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COPYRIGHT 2005 Daily News
Byline: Corky Siemaszko
Feb. 27--"I had a little bird, and its name was Enza,
I opened the window, and in-flew-Enza."
Eighty-seven years ago, children jumped rope to this ghastly little rhyme while Spanish flu killed twice as many people as did World War I.
More than 850 New Yorkers died in just one day in October 1918. Only the undertakers were smiling as hearses clogged the cobblestone streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Now an even deadlier version of that "little bird" is threatening the world.
This week the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that an avian -- or bird -- flu that has already killed more than 40 people in Asia could mutate into a viral menace capable of killing millions more.
Public health officials in New York and around the world are already taking steps to prevent what many experts say is inevitable: an even deadlier bird flu pandemic.
"When avian virus evolved to form the 1918 (Spanish) flu strain...
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