Oh, Great! An Influenza Pandemic!

Just what I always wanted to see: 7 million people around the world buy the farm in one fell swoop. A pandemic occurs when an epidemic spreads throughout the world. I wonder what code alert Homeland Security will give this threat? If this is (fair & balanced) fear, so be it.

[x Free Internet Press]
U.N. Agency Warns Of Flu Pandemic

The United Nations' World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a dramatic warning that bird flu will trigger an international pandemic that could kill up to seven million people.

The influenza pandemic could occur anywhere from next week to the coming years, WHO said.

"There is no doubt there will be another pandemic," said Klaus Stohr, of the WHO Global Influenza Program, on the sidelines of a regional bird flu meeting in Bangkok, Thailand. "Even with the best case scenario, the most optimistic scenario, the pandemic will cause a public health emergency with estimates which will put the number of deaths in the range of two and seven million," he said.

"The number of people affected will go beyond billions because between 25 percent and 30 percent will fall ill."

Pandemics occur when a completely new flu strain emerges for which humans have no immunity.

With a human vaccine to the bird flu virus not expected until March 2005 at the earliest, urgency is being placed on containing the spread of the present bird flu virus.

"The countries that have the weakest health systems are in need of most support and clearly, usually it's together the poorest countries who have the least resources to invest in health," Dr. Bjorn Melgaard, head of WHO's Southeast Asia office, said.

The dire flu warning comes ahead of a two-day meeting of regional health ministers in Bangkok, looking at how to pool efforts to combat a future outbreak. It also comes just a few months after the first probable instance of human-to-human transmission of the bird-flu virus emerged.

The virus killed 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam earlier this year and led to the slaughter of millions of poultry birds across the region.

Pandemics usually occur every 20 to 30 years when the genetic makeup of a flu strain changes so dramatically that people have little or no immunity built up from previous flu bouts, CNN reports.

"During the last 36 years, there has been no pandemic, and there is a conclusion now that we are closer to the next pandemic than we have ever been before," Stohr told reporters. "There is no reason to believe that we are going to be spared."

Stohr said if bird flu triggers the next pandemic, the virus would likely originate in Asia.

"An influenza pandemic will spare nobody. Every country will be affected," he said.

Copyright © 2004 Free Internet Press