I cast my vote at 100%. For those of you who do not know me, I have been following the H5N1 virus since it first erupted in humans in 1996. I was at a university at that time taking a course in medical geography. Each of us was to focus on one disease and be able to give a 1/2 hour presentation and write a thesis. I chose the pandemic of 1918. A very auspicious choice, although at the time of my choice bf was still unknown. I have been earnestly following its progress ever since. What I see is a disease that was at first geographically extremely limited. From the beginning the disease had the limited ability to infect humans and cause death within days, despite excellent early medical care. Because this disease first infected humans in Hong Kong, the local authorities quickly and decisively eradicated every potential vector within a few weeks. Obviously, although they did their best the disease still lingered in the wild bird population. Over the intervening years we have seen human cases grow from none, to less than 5 a year, to now, when we see cases at a rate greater than one/two a week. And more ominously, the outbreaks have primarily been in a part of the world that does not have the capability of finding and exterminating the vectors. Neither does it have a firm grasp on how many have actually died from the disease because it is frequently diagnosed as death from another cause. But there are even more reasons to be concerned.
The W.H.O. has its eyes turned away from infectious diseases at the moment. Everyone is wondering who the next leader will be. And exacerbating this problem is the end of the tenure of Kofi Annan in November. A turnover in the leadership of the U.N. will also leave the W.H.O. rudderless for a while. Meanwhile, Indonesia has decided that all this talk of bf will damage its economy and limit tourism. Couple that with journalists who may not be as professional as we might hope. In other words the dark continent may now actually be a long archipelago in South East Asia.
The last factors that needs to addressed are the virus itself and periodicity. The virus has already shown a penchant for wanting to inhabit a new host...us. When the case load starts to include clustering we should all sit up and take notice. And finally, the virus has shown itself to move through the human population with a fairly strong indication of periodicity. This should not surprise anyone. Over time a new/old strain will again infect birds. Scientists suspect the virus lingers in ice only to erupt again when all of the old antibodies to it have disappeared. As this new strain moves through the bird population, it occasionally has the ability to infect humans and other mammals. H5N1 seems to meet all the criteria. It has now spread to a large geographical base, can infect humans with greater ease and lies waiting in a part of the world we cannot view under a magnifying glass and, the number of patients has grown to the point that it is simply a matter of time before the odds have increased to the point where the dice will come up snake-eyes as it rearranges itself after each replication.
