One piece in the ‘Perfect Storm’ puzzle currently assembling itself is the Pandemic Piece. As human populations become denser, the probability that an extremely virulent bug will decimate us grows. Normally, bugs with such virulence kill their hosts before they can propagate to their next host and, in effect, their own virulence limits their ability to spread. But, as our populations grow denser, the probability also grows that such bugs will be able to spread from host to host quickly enough to survive.
In the wake of a cluster of avian flu cases that killed seven members of a rural Indonesian family, it appears likely that there have been many more human-to-human infections than the authorities have previously acknowledged.
The numbers are still relatively small, and they do not mean that the virus has mutated to pass easily between people a change that could touch off a worldwide epidemic. All the clusters of cases have been among relatives or in nurses who were in long, close contact with patients.
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