But the new cells are like the virus and not like the cells in the body, so the body gets sick because our immune system knows there is something (the new cells that are like the virus) that should not be there. This is called infection, so the body starts fighting infection and that is how we get sick. This is like when I enter a classroom where I should be studying English, but I make a mistake and enter a classroom where they are teaching French. You know something is wrong because when you talk to your classmates in English, they answer in French. They will tell you to get out of there. This is what the body says to the virus: get out! There are many ways to spread the virus to other people. When someone sick sneezes or coughs without covering his mouth and nose, the cold and flu viruses stay in the air and can enter your lungs. Some viruses land on the doorknob or the light switch, so when you touch it, the viruses go to your hands, and when you touch your nose or rub your eyes, the viruses enter your body. Once it is inside your body, the numbers of flu viruses grow and in a few hours or days you will get sick (ASM, 1999). If you are not healthy, you can die. The danger with Bird Flu Bird flu does not spread from bird to bird or chicken to chicken by sneezing (have you seen a bird sneeze? I have not.). Bird flu virus spreads to other birds when they touch another bird with the flu, walk over and touch the manure of a sick bird, or touch the cage where a sick bird left behind some viruses. The virus can also spread to pigs, turkeys and ducks, or to birds flying in the sky. Early this year, some children died in Turkey because of bird flu when many sick birds flew over the chicken farm where the children lived (BBC, 2006). Many chickens got the bird flu virus, got sick, and had to be killed. Then, the children got the virus from the chickens and they too got sick and died. Scientists thought bird flu did not jump to people, but in 1997 eighteen people got sick with bird flu in Hong Kong. That was the first time they found bird flu in people, who were working in a farm where chickens died from the bird flu virus that scientists call H5N2. Scientists discovered that these farm workers were sick with the H5N1 virus, a mutation of the H5N2 bird flu virus! Physicians are afraid that when many people get sick with the H5N1 virus, there will be a deadly catastrophe. Of those who got sick in Hong Kong, twelve died. During the flu epidemic from 1918 to 1920, of a hundred people sick with the flu, three died, and a total of 40 to 50 million people died worldwide. The H5N1 virus in Hong Kong killed 12 of 18, meaning that for every 100 people who get sick with H5N1 flu, around 70 will die. This makes people nervous, because if H5N1 bird flu virus spreads, hundreds of millions or even billions of people may get sick and die (Livaudais, 2005). There are many ways to keep our family and us safe from the bird flu virus. We can protect ourselves by covering our mouth and nose when we are in a crowded place, like a bus or train, but this is not easy to do when you are carrying many bags. What you can do is to just cover your mouth and nose before you breath air if you notice someone beside you sneezed or coughed. Who knows? Maybe that person is sick with the bird flu virus. You can also protect yourself if you wash your hands after coming from a public place where you touched a light switch, doorknob, or money. Make sure you do not touch your eyes or nose if you have not yet washed your hands. You can also buy a thermometer and an alcohol-based hand washer so you can do a quick test when you feel sick. The virus is looking for the easiest way to go inside your body, and the eyes and nose are easy for them to enter. Health officials say that you should take regular health tests for your immune system, and to be sure, test if that fever or headache is caused by a virus or is just a sign of work stress and pressure. It is better to be safe than sorry, so if one of the people in the house shows symptoms of the flu, have a physician do a test (Banerji, 2005). What we can do to stop bird flu Although scientists say that bird flu can now jump from birds to people, but not from one person to another, the number of people getting sick can make the virus mutate fast into a deadly virus (Economist, 2006). This is bad because we do not have enough flu medicines. Companies that make flu medicines are doing all they can, but we do not really know if the H5N1 virus will mutate into a more dangerous type of virus that cannot be cured. The best way to avoid getting sick is to be healthy. Not getting sick is better than curing a sickness, so how do we keep our good health? We can eat the right food like fruits and vegetables, and making sure we eat clean food. We can also be healthy by getting enough sleep and rest, keeping our homes clean, throwing out the trash everyday, and washing our shoes after we use it to walk outside. If our bodies are healthy, our immune system can fight any flu virus. When our home is clean, we stop the virus from entering our home and infecting those who live with us. Be healthy, be safe, and we will stay alive. References: ASM (American Society for Microbiology) (1999). The difference between virus and bacteria. Retrieved 27 January 2006, from: http://www.microbe.org/microbes/ virus_or_bacterium.asp Banerji, S. (2005) Why bird flu is a direct threat to the United States. FineTuning.com, 19 May 2005. Retrieved 27 January 2006, from: http://www.finetuning.com/articles/ 2951-why-bird-flu-is-a-direct-threat-to-the-united-states.html BBC News (2006). Turkey battles to stem bird flu. BBC News website updated 10 January 2006. Retrieved 27 January 2006, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4597620.stm Economist, The (2006). Turkey takes fright as bird flu heads towards Europe. The Economist print edition issue of 16 January 2006. Retrieved 27 January 2006, from: http://www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5378825 Livaudais, S. (2005) The avian influenza. FineTuning.com, 12 October 2005. Retrieved 27 January 2006, from: http://www.finetuning.com/articles/12-the-avian-influenza.html Read More