At the time of publication, there have been 150 confirmed deaths
in Mexico from a new strain of swine flu. Health authorities in Mexico and the
US are investigating a further 1000 suspicious cases of flu, searching for
traces of the new strain, which has been described as an "unusually
mongrelised mix of genetic sequences," according to Anne Schuchat, head of
science and public health at the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). While
normal strains of swine flu (known as H1N1) are differentiated by the fact they
only affect pigs, this new strain has been found to contain genes that affect
pigs, humans and birds. While the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declined
thus far to issue a worldwide alert, Dr. Margaret Chen, the Director-General of
the WHO, has stated that the option
remains "on the table," and describes the situation as a "public
health emergency of international concern." It may be, after concerns
about a bird flu pandemic, that pigs rather than ducks or chickens could pose
the next global health risk.
Swine flu, while communicable from pigs to humans, usually presents only in those people who have had contact with infected animals. This
latest manifestation is troubling insofar as those who have been infected have
not been in contact with any pigs, raising concerns that the new virus is not
only transferable from person to person, but also that it can incubate in human
hosts with no resistance to this particular specimen. Another worrying fact is
that those who have been killed by the disease fall outside the normal range of
flu victims. Flu is usually fatal for the very young or very old, whose immune
systems are either immature or compromised. In contrast, victims of the new
variant of swine flu have been otherwise healthy adults, raising the sceptre of
the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, widely credited with killing at least 40
million people worldwide.
Currently, the CDC has already developed "seed
stock" samples that are genetically matched to the new strain, should
pharmaceutical companies need to develop large batches of flu vaccine in a
hurry. In Mexico, public buildings will be shut for the next week; people are
advised to avoid kisses or handshakes when greeting each other; in addition, they're advised to keep travel and socialising to a minimum. At Mexico
City's international airport, passengers are asked to fill in questionnaires
about their health so that authorities can filter out those who may be
incubating the virus. Hospitals have been inundated with worried people hoping
to receive flu jabs, while pharmacies have reported running out of surgical
masks, to the extent that the army has been called on to the streets to
dispense them to commuters, while also hustling any sickly-looking people off
public transport.
While these measures may seem apocalyptic, it is important
to note that Mexico has a population of 110 million people, with Mexico City
alone being home to 18 million. In such a crowded environment, a death rate of
70, while worrying, does not herald an imminent epidemic. Also important to
consider is that despite swine flu having been detected across the souther
United States, possibly in New York and most recently Kansas, there is yet to
be a single American fatality, with all those who had contracted the disease having
made a full recovery.
Nevertheless, in these days of international travel and the
fluid movement of both people and livestock from one territory to another, we
should be on our guard. Air travel, coupled with the intensive and global
nature of modern farming, have made the spread of communicable diseases
trivially easy, if not inevitable. As seen in the Sars crisis of 2003, what
would previously a localised outbreak can now spread across the globe in a
matter of days. We should therefore hope that the cases that have been detected
to date do not presage a worldwide crisis.
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