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From what we've seen in Turkey, H5N1 has a mortality rate of 25%, though it's probably a little bit less. There were three deaths out of 12 cases. SARS mortality rate was 10%, give or take a couple percent.

It did spread from human to human, but hosts to the virus were not infectious until they started showing symptoms. H5N1 is not like that. Also, a study found that people sick with H5N1 cough out up to 10 times more virus than people with an annual influenza strain. A similar study found that lab mice needed to be exposed to 1000 particles of H1N1 to be infected, while those mice only had to be exposed to 10 particles of H5N1 to get sick.

Influenza is a completely different breed of virus. It behaves different. It's endemic in wild birds in some parts of Asia. Migratory birds are carrying it everywhere.

I agree that poor and more impoverished countries will be hit harder, but not too much harder. We may be the most advanced country in the world, but we still have some very nasty flu seasons. And that's with vaccines available to the public. Also, because of the risk of "cytokine storms" associated with the virus, it can easily kill young, healthy adults, not primarily children and the elderly like most annual flu strains do.

The virus finds it very hard to spread human to human because in its present form it burrows deep within lung tissue. That's what makes it so deadly when you get it, but also makes it harder to spread.

When and if a pandemic strikes, it will very likely be in a mutated form which is less likely to kill an individual victim, but which can spread more easily from person to person.

The big question is: how deadly and how easily spread? That will determine whether this is a catastrophic pandemic or not. But some form of HN51 pandemic is pretty much a forgone conclusion- it's just too close to a pandemic virus right now to think it won't make the needed additional mutations.

"Also, because of the risk of "cytokine storms" associated with the virus, it can easily kill young, healthy adults, not primarily children and the elderly like most annual flu strains do."

This is the pattern with this virus...that it strikes the healthy young adolescent and adults more than those normally considered 'fragile or defenseless', as in the regular flu, which attacks the very young and very old the hardest.