Two new analyses raise questions about mortality rate of bird flu

In an analysis (.pdf) published Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science, a team led by virologist Peter Palese of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York argue the mortality rate from H5N1 bird flu is under one percent, much lower than the WHO's estimated fatality rate of 59 percent, Reuters reports. And in a paper published Friday in mBio, the journal of the American Society for Microbiology, Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota and a member of the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) and a colleague "conclude that H5N1 kills up to 80 percent of people it infects," a rate higher than WHO estimates, according to the news agency.

The studies "ad[d] fuel to the heated controversy over publication of bird flu research" in the journals Science and Nature describing how two teams created H5N1 strains that are easily transmissible among ferrets, which are used as lab models for humans, Reuters writes (Begley, 2/23). Fears that terrorists possibly could use the information prompted the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity in December to request the scientists redact some information prior to publishing their study results and investigators in January to institute a 60-day moratorium on bird flu research, USA Today's "Your Life" notes. "A WHO summit that ended this week called for full publication of the two studies and for an extended halt to such research until stronger safety measures were assured in labs," the blog writes (Vergano, 2/23).