Important Information

Worried about getting avian flu?  Not so fast, says the News-Sentinel's Doug LeDuc:

Unless you go nose-to-beak with an inflected bird, right now the only way to catch the version of avian flu that can kill humans is to eat raw poultry products, such as eggs.

Unless the H5N1 strain mutates so it can spread from person to person, an outbreak of it here among poultry would pose next to no threat to humans, and would be contained and eliminated before it could spread, industry and state officials say.

Beyond the public health implications, that is important to Indiana because the poultry industry generates annual sales exceeding $800 million for the state's economy while employing more than 5,000 people. According to the Indiana State Poultry Association, the state ranks first in the United States in duck production, third in table egg production and seventh in turkey production. Indiana poultry consume about 7 percent of the state's soybean meal and 4 percent of the corn while producing 1.5 billion pounds of protein-rich foods every year - 860 million in eggs and the rest meat products.

The H5N1 version of avian flu is rare but lethal, accounting for 63 deaths in Asia, 51 percent of the humans it has infected. By comparison, about 36,000 Americans die each year of complications from ordinary flu strains.

MORE: Jennifer Boen on state and local efforts to prepare for a flu outbreak