Out of East Asia - Disturbing Signs of a Pandemic

The avian influenza virus known as H5N1 first appeared in Hong Kong chicken farms in 1997. Eighteen people were infected and six died. Although the properties of the virus were not well known at the time, the killing of all poultry in Hong Kongs markets and farms was a precaution that may well have averted a larger human outbreak of the disease. Thereafter, H5N1 was largely forgotten but not gone. On 12 December 2003 South Koreas chief veterinary officer sent an emergency report to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) in Paris: a large number of chickens at a farm near Seoul had suddenly died of highly pathogenic avian influenza a disease never before seen in the country. H5N1 had returned and was this time here to stay.