Of Swine and Fowl

October 17, 2005

The bird flu, H5N1, has been a significant problem in Asia for several years, particularly in Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong and Indonesia. Millions of chickens and fowl have been killed to stop its spread. Officials in the area were, for the most part hopeful they were able to indirectly contain the outbreak and a flu vaccine for birds has been available but not especially effective or readily available. In 2005 bird flu has spread to Russia, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia/Kosovo, Turkey, Romania and possibly The Philippines and Iran.  Not a good thing. It appears to be spreading very fast among the fowl. Luckily human cases have been few... so far.

Certainly, bird flu is very difficult to contract and those who became infected handle birds and had very close contact with them, plus they appeared to be particularly susceptible to the virus.

So long as the flu remains primarily in birds, such as chickens, the outbreak can be contained here and there and the spread delayed until an anti-viral or even a vaccine can be developed for people.  This is the current hope of officials in the outbreak today. Going into 2006, there may be little hope that Europe will not be affected. It probably will be. The United States will certainly follow.

The effects will not be significant on humans because the flu, for now is not readily transmissible. The immediate effect will be on the poultry industry. It will decimate it with a significant loss of income and jobs. The price of chicken will certainly skyrocket.

While most people are preoccupied with its spread to fowl, there will be little attention as to whether it is spreading to swine.  If it does, the transmission to humans will be much more probable. Swine have similar physiological system and flu commonly passes from birds to them and then onto humans.

If this takes place, there would be 2-3 years before the beginning of pandemic affect every person on earth all of whom have not immunity to the bird-swine-human virus. No doubt the virulence will be reduced as it become established from one species to another but the effects will still be significant with hundreds of thousands dying, perhaps millions.  The death rate for the 1918 Flu was about 5 percent and 20 million died (maybe more). The modern avian flu has at least a 50 percent death rate. Let's say, the virulence becomes 20 percent and the death rate would be 10 percent. If this arises, millions will definitely die.

The fowl-swine connection is a signal of a new pandemic.

Today, we have understanding about how flu works and spreads, and vaccines are routinely created for the most common flu types encountered today. If we can create a human vaccine for H5N1, with a typical 85 percent effectiveness, we could blunt the new pandemic.

Will this take place in time? Possibly, but probably not from the West but from China which "they say" is already testing a vaccine on humans. If they ultimately succeed, this would be a good thing for their citizens but don't expect much for those outside of China. China has hundreds of millions living in rural areas with close contact with fowl and they would be given the vaccine first. We could only ask for their vaccine recipe and hope like hell we can make enough for our own populations.

It is not that the Bush administration was unaware of H5N1. The "common man" has been following this significant problem for several years and in 2005, the Administration just started to wake up to the potential crisis. This lax and indifferent attitude will doom thousands to an early death but as usual, Bush and gang will blame others for their incompetence.