# 4507
To those who follow the flu blogs and forums, the answer is obvious: Bird flu never went away.
But the mainstream media (with a few notable exceptions) pretty much abandoned the H5N1 story when pandemic H1N1 emerged a year ago.
With the International Ministerial Conference on Bird Flu getting underway (see UN: Global Report on Animal and Pandemic Influenza (Draft)) this week in Vietnam, bird flu is suddenly back on the radar.
This NPR (National Public Radio) article has comments from Flublogia’s own Crawford Kilian of Crofsblog, along with quotes from journalist and author Alan Sipress (see Alan Sipress: Playing chicken with a nightmare flu).
Is Bird Flu Back, Or Did It Never Go Away?
April 19, 2010
Just as your worries have faded about swine flu, today at the International Ministerial Conference on Animal and Pandemic Influenza in Hanoi, Vietnam, an infectious diseases expert is raising red flags about the ongoing presence of H5N1, also known as avian flu.
That other H-something N-something virus continues to be a "serious menace" even though bird flu has mostly been eliminated from the 63 countries it infected during the high-point of the global outbreak in 2006, according to U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Chief Veterinary Officer Dr. Juan Lubroth.
