It has all the makings of a cheesy Hollywood horror flick: A shape-shifting killer travels the globe, leaving millions of corpses in its wake, and the world's medical community can't stop the carnage. It's a sophomoric idea for a movie script, but that's exactly what unfolded during the waning months of the first World War, late in 1918, and through much of 1919.
Figure 1. Hong Kong poultry markets saw the slaughter of more than one million birds in 1997 to prevent the spread of the "bird flu" in the human population. The 1997 outbreak of the H5N1 influenza virus was the first direct evidence that avian influenza viruses could be transmitted to human beings. Eighteen people were infected and six died, suggesting a high rate of virulence. The extent of the outbreak was curtailed by the destruction of the birds. At press time, H5N1 has reappeared in Hong Kong poultry farms, live-bird markets and, most alarmingly, in the area's free-flying wild birds. The virus is causing significant mortality in aquatic birds in Kowloon Park. But to date there is no evidence that this virus has been transmitted to people. Here author Robert Webster (left) briefly pauses with a colleague in a wholesale poultry market in 1997 on the day that all of the live poultry in Hong Kong were destroyed.
Image courtesy of Robert G. Webster and Elizabeth Jane Walker.
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