Though still potentially dangerous, H5N1 doesn’t appear, currently, to transmit well from person to person. There have been cases of person-to-person transmission, but only in 2 known cases did such transmission result in a human death, and even then only among those living in the same household as the infected person. Most person-to-person infections currently result in milder symptoms for the recipient than for the vector. Also, analysis of these cases showed that none contained human flu variants, which means that H5N1 does not appear to have melded with current human flu strains.
Another encouraging fact to note: history has shown flu vaccines to have been very accurate and effective in fighting influenza infection, and only require a lead time of about 4 months to develop. These efforts are already underway; research studies to test a vaccine to protect humans against H5N1 virus began in April 2005.
Additionally, because the World Health Organization and other agencies are so worried about the potential dangers of the disease, they’ve stepped up their campaign to educate health departments domestically and abroad on how to detest, diagnose, and prevent the spread of avian influenza A. The U.S. Government has increased spending on flu initiatives by seven times over the past few years. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has developed a device that identifies a particular flu strain in just minutes, simply by taking a throat swab, speeding up the process of developing appropriate treatments.