VIRAL PANDEMIC

For information on Swine Flu please see below.

A pandemic is a disease that spreads across a wide geographic area -- potentially the entire World -- and which affects a large proportion of the population. Human viral pandemics have occurred in the past in the form of influenza pandemics with fairly devastating results. For example, it is estimated that between 40 and 50 million million people died in the 1918-1919 "Spanish Flu" pandemic, between one to two million in the 1957-1958 "Asian Flu" pandemic, and towards one million in the "Hong Kong flu" pandemic of 1968-1969. Based on a repeating cycle of roughly 30 years, scientists believe that we are overdue for another pandemic. It is also quite probable that this may be in the form of "Avian Flu" or "Bird Flu" based on an A/H5N1 strain.

There is already an A/H5N1 Avian Flu pandemic amongst birds in over 50 countries. There have also already been 409 cases of humans contracting the virus from very close contact with infected poultry. Such cases have now been confirmed in 17 countries. The mortality rate for those who have contracted the disease has also been 63 per cent. The concern is that if an A/H5N1 virus mutates to become highly contagious amongst humans then a global pandemic will result that may kill millions or tens of millions of people, with tens or hundreds of millions requiring medical attention. Indeed, in the UK the House of Lords Select Committee on Intergovernmental Organizations published a report on 21st July 2008 which stated that "while there was not been a pandemic since 1968, another one is inevitable... Estimates are that the next pandemic will kill between 2 million and 50 million people worldwide... Socio-economic disruption will be massive".

A pandemic would probably go global in four to six weeks of the first cases being reported and could last up to 18 months. During this period, and as a result of the illness, the fear of the illness, containment measures, and their combined economic impact, there would be serious disruption to business, education and all other aspects of human civilization. All Governments and other organizations therefore need to have pandemic preparedness plans in place. Useful websites to assist with such planning include the US Government's PandemicFlu.gov, the World Health Organization's Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response website, and the UK Government's dh.gov.uk/pandemicflu. The UK's National Framework for Responding to an Influenza Pandemic is a particularly clear if stark document, if definitely not for those of a nervous disposition.

Swine Flu Outbreak -- updated 25th August 09

On 11th June 2009 the World Health Organization (WHO) raised its influenza pandemic alert level to 6, meaning that the "world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic" -- the first in 41 years. What a level 6 alert means is that swine flu has been demonstrating human-to-human transmission and has caused a community-level outbreak in multiple WHO regions. For the latest WHO information, you can visit their swine flu website here, whilst their statement raising the threat level to 5 on 29th April is here and their statement announcing a full pandemic at level 6 is here.

Swine flu is a form of H1N1 flu, the same strain which caused the 1918-1919 "Spanish Flu" pandemic. By the 6th of July worldwide there had been 94,512 laboratory confirmed cases resulting in 429 deaths -- figures that compare to 59,814 cases and 263 deaths on 26th of June, 28,774 cases and 144 deaths on 11th June, and 13,001 cases and 92 deaths on 19th May. With laboratory testing now all but ceased in many territories (for example in the UK diagnosis is now being made over the phone), updated figures of this nature are now no longer available, and even if they were they would not be reliable.

Following the media hysteria that in part surrounded the WHO's announcement of the threat level of 5 on 29th April, even with the WHO announcement of a full pandemic the press now seem to have lost interest or become very cynical as to the seriousness of this situation. Of course this may change now that perfectly healthy children and adults are starting to be struck down and die within days. In many countries planning is well in hand for the pandemic to hit hard in the Winter months, with orders for a vaccine being placed in readiness for its availability in a few months time. Indeed, the WHO has now estimated that production of up to 4.9 billion doses a year of swine flu vaccine would be possible if full-scale production was launched by the around 30 manufacturers who met with WHO officials on May 19th.

The real problem is going to be maintaining press interest and public vigilance and cooperation in the face of a slowly-moving threat that is now edging inevitably towards us. Based on reliable recent estimates that maybe 30 per cent of people world-wide will become infected, the current and now fairly stable 0.45% death rate for laboratory confirmed cases, and a guestimate of only 1/3rd of cases being laboratory confirmed, it is not unreasonable to suggest that around one person in two thousand world-wide will be killed by the current swine flu outbreak before it has run its course. And the disruption to society and the economy of a great many people being fairly ill for several weeks will be very significant.

We do not need to panic. However, equally we must not ignore the inevitable in the same way that we marched eyes-wide-shut into the equal inevitablity of the credit crunch. People are still happily sneazing and coughing and spluttering their way around in public places without a thought. We've had months now to work on public hygeine education, and yet seem to gotten nowhere (due I guess to the press having not seen the shocking death they were hoping for in the first few weeks and having subsequently turned on the WHO).

With the credit crunch indeed in full swing and a pandemic now officially making this a double-wammy, the world has become a stark place with bleak times ahead. Humanity's collective challenge therefore has to be to use the actuality and threat of global catastrophe as a springboard to a new world order that champions collective responsibility over me-now individualism and unthinking, ramphant capitalism. For more on this, you may like to watch my latest video.