| If they are right, then how well prepared are we? This could be a lottery. As already mentioned, people in Asia are more likely to catch it from birds, so authorities may be dealing with a number of simultaneous cases spread over quite a wide area rather than just a few, making quarantining much harder. Some countries are in a position to be more vigilant than others. Some have better education and better health care than others. At present we have no vaccine that will work against all the different variants of bird flu. In developed countries, we immunise key and vulnerable people with a mixture of 3 vaccines aimed at the 3 variants considered most likely to strike that season. If an inoculated person gets infected with a fourth variant, tough.
Perhaps 50 million people (estimates vary) died of an earlier variant of the flu, H1N1, in 1918; at least 2.7% of the world population at the time. For comparison, around 276,000 died in the December 26 2005 tsunami. Our current population is about 3.5 times what it was in 1918. If a similar percentage were to be affected now, then all other things being equal, around 175 million people would die. Of course, some of us have better health care now, but we are also more crowded, we are more reliant on other people going to work to provide us with everything we need, and viruses can spread around quickly in airplanes. SARS showed us this in 2003, spreading to 25 other countries from Southern China.
Scientists are busy modelling how they think the pandemic will spread, and how many people might be affected. Many models assume that a quarter of the population would become infected in the first wave. One group estimates that half a million people could die in the USA of a moderately severe strain (i.e. milder than in 1918), with more than 2.3 million hospitalized. A British model estimates that 50 million people could die worldwide.
There is an anti-viral agent brand-named Tamiflu which can help, but there are nowhere near enough stocks for everyone, or even for those most at risk. Already about 1% of flu strains are resistant to it and to other products like it. Tamiflu proved effective against H7N7 avian flu in the Netherlands in 2003. Last year the USA did not have adequate stocks of flu vaccine at the beginning of the season because of a problem at a single vaccine-producing plant. The world is just not ready to speedily mass-produce vaccines as required, to keep up with the mutations. The World Health Organization and many countries (those that can afford it) are scrambling to reserve stocks of Tamiflu, which is produced at just one plant. We can only hope that the WHO manages to acquire enough doses to nip any outbreaks in the bud in time, particularly since the disease is likely to hit the hardest in countries which cannot afford expensive medicines.
Britain is buying 14.6 million courses - 7.3 million doses by next April and the rest later, in 2006-7. This will be enough to treat a quarter of the population, if the pandemic holds off until then. After that, there may be a tailor-made vaccine available - current vaccines would be of no use. It would take 4 to 6 month to design a virus for the specific strain, and further time to manufacture doses for the world. Norway has an order in for 1.2 million doses to treat third of the population, and Sweden will be able to treat 10%. Thailand, Hong Kong, France, New Zealand, Sweden and Canada also have substantial orders in. Thailand is considering making its own generic version.
The USA is believed to have ordered 5.3 million courses of Tamiflu, enough for between 1 and 2 percent of the population. It would need over 70 million doses to treat a quarter of the population (estimated at 295,734,134 in July 2005), which is what the WHO recommends. The USA does have enough to treat its people in embassies in southeast Asia. The WHO has stockpiled enough for 30 percent of its employees.
President Bush has taken a book about the 1918 flu pandemic to Texas to read on his holiday. In it the author, John Barry, contends that the U.S. government ignored that crisis and allowed it to thrive. According to Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) at a speech at Harvard early in June, the current administration is ignoring this crisis too, judging by the Tamiflu stockpile situation. Perhaps the U.S. will join the queue for more Tamiflu when the President returns from holiday. New kinds of vaccines are being researched, but it could be years before they are proven and are on the market in any quantity.
There are many who say that the USA, or even the whole world, has left it too late. They could be right. What do you think?
Please see the following message for the remaining stories. Sue [sysop in NewsForum, World Issues, All Animals forums] | 
