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Bird Flu Transmission

Photo: Woman cooking near pigs and ducks

A woman is mixing more than the ingredients for a meal in a pig-farming village near Nanchang in China's Jiangxi Province. Scientists believe the practice of living in close proximity to pigs and—in this woman's case—ducks plays a major role in contracting and spreading the H5N1 bird flu virus in parts of Asia. A flu virus that can attack a bird can rarely infect humans; the virus is unable to attach itself and grow in human cells. But a pig is capable of contracting the flu from birds as well as humans. When the two viruses mix within a pig, they can spawn a hybrid flu virus. If it begins to adapt and spread easily from human to human, the outcome can result in a deadly pandemic.

Photograph by Karen Kasmauski