H5N1 threat spreads in Europe and Asia. Is Africa next?

According to this CNN article, there was a bird-flu related human death in Thailand for the first time since 2003, a farmer who "contracted the virus after slaughtering and eating an infected chicken."

The H5N1 strain, which first surfaced in Hong Kong in 1997, re-emerged in 2003 in South Korea, and has spread to Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, China, Indonesia, Cambodia, Russia and Europe.

In Europe, the strain has been found near Moscow, Russia, in Romania, Turkey, Greece, and Macedonia. A governmental agency's advice:

The agency gave two tips for people to minimize the risk of infection: do not touch dead or sick birds, and only eat well-cooked eggs or poultry.

European Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou told reporters that because the flu may be carried by migratory birds, other European countries could experience outbreaks.

Then, I read a post by Chris in Paris on AMERICAblog that included this:

Two thousand turkeys in a farm were infected with the disease and destroyed to help stop the spread of the disease. The local officials are saying everything is OK, they're doing everything needed to stop the spread of the disease but the reality of the situation is that this disease is spread from migratory birds and this turkey farm is next to a nature park. Turkey is an important location for bird migrations from Asia and into Africa so this discovery is extremely serious and could be the beginning of the spread into Africa, a continent that cannot afford to be hit with bird flu.

It made me realize that no matter how much we are worried about this looming threat to our health (and our lives,) we have medicines, hospitals, and money to pay for our care at a national level. If the disease spreads (and explodes) in Africa, however, how are they going to cope? How is the poorest continent on earth going to deal with such an easily spreadable disease?

The whole African continent might end up being decimated by a pandemic. An unimaginable number of deaths. Scarier still, the whole continent might end up being quarantined indefinitely, for threat that the millions of diseased bodies, dead or alive, pose to the rest of the world.

Like I wrote in a previous post, we are all vulnerable, rich and poor, black and white.