# 671
Regardless of whether the H5N1 virus ever makes the leap to pandemic status in humans, it is already a pandemic in birds. For millions of people around the world, particularly the poor living in developing nations, poultry is an essential part of their diet and a source of badly needed income.
Take away the poultry, either through bird die offs, culling, or fear, and you impact their lives tremendously. This article also points out how poorly equipped nations like Pakistan are to deal with an outbreak.
This from the Daily Times of Pakistan (I've reformatted the paragraphs for easier reading).
By Zar Nageen
KARACHI: The prices of chicken have fallen drastically as a result of the reemergence of the bird flu virus. People have started avoiding chicken meat resulting in a sharp price decline from Rs 150 last week to Rs 84 Monday.
Last month, poultry associations announced that over 50,000 chickens fell victim to bird flu and therefore had to be culled. However, medical sources point out that there has been no official confirmation from the government regarding the proper burial of the birds.
According to medical sources, bird flu has spread to Rawalpindi and Mansehra, where even chicken on private farms have fallen victim to the virus. Dr S.M. Ishfaq pointed out that in the past three years, over 200 people have died as a result of bird flu.
“There is no laboratory in Pakistan to test bird flu among humans,” he said. “The government is not properly dealing with this situation. They must control this virus before it gets out of hand.”
The symptoms of bird flu, among humans, are flu, body pains, sore throat, high fever, diarrhea, headaches and malaise.
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