Sally Furniss
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Doctors Risk Becoming Complacent Over Bird Flu, U.K. Study Says
By Jason Gale
June 5 (Bloomberg) -- Doctors are becoming complacent about the threat of a pandemic sparked by bird flu, according to a survey that showed less than half of European physicians believed a global outbreak would occur in the next few years.
Most of the 161 doctors questioned at a recent conference in the U.K. thought a pandemic this decade was ``possible'' and 9.9 percent said it was ``unlikely'' or ``very unlikely,'' according to a study published today in the British journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
The spread of the H5N1 avian influenza strain to 59 countries the past four years has brought the world closer to another pandemic than at any time since 1968, when the last of the previous century's three major outbreaks occurred, world health experts say. While H5N1 has killed millions of poultry, fewer than 200 people are known to have died from the virus, which isn't easily transmitted between people.
``All of us, including doctors, are potentially able to be complacent about these things, and that's dangerous if we then don't plan for the future,'' said Nigel Curtis, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Melbourne and a co- author of the study. ``There is probably a bit of pandemic flu fatigue.''
The World Health Organization has kept its six-level system of pandemic alert at 3 for more than a year, signaling that ``a new influenza virus subtype is causing disease in humans, but isn't yet spreading efficiently and sustainably among humans.''
H5N1 infected 309 people in a dozen countries since late 2003, according to the Geneva-based United Nations health agency. About 60 percent of cases were fatal. A pandemic won't occur until a new virus emerges and starts spreading as easily as seasonal flu.
Pandemic Fatigue
``Just like the public, doctors have heard about it for so long and yet it doesn't seem to eventuate,'' Curtis said in a telephone interview from Melbourne yesterday. ``The incorrect conclusion people draw from that is that maybe it's never going to happen, whereas history tells us that there is an inevitability of a pandemic at some point, it's just a question of when, where and how large.''
The survey, conducted at Oxford University, asked participants to answer questions on avian flu using an anonymous electronic voting system.
Five of 29 doctors undertaking specialist training in infectious diseases said that they had a personal supply of Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu drug.
Most pharmacies have stopped dispensing the antiviral medicine to allow the WHO and governments to build stockpiles that can be used to help fight a potential pandemic.
``There is clear information that we shouldn't be stockpiling Tamiflu for personal use,'' Curtis said. ``The limited supply should be used in a rational way.''
To contact the reporter for this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net
By Jason Gale
June 5 (Bloomberg) -- Doctors are becoming complacent about the threat of a pandemic sparked by bird flu, according to a survey that showed less than half of European physicians believed a global outbreak would occur in the next few years.
Most of the 161 doctors questioned at a recent conference in the U.K. thought a pandemic this decade was ``possible'' and 9.9 percent said it was ``unlikely'' or ``very unlikely,'' according to a study published today in the British journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
The spread of the H5N1 avian influenza strain to 59 countries the past four years has brought the world closer to another pandemic than at any time since 1968, when the last of the previous century's three major outbreaks occurred, world health experts say. While H5N1 has killed millions of poultry, fewer than 200 people are known to have died from the virus, which isn't easily transmitted between people.
``All of us, including doctors, are potentially able to be complacent about these things, and that's dangerous if we then don't plan for the future,'' said Nigel Curtis, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Melbourne and a co- author of the study. ``There is probably a bit of pandemic flu fatigue.''
The World Health Organization has kept its six-level system of pandemic alert at 3 for more than a year, signaling that ``a new influenza virus subtype is causing disease in humans, but isn't yet spreading efficiently and sustainably among humans.''
H5N1 infected 309 people in a dozen countries since late 2003, according to the Geneva-based United Nations health agency. About 60 percent of cases were fatal. A pandemic won't occur until a new virus emerges and starts spreading as easily as seasonal flu.
Pandemic Fatigue
``Just like the public, doctors have heard about it for so long and yet it doesn't seem to eventuate,'' Curtis said in a telephone interview from Melbourne yesterday. ``The incorrect conclusion people draw from that is that maybe it's never going to happen, whereas history tells us that there is an inevitability of a pandemic at some point, it's just a question of when, where and how large.''
The survey, conducted at Oxford University, asked participants to answer questions on avian flu using an anonymous electronic voting system.
Five of 29 doctors undertaking specialist training in infectious diseases said that they had a personal supply of Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu drug.
Most pharmacies have stopped dispensing the antiviral medicine to allow the WHO and governments to build stockpiles that can be used to help fight a potential pandemic.
``There is clear information that we shouldn't be stockpiling Tamiflu for personal use,'' Curtis said. ``The limited supply should be used in a rational way.''
To contact the reporter for this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net
