How live animal markets create a perfect storm for bird flu
At China’s live animal markets, the slaughtering and defeathering of chickens infected with bird flu creates invisible viral clouds that can engulf humans.
Late last month, a man in northwest China started to feel the telltale symptoms of the flu. Most of us know those signs, which come on suddenly. A sharp headache, a fever, bone-deep fatigue — followed by that sense of dread that something nasty is about to happen.
But the man didn’t have just garden variety influenza. He’d contracted H7N9, a strain of bird flu that kills roughly 4 out of every 10 people it infects. Within a week, he was dead.
The unidentified 35-year-old, from the region of Xinjiang, made his living in what is increasingly being seen as a dangerous occupation. He sold and slaughtered chickens.
