The powers-that-be who are always on the lookout for a new pandemic have been sounding the alarm about some cases of the bird flu in Cambodia. Officials on the ground have been freaking out after an 11-year-old girl died from bird flu and then her father also got infected.
They’re freaking out because that would mean a possible human-to-human infection which could lead to a pandemic.
While the possibility of human-to-human transmission can’t be definitely ruled out yet, The Daily Mail [1] reports it appears that the father might have also handled infected birds – and the father is also now testing negative.
So as it stands, the possibility of a new strain of H5N1 that spreads among humans is not proven – or imminent. That’s good since the original strain has a mortality rate of about 50%.
Because the pathogen has jumped from birds to mammals, health and science folks everywhere are still a bit worried about what is to come – but for now they are happy that the virus that the young girl and her father got was an older strain of the bird flu and it’s not been proven that human-to-human spread has taken place.
Don’t worry though because the CDC is still in a panic over it and are working on a vaccine [2].
And for those wondering what else is going on and what else there is to worry about besides bird flu, COVID-19, the regular flu, RSV, and other viruses that they have heard about…
In America we have a drug-resistant stomach bug [3] that the CDC is sounding the alarm on. Plus Listeria [4] infections in Michigan, Washington, California, South Dakota, Colorado, Missouri, Arkansas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New York. We also have drug-resistant infections [4] associated with Artificial Tears products in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.
In other parts of the world, there is Diphtheria [5] in Nigeria, Marburg [6] in Guinea and Chikungunya [7] in Paraguay.
There are also many diseases [8] out there that you could be worried about but have probably never heard about including Walking Corpse Syndrome, Foreign Accent Syndrome and Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. These things, however, are not usually “spread” from person to person.
Additionally, you might want to pay attention to anyone who might start freaking out or act strange because they have Alektorophobia (fear of chicken) or Consecotaleophobia (fear of chopsticks) and other strange phobias [9].
I, for one, definitely have Lachanophobia (fear of vegetables) and Mageirocophobia (fear of cooking).