Editorial : 'On A Wing And A Prayer'
Bestselling titles on the 1918 Global 'Spanish' Flu Pandemic
On a wing and a prayer
Editorial Leader,
The Guardian, U.K.,
Saturday October 15, 2005.
It would be wrong, though understandable, for public concern about the threat from avian flu to be rising. It would be understandable because even international experts have given widely different estimates of the risk. One UN health adviser suggests that if the bird flu virus H5N1 mutates to make it more capable of spreading from human to human, then up to 150 million people could be killed. But that expert was promptly contradicted by the World Health Organisation's influenza spokesman, who thought the maximum mortality figure would be 7.4 million.
The reality is that there are no accurate figures. Nevertheless, it is a fact that the 1918 outbreak of Spanish flu, which first appeared as a bird flu virus, killed between 20 million and 40 million people. But global preventive action has been transformed since then. Separate scientific teams here and in the US, using computer models, have recently concluded that, even if H5N1 mutates, a global pandemic could be stopped if governments work together. That was what was happening yesterday in Brussels, where experts from across the European Union examined current risks and planned responses by member states in one group, while a separate group of veterinary officers drew up measures to reduce the chance of contacts between wild birds, which carry the virus, and domestic poultry stocks.
Although only 120 people have been infected by the virus since it was first identified in south-east Asia in 2003, the mortality rate is phenomenally high. Some 50% of them died, most of them children. Most caught the virus through close contact with live infected birds. Human-to-human infection may have occurred in three isolated cases in Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong, but not through the feared mutated form. The most serious threat would come from a person already suffering from ordinary flu catching H5N1 on top. The new mutated strain that could emerge would have a much lower mortality rate; but because it could spread much more easily between humans, it would kill far greater numbers.
The current British approach looks sound. The health department has been purchasing an antiviral drug - there is no vaccine yet - to control any H5N1 outbreak. By next April, it will have 15m doses, sufficient to treat one quarter of the population. Meanwhile, the medical advice from the health department is clear: do not panic but do ensure vulnerable groups, children and people over 65 are immunised against ordinary flu.
(News items are posted under 'Fair Use' provisions)
See also:
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