The bird flu virus has now reached a major city, and seems to have spread across the country of Turkey:
Two children and an adult have tested positive for the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain in Turkey's capital Ankara, the city's governor Kemal Onal has said.
Turkey claims to have controlled an earlier outbreak, but obviously their reporting system is weak, or the disease went underground in some way. Many people have fallen ill in Van province (in the East) and bird flu now appears to be in the capital, where the possibility of human-human mutation seems higher, given the larger number of people and birds. It's an ominous development.
The disease has probably infected bird populations in the nearby rural areas of western Iran, northern Iraq, and the Stans. But due to poor information and gaps in health safety, many things are likely going unreported.
If human - human mutation occurs, it will be a real killer. The mortality rate is around 45% - my count from the BBC shows that 77 people have died from 174 infected.
What is our government doing about this, and what should we do in case of pandemic, beyond threatening martial law ? Amongst everything else Bush needs to get pounded on this.