Published on Thursday, September 30, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
As in a classic 1950s sci-fi thriller, our world is imperiled by a terrifying monster. Scientists try to sound the alarm, but politicians ignore the threat until its too late. Indifference ultimately turns into panic.
The monster, of course, is H5N1, the lethal avian flu that first emerged in 1997 in Hong Kong and is now entrenched - in an even more lethal strain - in a half dozen Southeast Asian countries. It has recently killed scores of farmers and poultry workers who have had direct contact with sick birds.
For seven years researchers have warned that H5N1 would eventually fall in love with a human influenza virus in the body of sick person (or possibly a pig) and produce a mutant offspring that could travel at pandemic velocity from human to human.
The precedent always invoked to illustrate how this might happen is the 1918-19 influenza pandemic: the single greatest mortality event in human history. In only 24 weeks, a deadly avian flu strain killed from 2 to 5 per cent of humanity (50 to 100 million people - including 675,000 Americans) from the Aleutians to Patagonia.
But some researchers worry that H5N1 is actually an even more deadly threat than H1N1 (the 1918 virus).
First of all, this flu - at least in its bird-to-human form - is a far more vicious killer. In 1918-19, 2.5 per cent of infected Americans died. In contrast, more than 70 per cent of this year's H5N1 cases (30 out of 42) have perished: a lethality comparable to ebola fever and other nightmare emergent diseases.
The Center for Disease Control has estimated that a new pandemic would infect 40 to 100 million Americans. Multiply that by a 70 per cent kill rate and ponder your family's future.
The monster, of course, is H5N1, the lethal avian flu that first emerged in 1997 in Hong Kong and is now entrenched - in an even more lethal strain - in a half dozen Southeast Asian countries. It has recently killed scores of farmers and poultry workers who have had direct contact with sick birds.
For seven years researchers have warned that H5N1 would eventually fall in love with a human influenza virus in the body of sick person (or possibly a pig) and produce a mutant offspring that could travel at pandemic velocity from human to human.
The precedent always invoked to illustrate how this might happen is the 1918-19 influenza pandemic: the single greatest mortality event in human history. In only 24 weeks, a deadly avian flu strain killed from 2 to 5 per cent of humanity (50 to 100 million people - including 675,000 Americans) from the Aleutians to Patagonia.
But some researchers worry that H5N1 is actually an even more deadly threat than H1N1 (the 1918 virus).
First of all, this flu - at least in its bird-to-human form - is a far more vicious killer. In 1918-19, 2.5 per cent of infected Americans died. In contrast, more than 70 per cent of this year's H5N1 cases (30 out of 42) have perished: a lethality comparable to ebola fever and other nightmare emergent diseases.
The Center for Disease Control has estimated that a new pandemic would infect 40 to 100 million Americans. Multiply that by a 70 per cent kill rate and ponder your family's future.
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