# 2117
Yesterday I took exception to the ambiguity of a report in the Australian press covering remarks made by Professor Peter Doherty at the World Poultry Congress being held in Brisbane.
Today we get a follow up report from the same agency that is far more clear.
Nobel prize-winner optimistic about stopping avian flu
Wednesday, 02/07/2008
Australian Nobel Laureate for Medicine, Peter Doherty, believes a bird flu pandemic is becoming less likely.
Professor Doherty has told the World Poultry Congress in Brisbane that the virus would have to undergo many mutations before it could jumpt to humans' and then from one human to another.
He says strict quarantine is necessary, both of poultry and humans entering Australia.
"It looks as though it's just going bird-to-human, and at this stage it certainly hasn't jumped to cause human-to-human spread, and we're hopeful, as time goes by, that that's less and less likely," he says.
"But it's always a risk, and it's being watched very closely."
Professor Doherty's credentials are impeccable, and his long association with St. Jude's Hospital, and his work in the field of immunology make him a voice worth listening to.
I'm sure that he, and a great many other scientists, are heartened by the fact that the H5N1 virus has not acquired the ability to spread easily from human to human. I certainly know I am.
And many are hopeful that the longer it goes like this, the less likely it is that the H5N1 virus will ever mutate. I certainly share that sentiment, as well.
But hope is not a plan. Nor is it a viable defense against a pandemic.
The H5N1 virus isn't the only novel virus circulating in the wild that poses a pandemic threat, and frankly, we honestly have no idea how long it takes a novel avian virus adapt to human receptor cells.
It could be the H5N1 virus is cranking along right on schedule.
Luckily, those that will have to prepare for the pandemic-after-next will have the benefit of what we learn from the run up to the next pandemic.
With a little bit of luck, they won't be as dependent on hopes and guesses as we seem to be today.
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