The period when an infected person is contagious depends on the age of the person. Adults may be contagious from one day prior to becoming sick and for three to seven days after they first develop symptoms. Some children may be contagious for longer than a week.

The flu virus becomes contagious one day before you feel sick. The virus enters through your nose, throat, or lungs from the air. It then begins to multiply, usually causing symptoms within a day or two. Children, on the other hand, can pass the virus on for more than a week. You can contract the flu if you touch a surface that has the flu virus on it and then touch your nose or mouth.

The avian influenza virus must change. The virus can change to become more contagious among humans in two ways. The first is a "reassortment" event, in which genetic material is exchanged between human and avian viruses during co-infection of a human or pig. Reassortment could result in a fully contagious pandemic virus.

Persons with Varicella are contagious from 5 days prior to the rash until all of the blisters are scabbed over.

The most contagious time occurs when the person is going through the cold-like symptoms which is usually two to five days before the rash shows up. Therefore, the time in which someone is most contagious occurs before the person even knows he has chicken pox! After the rash appears, the person is infectious for about 5 days or until all the lesions have begun crusting over. This does not mean the lesions need to have gone away or fallen off, just crusted over.

This can vary, depending on the age and health of the infected person. In general, healthy adults can infect others from 1 day before they begin to feel sick to about 5 days after they first develop symptoms. Young children and people with chronic illnesses can infect others for about a week or more.

To date, no cases of SARS have been reported among persons who were exposed to a SARS patient before the onset of the patient's symptoms.

To help prevent its spread, many Governments and health officials are working hard to bring about a greater civilian awareness of the dangers of avian flu and the importance of swift precautionary action when new cases are identified or infections suspected in both birds and/or humans.

A: Ichthyosis is definitely not contagious. It is not caused by a bacteria, virus, or germs, and thus it cannot be passed from one person to another.

It can be passed cutaneously between open wounds but this is a rare event that happens most often to medical professionals or to people handling deceased animals. It has also been passed from donated organs to the organ recipient, resulting in death in some cases.

The high pathogenic Asian H5N1 strain is a particularly virulent strain of avian flu that was first detected in Southeast Asia in 1997.

To date, transmission from domestic poultry, through contact with infected birds, contaminated surfaces or feces, is the most prevalent way this H5N1 strain of avian flu virus has caused human infection. One single incident of wild bird to human transmission has been recorded as described above.

To date, the high pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian flu has not been detected in North America. An extensive government surveillance system has been established to detect its arrival should it occur. The World Organization for Animal Health and The World Health Organization maintain web pages devoted to reporting all laboratory confirmed cases of the H5 strains of avian flu in animals and humans based on location.

Vaccines against the H5N1 avian virus currently occurring in SE Asia are under development. These are not the same asa pandemic vaccine - if a pandemic were to emerge from this virus the virus mayhave changed to such an extent that this vaccine may not be appropriate.

There is no evidence that bird flu is a risk to dogs. Recently, there have been reports of a canine influenza virus in the U.S. but this is a different flu virus that affects only dogs. There is evidence from the Asian outbreak that the bird flu virus might affect cats fed raw poultry, but there is currently no cause for concern because the virus is not present in the U.S.

We do not know why. We can inject fluids from a cat with FIP into a normal cat and cause FIP but short of this kind of experimental transmission, the mutated virus doesn't seem to make into the natural external secretions of an infected cat. This effectively confines the mutated virus inside the sick cat's body, though the sick cat will still shed non-mutated virus.

Yes, it is possible. Neither suffering from influenza, nor vaccination against human influenza offers protection against avian flu. However, health care providers and others who are at high risk of infection should get themselves vaccinated against human influenza virus so that they are at least protected against one of them.

No. The annual flu vaccine only works against seasonal flu strains. Although a vaccine against the H5N1 virus is under development in several countries, any mutant flu virus could cause a pandemic. The vaccine needs to closely match the pandemic virus in order to work, so large-scale commercial production will not start until the new virus has emerged and a pandemic has been declared.