Few pathogens known to man are as dangerous as the H5N1 avian influenza virus. Of the 600 reported cases of people infected, almost 60 per cent have died. The virus is considered so dangerous in the UK and Canada that research can only be performed in the highest biosafety level laboratory, a so-called BSL-4 lab. If the virus were to become readily transmissible from one person to another (it is readily transmissible between birds but not humans) it could cause a catastrophic global pandemic that would decimate the world’s population.
The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was caused by a virus that killed less than 2 per cent of its victims, yet went on to kill 50m worldwide. A highly pathogenic H5N1 virus that was as easily transmitted between humans could kill hundreds of millions more.
This is why it is so important to maintain the moratorium on H5N1 research that involves dangerous experiments to see “what it would take” for the virus to become airborne – and therefore as transmissible from one person to another as the seasonal flu.