Chinese avian influenza

Chinese avian influenza

A disease caused by the H5N1 influenza virus first isolated in South Africa in the 1960s and which, in early 1997 caused the death of thousands of chickens in Hong Kong and later in the year a small number of human cases with a number of deaths. All the poultry in Hong Kong were destroyed and a serious human epidemic avoided. The influenza A virus exhibits the genetic intermingling of avian and human strains producing new viruses with serious potential for pandemics.