NP: Mike Davis

[Samir Sellami]

„The bottom-line of the Shantou report was that several subtypes of
influenza were traveling on the path toward pandemic potential. The
industrialization of south China, perhaps, had altered crucial parameters
in an already very complex ecological system, exponentially expanding the
surface area of contact between avian and nonavian influenzas. As the rate
of interspecies transmission of influenza accelerated, so too did the
evolution of protopandemic strains. The Hong Kong research team had
discovered, in other words, that contemporary influenza, like a postmodern
novel, has no single narrative, but rather disparate storylines racing one
another to dictate a bloody conclusion. “The H5N1 virus was in the process
of adapting from aquatic to land-based poultry from the duck via the
partially aquatic goose to the chicken,” while the H9N2 (and probably H6N1)
were “adapting through a mechanism that took them to the quail and probably
other minor land-based poultry such as the pheasant.” Alternately, “aquatic
migratory or domestic birds could introduce a ‘genetically adaptable’ virus
directly into land-based poultry. The intensification of the poultry
industry through large-scale commercial operations in East Asia (and
elsewhere) could facilitate this.“

(Mike Davis. The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu, ch. 5)

Highly recommendable reading for the moment.