Epidemics

(1) Why keep the 1918 flu virus in the freezer? So that we can learn more from previous viruses, that may help us deal with todays viruses

(2) Where do all fly viruses get their start? Usually fly viruses orignate from birds

(3) How does the avian flu and 1918 flu kill people? Because it multiplies so quickly that the immune system cannot fight it off in time

(4) Why can't the bird flu transfer from human to human? Because the bir pathogene key does not yet work on human cells

(5) Why would someone in the lab want to give the bird flu the ability to go from human to human? To study how the viruses evolves

(6) How are they are trying to give bird flu that ability (in the lab)? By testing different keys on human cells

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

(8) How many people were killed by the plague-"The black death"? approx 125 people were killed

(9) What is an epidemic? A disease that may or may not be contagious, that exeeds the exepexted infection rate

(10) What caused the plague and how did it spread? The plague was cause by a virus, it spread through trancontinental travel