A woman hands one of her turkeys to a Romanian official checking domestic fowl for bird flu. Photograph: Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty Images
Confirmation that the nastiest known strain of bird flu has made it to Turkey and probably Romania has made many people jumpy. The Guardian, Telegraph, Times, Daily Mail and Express all splashed on the story today.
The World Health Organisation has tried to calm everyone down, underlining the belief that the dreaded mutation has yet to happen. The official death toll from bird flu still stands at 60, it reminded people.
But it's not easy to keep perspective given the natural tendency of the human brain to think in terms of worst case scenarios. Bird flu updates.com reports that a medical expert in Pittsburgh reckons 40 million Americans could die. It's scant comfort to know that that's more than double what other experts believe.
The same blog also highlights the fact that the poultry industry faces the immediate problem. The manager of one Istanbul supermarket claimed chicken sales were down by 99%. The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has attempted to reassure people by publicly eating chicken.
Britain's former agriculture minister, John Gummer, tried a similar ploy by feeding his daughter a beefburger during the BSE crisis, but that did little to settle people. Nearly a decade later, the Washington Post reported today that British beef donated after Hurricane Katrina was not delivered because of the same, long outdated, fears about the disease.
As we mentioned earlier this week, niche blogs and wikis have sprung up covering the developments of bird flu.
With fears increasing, many are turning their attention to how to cope should disaster strike. Maluko on Fluwiki recommends the following:
"I suggest that you 'practice' staying calm. Maybe this sounds dumb or patronizing but panic is your worst enemy. I practice yoga, so I have learned to notice when a panicked thought is entering my mind. Instead of following the first panicked thought with a second, I now notice the panic and then let it pass. At first this seems impossible, but with practice it becomes second nature. If there is a pandemic, it will be very important for you to stay calm so that you can make good decisions."
