The Bird Flu Strikes Japan Again

Current report # 4

The Next pandemic?

The bird flu strikes Japan again

What is disease? A disease is an abnormal change in the body's condition that impairs important physical or psychological functions. The bird flu affects humans like a disease. The virus has killed 164 people since 2003, according to the WHO. (Reuters) "These might not be large numbers but we cannot let that lull us into a false security," Henk Bekedam, the WHO's representative in China, said in a speech at the meeting, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters on Tuesday. "Right now, a growing public health challenge is overcoming effects of 'bird flu fatigue'," he said.

Environmental health focuses on external factors that cause disease, including elements of the natural, social, cultural, and technological worlds in which we live. Next in line is disability adjusted life years(DALYs) is a measure of disease burden. DALYs combine premature deaths and loss of a healthy life resulting from illness or disability. According to the WHO, chronic diseases now account for nearly 60 percent of the 56.5 million total deaths worldwide each year and about half of the global disease burden. (Stated from the book pg. 160)

TOKYO - A new outbreak of bird flu is suspected in Japan after 23 birds died at a poultry farm in the southwestern prefecture of Miyazaki, the Agriculture Ministry said on Tuesday.

Authorities are conducting preliminary tests on chickens at the farm, which keeps about 93,000 birds for their eggs, the ministry said in a news release. If confirmed, it would be the fourth bird flu case reported in Japan since the beginning of the year.

On Monday, Japan confirmed its third outbreak of bird flu at a farm in the western prefecture of Okayama. Further tests are being carried out to confirm whether that case is due to the lethal H5N1 strain. The H5N1 virus has killed at least 164 people worldwide since 2003, most of them in Asia, and over 200 million birds have died from it or have been culled to prevent its spread. There have been no reported cases of human infection from the virus in Japan.

Earlier this month, Japan had two H5N1 outbreaks among poultry in Miyazaki, the country's biggest poultry producing region. There had been no H5N1 cases in the country for three