Bird flu becomes a problem only if humans pass it on
What a wonderful story bird flu has become. The public has been whipped into a frenzy about H5N1 influenza viruses and, unfortunately, there is no shortage of 'experts' prepared to fuel the fears. The article 'The government can't save you' (Sunday Morning Post, February 12) is such an example.
In this article, Chinese University's Paul Chan Kay-sheung confuses the very low risk of bird flu, a disease of birds that rarely affects people, with human pandemic influenza, in which the virus spreads easily between people. If a human pandemic influenza virus does emerge, people, not poultry, will introduce it to Hong Kong.
This article also demonstrates a lack of understanding of the measures that have been introduced to ensure that H5N1 viruses are not circulating in markets and farms in Hong Kong, and overplays the risk. Preparations for human pandemic influenza should continue, but even the authorities on this disease say that they do not know when the next one will occur or whether it will arise from an H5N1 virus.
LES SIMS, Manunda, Queensland, Australia
Karl John said that '91 deaths can hardly be described as very few' ('Bird flu kills - it's not hysteria', February 21). Perhaps he read my letter out of context. I never said that there is not a potential problem with bird flu. If the virus mutates into a human-to-human contagious form, then we do have a problem. But let's keep this in perspective: scientists cannot even agree if it will happen.
What I was pointing out was that the world's media appears hysterical about this potential threat and yet (because of contempt for the familiar?) virtually ignores the massive threat from motor vehicles. The number of people killed worldwide on roads each year exceeds one million. How does that compare with 91 deaths from bird flu over several years? And what about the one million deaths each year from common strains of flu?
If every local newspaper prominently headlined each road death, perhaps humanity would do something to stop it. In Hong Kong, a driver who caused an accident that killed 20 people and seriously injured another 20 ('Court frees Tuen Mun crash driver', February 21) had a prison sentence of 18 months for a dangerous-driving conviction reduced to only five months on the lesser charge of careless driving. Not one member of the Court of Appeal has called for this law to be changed to allow for a more appropriate, heavy sentence.
P. A. CRUSH, Sha Tin
The best and quickest way to kill wild birds suspected of having bird flu is to catch and put them in the Legislative Council, where they would die of suffocation from all the hot air.
MICHAEL FUNK , Kowloon Tong
