It is very likely that if a new avian/human combination virus is spread throughout the globe it will be a pandemic to rival the “end of days.” As mentioned before, (A) H5N1 has been known to kill approximately half of the humans that it has infected. According to the Website of Stanford University, the influenza epidemic of 1918 “was so severe that the average life span in the US was depressed by 10 years. The influenza virus had a profound virulence, with a mortality rate at 2.5%” (Source)

If current research can be believed, and the (A) H5N1 virus is really around 50% lethal for humans, that would mean that it would be twenty times as lethal as the influenza virus that caused the influenza pandemic of 1918.

For more information: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/outbreaks/current.htm

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