Population | Economy | Travel | Birds

Pandemic Count Down: Impossible

Time is currently a key factor behind the extent of global preparedness against an avian influenza pandemic. Fortunately and yet unfortunately, there is no means of predicating exactly when a novel subtype will arise among people and trigger the beginning of a rapid-spreading outbreak. This means a novel virus may spontaneously arise overnight or not emerge at all for the next few years. Antigenic shifts responsible for virus mutations are commonly believed to occur only when an animal is infected with multiple influenza subtypes, which increases the odds of a mutation. The greater the amount of preparation time available, the easier it will be to control a pandemic situation. At this stage, a prolonged pandemic is beneficial for both Tamiflu® (See Treatment) production and extensive vaccine research.

Death Toll

The expected death toll during a novel virus outbreak occupies a scope of numbers no less than 7 digits long. Although estimates range in the millions, a variety of approximate figures have been quoted by varying experts. A minimal of 2 million and a peak figure of 150 million mortalities have been predicted, leaving the actual numbers to be revealed only when the pandemic strikes.

With limited ideas on the strain and more importantly, the subtype of virus to expect, there is little ground information for experts to draw on. It will be variables like the world's level of alert/preparedness, the virus' mortality rate and the time of year that could play key roles in determining the scale of damage a novel virus does to the population.

Pandemic Precedents

One of the chief reasons surrounding the sudden alert over bird flu arises from the trend of global pandemics throughout the 20th century. These include the infamous Spanish flu in 1918, the Asian flu in 1957/58 and the Hong Kong flu in 1969, averaging to around 3 pandemics in the last 100 years.



Since 1969, an almost 37-year gap has elapsed following the Hong Kong flu outbreak in 1957 - 4 years past the 33-year average given by the 3-in-every-century pandemic count. As a result, the world is theoretically overdue for its next pandemic.

Further alarm then arose from recent research that revealed the identity of the 1918 Spanish flu – a strain of avian influenza subtyped H1N1, which was evidently able to travel from person-to-person. Should the current H5N1 outbreak of Southeast Asia mutate and acquire this ability of human-to-human transmission, a parallel scenario would arise in the near future. The Spanish Flu took almost 40 million lives, setting a clear precedent on the impacts of a full-scale pandemic.

AIDS and Bird Flu

AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) currently affects over 33 million of the world's population. A majority of these patients originate from third world African countries, where humans and birds live within a small area - living conditions quite similar to those in Southeast Asia. Victims of AIDS are particularly susceptible to disease and are at increased risk to viruses such as avian influenza if they were to appear in Africa.

Presently, the H5N1 outbreak has shown visible signs of expansion outside of Asia toward Eastern Europe, traveling alarmingly in the direction of Africa. If the virus were to continue its path and follow in the direction of annual bird migrations (toward Africa), an outbreak of H5N1 in African countries would be unavoidable and may pose an even larger global threat.

AIDS patients are not only more susceptible to bird flu, but due to a weak immune system, they will theoretically also have more difficulty in completely freeing their systems of the virus. This means an increased period of virus excretion and subsequently, an increased opportunity for virus mutation in the victim’s body. Thus, avoiding bird flu outbreak in Africa is an important step to pandemic prevention.