Bird Flu

Outbreak

If an enterprising bookmaker decided to offer odds on which apocalyptic event is most likely to wipe out the human race,...
Simon Parkin
Oct 6, 2017 10 min read

Airborne: We’re Five Mutations From a Major Pandemic

In 2012, a team of virologists led by Ron Fouchier showed how easily H5N1 avian flu could become one of the...
Duncan Geere
Sep 29, 2017 22 sec read

Evolution

Anyone entering the virological laboratory, one of the most highly regarded in Europe, was subject to a security check. Workers were...
Simon Parkin
Sep 22, 2017 8 min read

Birds on the March

The cull had squashed H5N1's short-term chances. But the government's throttling of information ensured that the disease had long-term prospects. In...
Simon Parkin
Sep 8, 2017 8 min read

Foreshadowing

Almost a century later, three things are certain: that the first confirmed case of Spanish flu occurred, that it originated not...
Simon Parkin
Aug 25, 2017 7 min read

Inception

Humanity and the world we inhabit may be facing a bevy of looming disasters, but for Fukuda the question of whether...
Simon Parkin
Aug 11, 2017 6 min read

Introducing: Fowl Plague

Some of the deadliest forms of these viruses are just a handful of genetic mutations away from turning into what could...
Duncan Geere
Aug 4, 2017 2 min read