Catching the Flu
February 3, 2007
The threat of a fresh outbreak of pandemic flu has been hovering over us for some time, but there are problems in the way of any proportionate response on our part to such a wide-scale emergency. They range all the way from the word flu itself (which we tend to associate with a bad cold even though it can kill, and in severe forms resembles less the common cold than ebola) to Y2K exhaustion (the definitive “crying wolf” experience), the obscure terminology of avian flu and H5N1, and the idea that it sounds such a terrible threat that we don’t want to spend time thinking about it.
As we hear of high (and typically hyped) hopes of cures for everything from cancer to Parkinsonism, it seems hard to get our minds around the notion that this familiar-sounding ailment could lead to mass dislocation on the scale of, say, Katrina in all 50 states. And that of course would simply be its effect in the U.S. The evidence of the 1918 pandemic is that developing countries took a very hard hit.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the emergency planners – perhaps wisely, perhaps inevitably – have one foot on the gas and another on the brake. The federal website influenza.gov (or to use its alternate snappy title, avianflu.gov) recommends many good things – one of which is the stockpiling of two weeks’ supply of food and water. Why it is two weeks’ worth is not clear (some experts have suggested three months’ makes more sense). And if it really is important we do this, where is the campaign telling us to, with detailed instructions in mailboxes and post offices, and polling to find out how many of us have taken the advice?
The latest news is that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has decided to band outbreaks, when they occur, on a 1-5 scale like hurricanes. Each level will be attached to a preparedness plan. This sounds very practical (and may be more use that the color coding of terror threats). Together with the plan comes a chilling statement from Dr. Julie Gerberding, the much-respected head of the CDC: “Pandemic influenza is not necessarily imminent, but we believe it is inevitable.”
U.S. health officials on Thursday outlined an early-warning system similar to that employed for hurricanes to protect and mobilize the country against a flu pandemic.
The community-based response system would categorize flu pandemics on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the deadliest. Each level of the “Pandemic Severity Index” (PSI) carries a set of recommendations, ranging from hand washing to closing schools, which are intended to slow the spread of the virus while a vaccine is being prepared.
“One important and new concept is that not all pandemics are equally severe, and we have used what we know about epidemiology to devise a severity index,” Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told a press teleconference.
“One that does not move very fast from person to person would likely be a fairly mild pandemic. On the other hand, we know from 1918 that we had a pandemic that not only moved with extraordinary speed but also had an unusually high mortality rate. We would categorize that as a category 5 pandemic,” she added.
Side by side with the announcement comes a press report from the UK that “the world is braced for a huge surge in bird flu cases.” (observer.co.uk).
