Bird Flu Pandemics

March 22, 2005 2:41 PM

I just read a wire story stating that, "hundreds of thousands of people may die and one quarter of the work force could be absent if Britain were hit by a bird flu pandemic said." How seriously should we be worried?
posted by trinarian to health & fitness (22 answers total)

When you look at how much food is stocked in a supermarket (perhaps a few days worth for everyone who regularly shops there) and the fact that much of it is collected from vast distances, I would wager that losing a large fraction of the food/essentials pipeline would be a disaster in the making.
posted by rolypolyman at 2:57 PM on March 22, 2005

I would worry more about killer bees and the Y2K bug. Hell, my local news makes it sound like a potential holocaust every time it's about to snow.

If the "government offical" was credible, why didn't s/he say it on record?
posted by Mayor Curley at 3:05 PM on March 22, 2005

Keep in mind that the statement would be equally valid if you substitute any other word or phrase for "bird flu":

"hundreds of thousands of people may die and one quarter of the work force could be absent if Britain were hit by a [xxx] pandemic."

Personally, I'm worried about the weasel pandemic. YMMV
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:10 PM on March 22, 2005

I've been talking to my father about it at length, and he says that they (they being the guys at the Department of Homeland Security) have been watching it very closely. He said that the Center for Disease Control is going nuts about it, and when they go nuts, DHS pays attention. He also said that the Bush administration has been ignoring it because their priorities are elsewhere.

This is his analysis of the situation:
If it turns into a global pandemic, we are so screwed, it's not even funny.
If not, then hooray.

No one is sure what the odds are of either scenario.
posted by TheGoldenOne at 3:17 PM on March 22, 2005

If you're worried, you could purchase some supplies in advance, like masks (usefulness debatable), emergency food and 1st aid supplies, etc. The Red Cross has good common sense disaster-preparedness information online.

Some people believe that getting annual flu shots would help, but probably only a bit. In a true pandemic, the safest course of action is to be far away from people and their germs.

Having a good disaster kit and food supplies at home might allow you to stay home and avoid getting infected. Meanwhile, there's so little you can really do about it that you're better off worrying about getting in a car accident, so wear your seatbelt.
posted by theora55 at 3:35 PM on March 22, 2005

by the numbers:

"Britain's population is nearly 60 million people
...
The estimate of 750,000 dead put forward was described later Tuesday by a health department spokeswoman as a "theoretical upper limit" of a catastrophe.
...
She said the government was sticking to its estimate of 50,000 British deaths"

official estimate:
50000/60000000 = .083% mortality
upper limit:
750000/60000000 = 1.25% mortality

Ignoring the macro effects of lots of people dying, it looks like your personal odds of survival are excellent to good.
posted by scarabic at 3:50 PM on March 22, 2005

And as for the figure of 25% being out of the work force, consider this: they won't all be sick at the same time.

It could be bad, but it won't be the end of civilization as we know it.
posted by Doohickie at 4:19 PM on March 22, 2005

See also these resources:

European Influenza Surveillance Scheme

WHO Avian Influenza website
posted by donovan at 5:03 PM on March 22, 2005

I've heard/read a bit about about this.

Looking back on human history, a major epidemic of some kind or another is extremely likely in the next 50 to 100 years ago, statistically speaking.

However, the world is better prepared to deal with it than ever before, thanks to hygiene, vaccines, and widespread disease detection and prevention efforts.

World Health Organization believes that it has actually prevented at least one major bird flu epidemics from breaking out.

Of course, WHO, the CDC and others believe they are drastically underfunded. The people charged with keeping terrorists from sneaking stuff in through shipping containers also think they're drastically underfunded. So do the tsunami monitoring people. And so do the folks who have calculated the odds that a massive meteor will collide with the planet. It's a matter of priorities, I guess. As a species, we tend to discount major environmental factors that we don't have as much control over and put our attention and money into issues we know how to tackle.

If an annihilating epidemic does happen, it will suck but humanity will survive. Most of us won't be able to do much about it anyhow. I don't think you, personally, should be all that worried.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 5:10 PM on March 22, 2005

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, because I'm a bit of a worrywart: you can buy some Tamiflu here. No prescription needed, shipped from the EU (my box said Switzerland), legal, the real thing. Expensive, but worth the peace of mind, IMHO. Tamiflu is one of only two drugs believed to be effective against avian flu, both to prevent if taken prophylactially in an outbreak, and to shorten/lessen duration/strength if you Godforbid get it.

The only other medicines believed to possibly have an effect on avian flu are anti-retrovirals and protease inhibitors, both originally designed as anti-HIV medications. Protease inhibitors were used by some SARS patients over the last two years, with good effects, but studies into their efficacy are still ongoing.

In a bit of good news, though, doctors are thinking the avian flu doesn't have quite as high a mortality rate as originally claimed. Some people who were sick and checked into hospitals were given false negatives (i.e. told they didn't have the avian flu), but have since been shown (through re-testing their blood samples) that yes, they had had the flu and beat it.
posted by Asparagirl at 5:32 PM on March 22, 2005

If there's a pandemic of anything, thousands will be dead/off work/etc. It's what the word means.
posted by cillit bang at 5:34 PM on March 22, 2005

Glib answer? Don't worry -the authorities have everything well in hand - go back to sleep.

However, if the mortality rate is even half the ~70% I've heard, then it would be close to that of smallpox (~30%). This is distressing.

Assuming that world health organizations have sufficient time to develop a vaccine & correctly guess the strain that will be the vector, then immunizations will help a lot, assuming that the companies that make the vaccine are back in business in time to produce enough to blanket the areas of outbreak & interrupt the critical transmission rate. Um... we've been lucky so far in the past couple of generations.

However, the Spanish Flu of 1918 killed around 20 million worldwide - from what I've read the avian flu may well be at least as, if not more, virulent. If the CDC is wetting its pants, I'd say that we are at something more than hypothetical risk. You're wire service story could actually be underestimating the potential.
posted by Pressed Rat at 8:08 PM on March 22, 2005

Oh, and it's worth noting that the world is a smaller place now than it was in 1918, with much greater and faster travel, which would serve to facilitate transmission.
posted by Pressed Rat at 8:12 PM on March 22, 2005

Earlier Ask MeFi. Earlier MeFi thread on the H5N1 virus.

Some people poo-poo this because a major pandemic hasn't happened in their lifetime. You risk being called a fear monger if you take another view.

This is a slow-moving train, but it has the possibility to run you over regardless. I hope it doesn't happen, but this virus has taken every step (to becoming a pandemic) that scientists have feared since it was first discovered in 1997. The final (crucial) step is mutating for easy human-to-human transmission.
posted by spock at 8:28 PM on March 22, 2005

I refuse to get all scared about this, and know the GOP will use it instead of terror if they have to, to distract.

There are real things to worry about in the world before potential things. And what precautions could we take anyway, besides avoiding Asia?
posted by amberglow at 9:16 PM on March 22, 2005

the bug has to mutate more before it becomes a pandemic, which means all current remedies (as Aspara mentioned) might not work on it anyway, no?
posted by amberglow at 9:18 PM on March 22, 2005

There are two ways to look at this: yes, the avian flu seems nasty. Right now, it can not jump from human to human — but if it mutates so that it can, stand back. We are overdue for a pandemic. They have happened, they can happen.

On the other hand, there is absolutely nothing you can do about this, unless you work in the field of disease prevention. So, why waste time worrying over it? The AA prayer is very useful here: God grant me the strength to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference.

(Or something like that, this atheist, non-drinking-problem type ain't the best source of AA information.).

You could just as well worry about getting cancer or getting hit by a bus tomorrow. But why?
posted by teece at 10:18 PM on March 22, 2005

I disagree that "there is nothing you can do about it". I believe that even showing concern is providing a valuable public service. Political entities (the world over) must respond (at some point) to the needs/concerns of the people. Early on, there was concern that Britain was doing next to nothing to prepare for a pandemic (perhaps everyone had the attitude that "there is nothing you can do about it"). Now, with news stories like the one that started THIS thread, we see that the topic has the government's attention. That is real progress for people living in the U.K.

Correct: vaccines available now will not fully protect one from whatever H5N1 mutates to. But simply gearing up the infrastructure to prepare for such an event is helpful and will save lives - as opposed to waiting until it actually happens. Vaccines prepared now, may help mitigate some of the symptoms, lowering the fatality rate - if not the actual spread.

The WHO is recommending vaccine stockpiling for a reason. I don't see much reason to HAVE a "watchdog" group if when the watchdog starts barking madly we all just roll over and put the pillow over our heads.
posted by spock at 5:36 AM on March 23, 2005

IMO the reason the media have been quiet about all this is that it is a real threat, and one that we can do S.F.A. to prevent.

That places it into the category of Information That Causes Panic. A panicked population is not one that stimulates the economy. A panicked population is one that agitates against the government, demanding that something be done. Both those things go against the grain of the media corporations.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:53 AM on March 23, 2005

There is a fair amount of information in the media (assuming you aren't simply counting on television news or your local big city newspaper). Search news.google.com for "H5N1" to keep up with the latest developments.
posted by spock at 9:41 AM on March 23, 2005

Well obviously there is some amount of information about it, because here we are talking about it. My point is that the mainstream media, upon which the vast majority of the population depends for their news, isn't making a very big fuss about it all. The masses are being kept calm, in the hopes that this all blows over without issue.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:17 PM on March 23, 2005

It seems like a lot of people who complain that the news media aren't reporting something are the people who get all their news from cable TV or talk radio. Or blogs.

I've heard mutiple reports about this issue on NPR and PRI. I've also read multiple articles about it on the Washington Post and New York Times Web sites, and I assume the same stories ran in both papers as well as dozens of other papers that subscribe to their syndication rights. I'd say the media's doing an OK job.

People have a right to choose to be uninformed.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 4:35 PM on March 23, 2005