Pandemic Flu Possibility Has Governments Trying to Organize
January 23, 2006
By: Jean Johnson for Body1
As of mid-January 2006, five people died from bird flu in Turkey. Sixty-four others in Asia have also succumbed to the flu since 2003 when World Health Organization officials began tracking the progress of avian influenza. Initially contained in Asia, with the virus spreading westward, concern is mounting. In Europe funds are being funneled into monitoring programs, Russia has extra security measures in place at its airports and borders, and Germany is considering enforcing a measure to keep all birds confined indoors. The United States is also working to take reasonable precautions while avoiding panic.
| Take Action | What you should know about a possible pandemic:
Checking out your community’s preparedness plan is one way to get informed on what might happen in your area should a pandemic sweep through. Knowing ahead of time how to approach crises events can do much to allay panic that might take place in the event a pandemic does strike.
Use the federal government’s Web site as a starting point for gathering information.
A pandemic could cause widespread panic and disruptions to transportation, supplies of food, and services. Schools may close for a time and businesses may be affected as people stay home to care for children or sick relatives.
The WHO predicts that in the best case scenario, between two and 7.4 million people could die if H5N1 acquires the ability to spread from person to person easily. In the worst case scenario as many as 150 million people could die. |
How a Pandemic Spreads and What the Results Are
“A pandemic may come and go in waves, each of which can last for four to six weeks,” according to a U.S. federal government Web site devoted to pandemic flus.
“An especially severe influenza pandemic could lead to high levels of illness, death, social disruption and economic loss. Everyday life would be disrupted because so many people in so many places become seriously ill at the same time. Impacts can range from school and business closings to the interruption of basic services such as public transportation and food delivery.”
This dire pronouncement led us at Body1 to do some checking, so if you’re looking for the details as well as how to best protect your family, we’ve compiled this two-part series on the situation. This article provides background, while the sequel will offer ways people can protect themselves and their families at the grassroots level.
Still, lest the main point here gets lost in all the shouting, the reason a flu pandemic is so potentially devastating is because it could spread extremely rapidly throughout cities and towns both within single countries and across the globe.
Services many societies currently take for granted, like utilities and public transportation and stores full of groceries and supplies, could be disrupted. Indeed, widespread economic dislocation could accompany the toll on health and life that a pandemic exacts. Daily life as we know it could come to a screeching halt in a matter of days, weeks and months.
“The hard reality is [pandemics] play out in hometowns, countless hometowns,” said U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt, commenting on how flu pandemics have played out historically. Leavitt was discussing preparedness planning with a group of city and state officials in Washington, D.C. in December 2005.
The History
History is always instructive and in this case the lesson is: “Yes indeed, it can happen.” On three different occasions in the 20th century, influenza pandemics took the lives of millions of people, with the first one in 1918 a real terror.
It was the Spanish flu that took an estimated 20 to 50 million lives around the world including over half a million in the United States in 1918 and 1919. Each state in the nation experienced massive mortality rates in the month of October 1918.
Then there have been two lesser, but still substantial pandemics, the first in 1957 and the second in 1968. Each affected thousands across the globe including more than 70,000 lives lost in the U.S. in 1957 and more than 34,000 people perishing in 1968.
Since 2003, growing numbers of humans, half of whom have died, have contracted the strain of bird flu in question: H5N1. According to the scientific community the concern is that the “continued and expanded spread of the highly pathogenic and now endemic avian H5N1 virus across eastern Asia and other countries represents a significant threat.”
By significant threat, healthcare professionals point to four factors. The virus “is especially virulent, is being spread by migratory birds, can be transmitted from birds to mammals and in some limited circumstances, humans, and like other influenza viruses, it continues to evolve.”
According to pundits, it could strike soon, a decade from now, or never. With a virus that is continually mutating it is just impossible to tell.
Current Situation
The H5N1 strain of avian influenza is a particularly virulent strain of flu for which humans have no immunity. Thus far, it kills roughly 50 percent of those it infects. And, since it is spreading among backyard chickens – not those housed in large industrial complexes – people in countries where the virus is present do not need to fear buying eggs and eating chicken.
Marc Danzon, M.D. of the World Health Organization said that efforts in Turkey to stem the spread of the virus by rounding up backyard poultry and killing them are working, and that people should avoid panicking.
“The people, mainly in infected areas, need to perfectly understand that the danger is contact between sick or dead poultry and a human being, mainly a child,” Danzon said.
But others, including United Nations officials, fear that culling the more that 30,000 birds Turkey has thus far is not enough and that bird flu could spread in this area of the world.
Vaccine Dilemma
What the federal government calls a “pandemic vaccine” is not available since it’s impossible to produce such a lifesaver until a new pandemic influenza virus actually emerges and is isolated by scientists. At that point it may possibly take six months to get the vaccine ready for wide use.
The U.S. Department of Human Health Services (HHS) is working on ensuring that there are U.S.-based manufacturing facilities ready in the event that a full-court press is needed.
Beyond that the federal effort is aimed at getting the states to shoulder the lion’s share of preparedness planning and work should a pandemic become a reality. That effort, of course, has federal and state levels of government jockeying over money.
The medical director for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, Joann Schaefer, M.D., reflected concerns across the nation when she noted that “We are out of money. We cannot do some of things we need to do.” According to Schaefer, Nebraska is already over-taxed trying to keep up with current needs. More, she says “begging and borrowing” to plan for a flu pandemic will only partially be offset by the $3.8 million Congress approved to fund national and state preparedness programs in December 2005.
Continued in Part Two
Last updated: 23-Jan-06
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