A few weeks ago, I was chatting with my mom, a teacher at an elementary school, when she remarked, “People from the World Health Organization came in to school today. They went over some ‘Pandemic Response Guidelines’ with the teachers.”
My mouth dropped. My eyes bulged. My heart quickened.
“What? Did you say ‘pandemic?’ Oh my gawd!”
Do you experience any of the above symptoms when you hear the word “pandemic?” People respond to media hype about pandemics in the same way they do to stories of water contamination or a terror alert. A general feeling of fear and helplessness accompanies any discussion of the issue.
Popular culture recognizes the Black Death that ravaged medieval Europe as history’s ultimate pandemic. But if people really want to be on the alert, they should worry about a possible influenza pandemic happening in our own age.
On their website, WHO has declared a “pandemic alert.” On a scale of one to six, with six representing a full-blown pandemic, we are currently at level three. The chart refers to a particular kind of pandemic-a global influenza crisis, or, the flu. Officially, a level three means that “no or limited human-to-human transmission” is occurring.
The flu is no laughing matter. In 1918, over just six months, 25 million people perished of a virulent strain of the disease during the Spanish Flu outbreak.
WHO estimates that a pandemic occurs every 100 years or so, so by that logic we’re not due for another decade. But it is a common mistake of probability to expect the number that hasn’t been rolled to come up. The probability of a flu virus evolving to the pandemic stage doesn’t increase just because a pandemic hasn’t yet come to pass.
Previous pandemics were fostered by unhygienic living conditions. But in modern North America, for the most part, our medical systems are clean and safe. It is countries where a solid health care system is not in place that pandemics are most likely to hit hardest. Yet we cannot rest too comfortably, since global communication and travel means that nothing stays in one place for very long.
WHO has specific guidelines for each of the six stages of pandemic alert. Reaching level six, an actual pandemic, is a scary scenario. How do you best deal with a chain reaction that leaves essential health care professionals missing in action? The nature of a pandemic is such that the specifics of the disease are initially unknown. In a high-emergency situation, the best-laid plans and precautions may have to be tossed aside for whatever creative splint will do the trick, as we saw in the mass quarantine response to the SARS crisis.
While we are likely still far from an influenza pandemic, the HIV/AIDS pandemic rages on, often appearing and then disappearing from the media spotlight. In parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, the infection rate is as high as 25 per cent. Improved health care and education will do much to stop the spread of the virus, as will an effort to remove the underlying moralistic stigma currently surrounding the issue and stifling discussion in many countries.
As for the possible pandemic that hasn’t yet arrived, just take your flu shot and hope for the best.
