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The Dean’s been keeping a close watch on $UVFT and reports of H1N1 (Swine Flu), which is “still a threat.”

To date, H1N1 has been detected in more than 200 countries and killed “at least 14,711 people worldwide” but “it will take a year or two after the pandemic ends to establish the true number of fatalities.”

Even with those frightening facts aside, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that “other influenza viruses have been detected increasingly in recent weeks.”

Due to the ongoing controversy of H1N1′s deadly potential, The Dean and others have suggested that people have neglected to protect themselves from the virus. At the same time, The Dean wonders if the world should be worried about H5N1 (bird or “Avian” flu).

Poultry smuggling and migratory birds are among common sources of the H5N1 virus spreading in Southeast Asia, with positive animal cases in China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand. But, other countries, such as Israel and Egypt, which are not exactly close to Asia, have reported positive H5N1 animal cases in the past couple of weeks.

Last month, an article from Hong Kong suggests that efforts are underway to thwart a large outbreak of H5N1.

So, what’s all the commotion?

“Even though H5N1 transmission between people is weak, experts say it continues to pose a risk especially if it gets mixed with the now dominant H1N1 swine flu virus. Such a hybrid may then be both deadly and easily transmissible among people.”

Within the past year, reports indicate that 17 countries had outbreaks of H5N1 in domestic poultry and wild birds. One source cites a statement made by WHO, “H5N1 poses a pandemic threat because out of those reported 72 human cases, 32 of them were fatal”—that’s a death rate of 44%!

Despite killing thousands of birds in these countries, H5N1 can spread to other animals, which can then spread the virus to poultry in other regions.

Even in “bird-flu-free” countries like Burma, the Xinhua News Agency has “call[ed] on people to step up bio-security measures, change of livestock breeding system, avoidance of illegal import, transport and trading of chickens and its products, and prompt report of suspected bird flu case.”

Another primary concern for researchers, is that Indonesia has a history of “not sharing virus samples.” This means that the “molecular changes” of the virus have yet to be tracked and no firm conclusions can be made about the possible transmission and mutation of the virus strain.

And, if the combination of H5N1 and H1N1 is most feared, The Dean thinks this hybrid strain could cause quite a stir around the globe, perhaps, even greater than Swine Flu Frenzy.