The avian influenza virus H5N1 has been detected in North America. “Tests have confirmed an outbreak of bird flu at a turkey farm near Vancouver, but it appeared to be a less virulent strain and posed little risk to humans, officials said on Saturday”, (Snip)
First evidence for the global threat comes from China, where a 2 year old girl has been confirmed to be infected with bird flu in the northern Shanxi Province, as government officials said receently. The child was found ill on 7th of January in the central Hunan province – the little patient still is in critical condition. According to the test result of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the girl had been tested positive for the H5N1 strain of avian influenza. Meanwhile the Ministry of Health in China has announced 3 new confirmed human cases of H5N1 infection. (Snip)
On the other site of the globe, the Ministry of Health and Population of Egypt announced a new human case of avian influenza A(H5N1) virus infection last week, the case being a 21 month old girl Kerdasa District.
(Snip)
However, the situation in the United States is more alerting, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A new University of Colorado at Boulder study showed the resistance of the avian flu virus to a major class of antiviral drugs “is increasing through positive evolutionary selection, with researchers documenting the trend in more than 30 percent of the samples tested”, as the scientists report. Even if the expected influenza pandemic did not start yet, there is no doubt about the comeback of the lethal virus: The first Pandemic Influenza occurred in three waves in the United States – exactly 90 years ago, between 1918 and 1919.
http://www.lifegen.de/newsip/shownews.php4?getnews=2009-01-28-4523&pc=s02
I think you have misunderstood something. The Canadians are still testing to determine the N type of the H5 virus in the Canadian outbreak. It has not yet been determined that it’s an H5N1 virus. Even if it is an H5N1 virus, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s “the H5N1″ bird flu virus from Asia. In fact, it’s likely it is not — the BC outbreak only sickened the turkey, it didn’t kill them. The Asian H5N1 viruses is deadly to poultry.
The H5N1 viruses responsible for the outbreaks in Asia have never yet been found in North America. There’s alway the possibility they eventually will. But it’s not clear yet that this is that time.