Bird Flu: A Race Against Time As the Spectre of Avian Flu Draws Ever Closer, Scientists All Over the World Are Striving to Develop Vaccines and Strategies in a Desperate Attempt to Prevent a Global Pandemic That Could Kill Millions.

Summary

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LIKE the distant rumbling of a storm on the horizon, the television images of children's' funerals in eastern Turkey have send a shudder across Europe. When a human case of avian flu was mistakenly reported in Belgium yesterday, in someone just returned from Turkey, it seemed as though the virus had almost completed its inexorable march across the globe from Asia. Not yet, it transpires; but it may be only a matter of time.

At least 15 people have been diagnosed with the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu across Turkey and three children in Dogubeyazit have succumbed, two of them confirmed flu cases.

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Bird Flu: A Race Against Time As the Spectre of Avian Flu Draws Ever Closer, Scientists All Over the World Are Striving to Develop Vaccines and Strategies in a Desperate Attempt to Prevent a Global Pandemic That Could Kill Millions.

As devastating as the outbreak in Turkey is, it is providing invaluable information for those scientists working with the leading medical centres on the planet desperately trying to outwit the virus.

"I must say the genetic analysis is quite stupendous, " says one of those scientists, John Oxford, professor of virology at the Institute of Cell and Molecular Science at Queen Mary's Hospital in London.

Samples obtained from Turkish victims and analysed at the National Institute of Medical Research in London show that H5N1 has undergone a slight mutation which makes it mo...

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