Scientists keeping a close eye on the avian flu virus have noticed a mutation in the virus that allows ducks to be a carrier of the potentially deadly disease.
Ducks have always been susceptible to avian flu, more commonly referred to as the bird flu. Until 2002, however, the birds rarely got sick from the disease, they merely carried it. Three years ago, the virus mutated and ducks contracting the bird flu started to die in large numbers.
Now, however, researchers say that a new mutation in the bird flu virus makes ducks a carrier of the disease while they show few, if any, symptoms. As a result, they fear that migrating ducks can spread the virus to various areas and still pass the virus on to chickens or even humans.
The scientists findings were reported in Tuesday's issue of the journal 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.'
'These results suggest that the duck has become the Trojan horse of Asian H5N1 influenza viruses,' reported the research team led by Robert G. Webster of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
'The ducks that are unaffected by these viruses continue to circulate these viruses, presenting a pandemic threat,' the researchers explained.
The H5N1 strain of the bird flu is often deadly in humans. Thus far, at least 51 people have been killed by the disease which has been transmitted by domesticated chickens, geese or ducks. The deaths mostly occurred in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.
Scientists around the world have warned that if the avian flu mutates into a form that can be passed directly from human-to-human, a global pandemic is likely which could kill as many as 40 to 50 million people. The World Health Organization has also encouraged governments to prepare for the possible pandemic which may rival the deadly Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 which killed between 20 million and 40 million people.
