I normally don’t freak out about the insane amount of diseases that we have running rampant throughout the world (keep in mind that right now, there is still bubonic plague in the world…), but this is some scary shit: the Asian bird flu has the potential to begin spreading from human to human, and if it does so, it becomes more likely there will be a pandemic, in which millions of people would die. Bird flu currently kills roughly half of the people that get it. Read: not so good.
Hopefully, the world health powers can work together with the governments of the countries currently effected, in order to stave off this possibility of a pandemic. If not, it sounds like things could get really ugly (death toll could be anywhere from 2-150 million… yikes!). *BUT, this is no way means that we SHOULD freak out YET. Especially do not call me, just because I work at CDC, and ask me questions about this; I work in HIV prevention. *wink*