H5N1: Politicians and people just don’t get it

Decreasing mortality from H5N1 influenza is almost a minor issue.  Just as much misery, if not more, is caused by the actions required to minimize infections.

Whether farmers are too sick to grow food, workers are too sick to distribute it, or gatherings of people in offices or public transport are restricted to minimize infection, the population will have a hard time getting food, or being able to pay for it.

The same practical issues of managing societies that have economic activity shut down apply to any highly contagious emerging disease: getting a vaccine for one doesn’t help you with another, while having a plan to deal with a cessation of economic activity to minimize infection helps with any dangerous microbial agent.

Do the politicians get this?  Probably not: or if they do, they aren’t letting on because they have no plans to manage such crises.  Do populations get this?  No: because they’d be demanding the planning details from the politicians.

Remember: it’s not a matter of if an emerging highly contagious disease goes through a nation, or even becomes a pandemic, it’s a matter of when.  Further, as any competent risk management expert will tell you, risk accounting uses accrual.  If you rate something as likely to happen once every 20 years, you cannot "reset the clock" every year: after 15 years, you’ve got to act as if the probability is approximately 1 in 5.

It’s time we started demanding and debating contingency plans, not just for H5N1, but for the general condition of highly-transmissible serious emergent disease.

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See Also:

• "Face up to socioeconomic toll of H5N1, experts urge" from University of Minnesota Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (2008-03-18), which mainly puts it in the context of starvation in the developing world.
   
• The US CDC (Centre for Disease Control), perhaps the world’s greatest “SWAT Team” for infectious diseases has a couple of good pages:
  • Pandemic
  • Avian Flu
  • OPLAN : CDC Influenza Pandemic Operation Plan
  • Public Response to Community Mitigation Measures for Pandemic Influenza
  • Influenza Pandemic Preparedness in Developing Countries
  • Emerging Infectious Diseases Feed
  • Avian Flu (H3N2) crosses into dogs which
    

    suggests potential for direct transmission of avian influenza virus (H3N2) from poultry to dogs." Our data provide evidence that dogs may play a role in interspecies transmission and spread of influenza virus.

• Bird Flu Breaking News Site (unknown affiliation, but pretty comprehensive)
   
• From Nature (THE journal in which to get published)
  • Nature Avian Flu Monitor and FAQs
  • Avian Flu RSS
  • "Should I stay or should I go?" (2008-01-31) which asks
    

    In the event of a pandemic, should we skip work to avoid infection, or risk going to work in order to keep up the nation’s productivity?