The spread is rapidly plowing through poultry in Southeast Asia.Human infections caused by this new strain have also turned up in many different locations. These include farms, urban centers, etc. This raises fears that a worldwide flu pandemic could occur and kill millions.
The new strain is vaccine-sensitive. This means that existing animal vaccines are less effective against it.
"This virus seemed to spread very fast over a big geographic region," said Yi Guan, director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Hong Kong in China.
"However, we don't have any evidence to show whether this virus is more dangerous or less dangerous than any other H5N1 [bird flu] viruses," Guan said.
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