Drug Makes Bird Flu Less Deadly

As with many infections, it isn't
 the flu virus that kills in bird flu cases,
it is the body's reaction to the virus,
i.e. the immune system which,
in attempting to fight the virus kills the patient.

That is why young, healty individuals
are more likely to die from bird flu.

See http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/01/23/drug-impedes-bodys-deadly-reaction--to-flu-virus.html

for information about a new discovery
about a drug
sphingosine analog AAL-R
which reduces the
cytokine "storm" which is the actuall killer.

The bird flu (H5N1 infection) hasn't hit
the world yet but it only takes one mutation
step to turn this into something which
can kill 100 million or more people.

The flu pandemic during WWI killed 50-100 million
and, despite opinion to the contrary,
doctors have few weapons to attack
virus infections - we are in little better
shape (public health wise) now
than we were in 1918.

--
John