Bird Flu Health Video

Bird flu has led to the deaths of hundreds of millions of wild and domestic birds and to a small number of human deaths. Bird flu remains difficult for humans to contract. Learn about the different causes, symptoms, and treatments of bird flu in this video.

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Contact a doctor
Inform doctor know where & when symptoms arose
Wash hands regularly
Cook poultry thoroughly
Keep hands sanitized when traveling abroad

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Dr. Davis is one of San Francisco's finest house call specialist physicians and has been providing house calls and office visits to the Bay Area since 2005. His practice is built upon the philosophy that excellent customer service and excellent patient care go together. Dr. Davis works out of a charming 100-year-old Victorian home, and he believes that healing should begin when you walk in the door. While trained in modern medicine, Dr. Davis also has a deep appreciation of cultural anthropology, the natural sciences, and philosophy all of which he integrates with his medical practice. Dr. Davis received his MD from the University of Florida and completed his Family Practice residency at Lehigh Valley Family Practice. He has also lived, studied, and traveled abroad extensively, including for one year in Beijing, China, where he studied and practiced the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture.

JUSTIN C.K. DAVIS, M.D.: Hi. I'm Dr. Justin Davis and today we are going to talk about bird flu also known as avian influenza. Now, this is a virus that can infect birds and very rarely has infected a few people. At this point in time, this is more of a theoretical danger to people than an actual danger to people, and the reason is this, the influenza virus in general has many different strains. Some of these strains infect people some of them infect birds, some of them infect other animals such as seals. Typically, a strain that infects one animal will not infect another kind of animal. So, the bird flu which affects birds and has in fact killed millions of birds to date is very unlikely, at this point in time, to infect people. There are only a few known cases where it has infected people. Now, what worries health officials about it however is that very rarely a strain of influenza will travel from one species such as a bird to another species such as a human or a seal and then perhaps even back and forth a few more times. This is a very rare occurrence but it does happen. And sometimes when this happens, it mutates and becomes a very powerful influenza virus. When this happens, you have a danger of having what's called a pandemic, when a giant outbreak across the world develops of a flu virus. The last time this happened was in 1918 when a flu outbreak traveled across the world and killed millions of people. So, with avian influenza while this has not happened yet, as health officials, we worry that it's a potential future possibility. Now, symptoms of avian or bird flu influenza are really very similar to any kind of influenza which are primarily cough, fever, respiratory symptoms, sometimes you can get a pneumonia caused from the influenza virus. Most people will recover fine from this but it's important if you have these symptoms to seek medical attention from a doctor because there is potential treatment if caught within the first 48 to 72 hours. The place where bird flu is most prevalent at present is in rural parts of Asia where there are large domesticated bird populations. So, particularly if you've been traveling in any of these parts of the world, particularly in rural parts and been exposed to birds, then if you develop symptoms a few days to a week later, it's very important to let your health official know where you've been travelling and exactly what your symptoms are. As far as preventing this, well, good hand washing is always a great way to prevent any kind of transmission of influenza virus whether it's the bird flu or otherwise. Also, influenza virus is killed by high temperatures. So, if you're going to have any kind of poultry dish like chicken for example, as long as it's very well cooked then there's very little chance of acquiring any kind of disease from it whether its influenza or any other disease. Avoid potentially contaminated products like eggs that may not have been cooked and it's always a good ideas when you're traveling whether to prevent this disease or another to use careful not only hand washing techniques but those new hand sanitizer gels or lotions that are available, are very effective means at killing most viruses.

Bird Flu Health Video

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