Apparently, it will take the death of someone outside Mexico for officials around the world to begin taking the swine flu pandemic threat seriously.
The slow response across the globe is puzzling, given that the illness has been blamed for 152 deaths in Mexico and given the near hysteria caused by the bird flu and SARS outbreaks in the past dozen years.
“I fully expect we will see deaths from this infection,” says Dr. Richard Besser, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Yet, this morning on the Today show, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano basically said there was nothing that could be done about swine flu crossing the border from Mexico into the U.S. World Health Organization officials have said airport screenings like those being done at Asian airports can’t stop the illness from spreading. It’s interesting to note, however, that so far the only confirmed cases of swine flu in Asia are in Israel.
Russia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan said they would quarantine visitors showing signs of the virus. In Japan, doctors and nurses checked people aboard flights arriving from Mexico. Asians remember well the 2003 SARS epidemic and want to avoid a repeat performance.
Little is being done in this country to try to contain the outbreak. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did declare a state of emergency today as officials tried to determine whether a death in Los Angeles County was due to the flu. Elsewhere, however, officials seemed more concerned about creating panic rather than fighting the outbreak. Schools remained open even in affected areas and no one was talking about suspending large public gatherings, as has been done in Mexico.
Why worry about swine flu?
So what’s the big deal about the swine flu? After all, about 36,000 people die in this country every year from the flu. The CDC says more than 13,000 people have died in the U.S. this year from complications caused by the run-of-the-mill seasonal flu.
The difference is that this flu jumped from animal to human, and therefore the human body doesn’t have the sort of natural defenses against it that it has with normal flu strains. Thus, the risk of the flu developing into a serious respiratory illness like pneumonia is greater.
It’s still unclear just how virulent this flu strain is. I don’t expect we’re going to be seeing huge numbers of deaths from swine flu in this country. It appears most people respond well to treatment with antiviral drugs and with the media coverage it has received, I’m guessing most people will err on the side of caution and go to the doctor early with any flu-like symptoms.
But I am concerned about what the slow response to the swine flu might mean if we’re faced with something that’s potentially much deadlier and more contagious in the future. The WHO has been slow to raise its pandemic alert levels on the swine flu. It’s still at Phase Four, two steps short of declaring a full pandemic. However, it appears the virus has been spread by human-to-human transmission in two different countries – Mexico and the United States – which should fit the WHO’s criteria for a Phase Five alert. The WHO also has said it’s not feasible to contain the outbreak, which begs the question: What good is this phase alert system?
Some Western countries, the UK and France in particular, appear well prepared to respond to any new influenza outbreak. They have huge stockpiles of antiviral drugs and have tested their response systems.
On the other hand, it’s pretty clear Mexico was not well prepared. And as this outbreak shows us, it only takes one weak link in the chain for it to break.
