Whatever Happened to...Bird Flu?

It must have been six months since we last heard about bird flu. One minute it was going to kill us all horribly, the next it had vanished as completely as a TV talent show winner's career. I can't believe that there have been absolutely no cases of bird flu anywhere in the world for six months. I mean, the press had led me to believe that this was the most virulent disease since the Black Death and was rapidly spreading across Europe. Of course, that's probably the problem - it hasn't actually spread to Europe. Remember when every dead duck someone discovered was declared a biohazard and whisked off to secret government laboratories for analysis? Well, as I don't recall the press bothering to tell us what the results of these tests were, I can only assume they were negative. Once the immediate threat seems to have receded, the press just aren't interested.

Let's face it, for all we know people could be dying from bird flu in their thousands out in Asia, but the British press don't give a toss about them so are highly unlikely to report it. It's no coincidence that press interest in the story seemed to wane once it was established that the dead swan found in the UK actually hadn't died of the most deadly strain of bird flu. With no epidemic to hand, there was no panic to sell papers with, so they moved onto the next scare story. Right now the new threat is North Korea and its alleged nuclear test. Not only has this story got all the papers busy trying to work out how close to Buckingham Palace a North Korean missile could get a nuclear warhead, but it has even pushed the 'imminent' nuclear threat of Iran off of the front pages. Still, winter is coming on, so if a duck sneezes in the next couple of months, I daresay bird flu will make a comeback - perhaps in the shape of infected waterfowl delivered by No Dong missile...