#988
It's the dead of summer and real avian flu news is getting hard to find. Instead we are being deluged with pseudo-news, mostly pronouncements by officials and agencies, along with some scientific studies.
Yesterday Margaret Chan, Director General of the WHO, gave what amounted to a pep talk, urging nations to continue to the good fight against the avian flu menace.
Strangely, she seems to have zeroed in on the idea that a pandemic would affect 20% of the worlds' population. Where she gets that number is hard to fathom.
The Spanish Flu of 1918 is thought to have affected roughly 30% of the worlds' population, although record keeping for that sort of thing wasn't precise, and it may well have been higher. Historians can't even decide what the death toll was from that event, with estimates ranging from 20 million to 100 million dead.
Here in the US, pandemic planners are working under the assumption that 30%-35% of the population may become infected in the next pandemic. Again, just a guess.
Nearly all of our assumptions about the next pandemic are based on a dataset of 1, the 1918 pandemic. That was the last time a truly novel influenza virus swept the world. The 1957 and 1968 pandemics were less severe because they involved existing viruses that mutated, yet still retained a good deal of genetic material to which most of the population had been exposed.
Prior to 1918, good records were simply not kept. With just one example to go on, we don't know how `average' the Spanish Flu was.
We get 2 or 3 more pandemics under our belt, and manage to keep good records, we can average them and get some idea of what a typical pandemic might bring.
Until then, there seems to be a lot of guesswork involved.
On the plus side, Ms. Chan is keeping Avian flu in the news, and continues to urge nations to prepare. Given the `flu fatigue' that seems to have settled in around the world, repeating that message, even if the numbers are guesswork, is important.
Hopefully someone is listening.
WHO: Still Time to Prevent Bird Flu Pandemic
By Lisa Schlein
Geneva
17 July 2007
The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) says if countries heed the warning and make preparations, there may be a possibility of nipping bird flu in the bud. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from WHO headquarters in Geneva.
A veterinary worker unloads turkeys into a skip at a large poultry farm in the village of Tisova, Czech Republic, 21 Jun 2007
Director-general of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, says all 192 WHO member states have some kind of avian-influenza preparedness plan in the works. She says this marks definite progress over two years ago when only 50 countries were preparing for a bird flu pandemic.
But, Dr. Chan says there is a global shortage of medical and other supplies that would be needed to fight the H5N1 bird-flu virus.
She says populations that have not had previous infections would lack antibodies needed to protect them against new infections. From past experience, she says, it is believed about 20 percent of a country's population would be affected.
"So, any population. I mean in a 10 million population if there were 20 percent, 2 million people would be affected at different stages," sge saud, "And then also, the severity of the disease would range from mild disease to very severe disease. So, I just put it to you, it would be a big challenge for any country to have the right kind of manpower and the right kind of amount of medical and other supplies to deal with a situation like this."
Dr. Chan says governments must share any information they have in a transparent and timely manner with the World Health Organization.
Avian influenza is still a largely animal disease. Only people who have been in close and unprotected contact with sick birds have become infected with the H5N1 virus. The big concern is that the virus might mutate into a form that could be transmitted from one human to another.
Dr. Chan notes advances in information technology in science and some of the modeling done by experts show the worst could possibly be prevented.
"There is a possibility if we note it well in advance and if given the conditions are suitable, there may be a chance for us to nip it in the bud," she added. "That would be extremely valuable. We have never tried that in history. We may be seeing a pandemic unfolding in front of our eyes. So, it is incumbent upon all of us to try our very best to catch it as early as possible and hopefully nip it in the bud."
The WHO chief says she does not know whether this strategy will be successful. Given the devastating impact a bird-flu pandemic would have on human life and the world economy, she says, it would be irresponsible not to try.
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