5/9 - Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America
NOTE: I have not managed to watch all of ABC's "Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America" movie yet, but what I saw seemed interesting and a good attempt at imagining what could happen if the H5N1 influenza virus does mutate into a form that is contagious among humans. Here are some footnotes in general about the situation.
Health and government officials around the world are watching the spread of avian flu, concerned about the possibility that the H5N1 strain could mutate into a form that is contagious among humans and cause a worldwide pandemic that could result in the deaths of millions of people.
The World Health Organization has warned that if avian flu becomes contagious among humans and causes a pandemic, widespread illness will occur, medical supplies will be inadequate, millions of peoples will die (WHO's "conservative" estimate is 2 million to 7.4 million people), and there will be great economic and social disruption (see reference
here). The Bush administration has warned that 2 million people could die in the United States alone as a result of a modern pandemic.
As of May 2006, avian flu has been reported in birds in Asia, Europe and Africa (WHO maps of infected areas are on-line
here). There have been 206 confirmed human cases of avian influenza in the countries shown in shades of red to white below, resulting in 114 deaths (WHO data on-line
here).
The Bush administration has taken some steps to prepare for a pandemic. President George W. Bush announced a strategy in November 2005 (transcript on-line
here) to deal with an avian flu pandemic, focusing on early detection and containment of outbreaks anywhere in the world, development and stockpiling of vaccines in the United States, and developing emergency plans with state and local officials. The Bush administration announced on May 3 a plan (on-line
here) that would implement the strategy announced in November.
Bush also has requested $7.1 billion in emergency funding, including $251 million to help foreign detection and containment efforts, $1.2 billion to purchase vaccines from manufacturers for 20 million people, $2.8 billion for technological research, and $583 million for pandemic planning. Legislation for $3.8 billion was authorized in December 2005.
There is no currently commercially available vaccine for the avian flu at this time. A clinical trial in 2005 of an experimental H5N1 vaccine did find that high doses could induce antibodies possibly sufficient to neutralize the virus (March 2006 press release on-line
here), which could be a significant step towards increasing preventive measures. Bush asked in November 2005 for $1.2 billion to purchase "enough doses of this vaccine … to vaccinate 20 million people."
"There is no pandemic flu in our country or in the world at this time -- but if we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare, and one day many lives could be needlessly lost because we failed to act today," Bush said in November 2005.
Earlier influenza pandemics resulted in the deaths of millions of people. The 1918 pandemic ("Spanish influenza") was the worst, causing the deaths of about 40 million people. Other pandemics occurred in 1957 and 1968.
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