At the end of the year it's good to look back and examine where we stand with the bird flu. 

Here are some running statistics on the bird flu and possible pandemic to develop:

How many people have died from the bird flu? 211 people have died from the bird flu since it was formalized since 2003.

How many people have been infected with the bird flu? 342 cases of the bird flu have been diagnosed since 2003.

What is the mortality rate for the bird flu? 62% of the people infected with the bird flu have died.

Photo Credit: sanja gjenero

There's an interesting report on NPR discussing the current threat of the bird flu ten years into becoming an issue. The report is based on a discussion with Dr. Anthony Fauci. Dr. Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases based in Bethesda, MD. 

The reason this issue is raised is that many experts have expected the bird flu to grown into a pandemic by now. It hasn't, and that is leading to some head scratching.

Photo Credit: Liza Naudé

If you would have asked me this question a few minutes ago I would have said no. I now know the answer is yes. It turns out that France is the European Union's largest producer of poultry. This was something I didn't know. 

Since France has such a large stock of poultry they've needed to increase their focus on the bird flu. They just downgraded their alert for bird flu from high to moderate. This decision was made due to the fact there have been no cases of bird flu found in the wild in the past few months.

Photo Credit: sanja gjenero

Tamiflu is the gold standard when it comes to treating strains of flu. It's real name is Oseltamivir and it forms part of a comprehensive response to a flu outbreak. Roche, the company that makes Tamiflu, has started to grant permission for countries such as Vietnam to begin production of generic versions. The idea is that if tamiflu is used when an outbreak occurs the death rate will be smaller. 

Will it, though?

An article in the Telegraph looks at how tamiflu may actually cause a drug resistant strain of the flu to emerge. Before you panic there are certain things that need to fall in place, and the science behind the theory hasn't been proven. 

Photo Credit: Alaa Hamed

You hear the term cull in almost all news reports concerning new outbreaks of the bird flu. For instance, in Malaysia a new outbreak was discovered in a village near Kuala Lumpur. In response to this the country has taken bold action. 

Kamaruddin Mohamed Isa, who heads the disease control, said:

When we sent our boys, we found bird flu in two village chickens but people said 60 chickens had died earlier.

We will cull all chickens and impose a 10 km (6-mile) quarantine area and the police will put a road block around this area.