Flu+Hw+CH

=__Epidemics__=

(1) Why keep the 1918 flu virus in the freezer? By keeping the flu virus in the freezer, it preserves the virus so that scientists today can research and do experiments to learn more about it.

(2) Where do all fly viruses get their start? The virus originates naturally in the stomachs of birds.



(3) How does the avian flu and 1918 flu kill people? The virus makes its way into the body and gets into the cells. It then replicates itself at a very fast pace and spreads throughout the body until one's health is to deteriorated to survive.



(4) Why can't the bird flu transfer from human to human? It does not have the correct hemoglobin to do so.

(5) Why would someone in the lab want to give the bird flu the ability to go from human to human? So they could figure out a cure or prevention to if it ever were to happen.

(6) How are they are trying to give bird flu that ability (in the lab)? They are trying to re-create a hemoglobin that makes it possible, like the one in 1918.

(7) How many people were killed in th 1918 flu epidemic? About 50 million.

(8) How many people were killed by the plague-"The black death"? It is estimated that it killed about 100-125 million people.



(9) What is an epidemic? In epidemiology, an epidemic (from Greek epi- upon + demos people) is a classification of a disease that appears as new cases in a given human population, during a given period, at a rate that substantially exceeds what is "expected," based on recent experience (the number of new cases in the population during a specified period of time is called the "incidence rate"). (An epizootic is the same thing but for an animal population.) The disease may or may not be contagious. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemic

(10) What caused the plague and how did it spread? It came from a bacteria called Yersinia pestis, which most likely came from dirt particles in Asia. It spread through migrants and travelers.