PREPAREDNESS FOR BUSINESSES AND HOMES
Pandemic Flu
Q. What is pandemic flu?
Flu that spreads rapidly causing
widespread epidemics around the world. Pandemic
flu occurs when a new, highly infectious and dangerous strain of the
flu virus appears.
In contrast to the 'ordinary' or 'seasonal', flu outbreaks
which we see every winter, flu pandemics occur infrequently - usually every few
decades. There were three in the last century. The most serious was in 1918, killing
millions of people worldwide. Smaller pandemics happened in 1957 and 1968.
Q. What is the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic?
A pandemic occurs over large geographical areas (usually
worldwide) and affects a high proportion of the population; an epidemic,
although it may be serious, usually refers to what is happening in one country
or region.
Q. Is another pandemic of flu likely?
Flu viruses are constantly changing and adapting, so it is
likely that viruses sufficiently different from 'ordinary' flu strains to cause
a pandemic will emerge from time to time. International disease experts are
saying that the world is overdue for the next pandemic.
Q. When is the next pandemic due?
We do not know - it can't be predicted. The gaps between
previous pandemics have varied widely. Intervals between previous pandemics
have varied from 11 to 42 years with no recognisable pattern. Three flu
pandemics occurred in the last century - 1918/19 (Spanish flu), 1957/58 (Asian
flu) and 1968/69 (Hong Kong flu). All affected large numbers of the population, causing many deaths and huge economic and
social disruption.
|
PANDEMICS DURING THE LAST CENTURY |
|||
|
Years |
1918-1919 |
1957-1958 |
1968-1969 |
|
Flu
type |
Spanish Flu |
Asian Flu |
|
|
Likely
origin |
Unknown (The first cases were in Europe and |
|
|
|
Estimated
deaths Worldwide |
50Million |
1 Million |
1 Million |
Q. Where is the new virus likely to come from?
Past experience suggests that it will first appear in Asia, but it could be anywhere.
Q. Will it arrive in winter like normal flu?
Not necessarily. A new virus may not follow the usual
seasonal pattern of ordinary flu. It could occur at any time of the year.
Q. How long will it take to spread around the world?
Probably less than six months and
possibly just a few weeks. The increasing speed and volume of modern travel means infectious diseases can travel very rapidly round
the globe.
Q. How is the virus spread?
The virus is easily passed from person to person by
breathing in air containing the virus produced when an infected person talks,
coughs or sneezes. It can also spread through hand/face contact after touching
a person or surface contaminated with the virus.
Q. How will a new virus be detected?
Scientists in an international network of laboratories,
co-ordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) are watching for it all the
time. This network provides a mechanism for monitoring flu viruses and avian flu information around the
world, detecting the emergence of flu viruses with pandemic potential,
and alerting other countries.
Q. How will we know when a pandemic is possible?
When a new strain of flu virus has not only been
identified but also causing illness and has started spreading from one person to another.
Q. Can't it be prevented at this stage?
International effort will be put to trying to control a
pandemic at this early stage. However, flu is highly infectious and
because whole populations will be susceptible to the new virus, despite
people's best efforts it is likely to continue to spread.
Q. What will make a pandemic more likely to happen?
A pandemic will be considered imminent when a new virus has
shown it can spread easily between people. In practice, this means when a new
strain of the virus has been identified as the cause of chains of illness
passed from one person to another or illness in more than one country, with no
obvious links.
Q. What can we expect to happen?
Once the pandemic reaches your Country it will take a few
weeks to take hold, but it will then cause widespread illness across the
country over a period of 2-3 months. There may be a second wave of illness a
few weeks or months later. Previous experience suggests around a quarter of the
population will develop flu during this time.
Q. How many people are likely to catch flu during the pandemic?
From past experience, up to a quarter of the population are
likely to develop flu, although it could be more. More than this may be
infected without getting symptoms (sub-clinical infection).
Q. Could everyone become ill?
Everyone will be susceptible, but in the past as many people
as become ill shake off the infection without developing illness (asymptomatic
infection).
Q. How predictable will the effects of a pandemic be?
Every pandemic is different so we cannot be sure how a new
pandemic will behave. But we can make sensible plans for what we think is most likely, based on previous
experience and our knowledge of how the world has changes since the last
pandemic in 1968.
Q. How will this impact on health services?
A flu pandemic will, therefore, place considerable pressure
on health and social services due to the greatly increased number of patients
with flu who will require treatment together with depletion of the
workforce due to illness.
Q. How will this impact on business?
Each pandemic is different and the impact on business cannot
be fully established until more is known about how a pandemic is evolving.
Absences from work will depend largely on the age group most affected by the
virus. Previous pandemics suggest that up to 10% or more of the population may
have to take days of work. Absence may be compounded by the need for some
workers to care for family members, and any disruption to transport services.
Q. Will schools be affected?
Pandemic flu is likely to spread rapidly in schools, so they
may have to close. Some may also have to close for short periods because of staff
shortages. This, in turn, will affect working parents who may need to stay at
home to care for their children. Closing schools will, therefore, have an
impact on business continuity and the maintenance of essential services.
Decisions such as whether to close schools as a measure to try to slow the
spread of the pandemic will be taken at the time.
Q. Will other sectors of the community be affected?
Pandemic flu will impact on al services including health,
police, fire, the military, fuel supply, food preparation, distribution and
transport, prisons, education and business. Al are likely to be affected by
staff sickness, travel restrictions and other potentially restrictive
countermeasures, and by the knock-on effects of reduced transport, deliveries
etc.
Q. Will people be prevented from travelling?
At the start of a pandemic people are likely to be advised not
to travel to affected areas or attend international gatherings such as large conferences
and sports events. Later, depending on how the disease develops, measures may
have to be taken to restrict people's movements to prevent or delay further
spread of the disease.
Q. Will the health services be able to cope with so many patients all at
once?
There will certainly be greatly increased pressure on the
health services, which is used to planning for such emergencies. A flu pandemic
is one of the more serious crises which the health services plan for.
Q. Who is at risk?
Everyone is at risk during a flu pandemic, as no one will
have immunity to the virus. Older people and those with chronic health problems
may be at greater risk of severe complication like pneumonia but until the
virus starts circulating it is not possible to know for sure who is at greatest
risk.
Q. What are the differences between pandemic flu and ordinary
flu?
Ordinary flu is the flu that circulates in the human
population al the time and produces the winter flu we see every year. Ordinary
flu viruses are monitored closely. The strains likely to be circulating each year can be fairly reliably
predicted so that appropriate vaccines can be prepared each year.
Pandemic flu is caused by a new or novel strain of flu
virus. One way that this could happen is as a result of an avian flu virus and
ordinary flu virus mixing their genes to produce a "human bird flu" virus that can spread
between people. Because it is new, no one has any protection against it and
until it is identified, a vaccine cannot be developed against it. It can
therefore spread very rapidly and cause high rates of illness and death. See
the table on page 7 for a summary of many of the differences between ordinary
and pandemic flu.
Q. How many people are likely to die?
This will depend on factors such as how virulent the virus
proves to be, which age groups are mainly affected, and how much vaccine is
available. According to recent estimates, 25% of the population could fall ill.
It is estimated that a pandemic could lead to several million deaths worldwide.
Q. How long will the pandemic last?
It is estimated that pandemic flu will be widespread within
about ten weeks of its first arriving in a Country, and will last for about
three months. There may be a second wave of infection a few months later. These
times are estimates, and may change.
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| 05/15/2008 04:00 PM |
| Detection Of Mortality Clusters Associated With Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza In Poultry: A Theoretical Analysis |
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Rapid detection of infectious disease outbreaks is often crucial for their effective control. One example is highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) such as H5N1 in commercial poultry flocks. There is no quantitative data, however, on how quickly the effects of HPAI infection in poultry flocks can be detected. Here, we study, using an individual-based mathematical model, time to detection in chicken flocks.
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| 05/05/2008 07:00 PM |
| Learning From The Influenza Virus' Tricks |
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Influenza is currently a grave concern for governments and health organisations around the world. The worry is the potential for highly virulent bird flu strains, such as H5N1, to develop the ability to infect humans easily. New drugs and vaccines to halt the spread of the virus are badly needed.
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| 04/26/2008 01:00 AM |
| Indonesia Runs Large Scale Bird Flu Drill |
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Indonesia is running a large scale drill simulating an outbreak of human to human bird flu that involves thousands of villagers, health workers and government officials, rehearsing for a potential pandemic. The drill started today, Friday 25th April, and is scheduled to run for three days.
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| 04/25/2008 04:00 PM |
| Heading Off A Bird-Flu Pandemic: We Need Broadly Protective Vaccines That Can Be Rapidly Produced And Administered |
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Widespread vaccination likely will be the cornerstone of public-health measures for controlling an H5N1 bird-flu pandemic, say Andrea Gambotto, M.D., assistant professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and his colleagues, in this week's edition of The Lancet. However, any vaccines must be broadly protective and rapidly producible to be effective against H5N1, which is devastating in humans, the authors write in a journal Seminar.
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| 04/18/2008 08:00 PM |
| Identification Of The Common Mechanism Underlying Acute Respiratory Disease Syndrome May Lead To New Strategies Against Bird Flu |
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The Spanish flu outbreak of 1918 killed between 30 and 50 million people. In the infected patients, the ultimate cause of death was acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). This fatal condition is a massive reaction of the body during which the lung becomes severely damaged. ARDS can be induced by various bacterial and viral infections, but also by chemical agents. These could be toxic gases that are inhaled or gastric acid when aspirated.
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| 04/18/2008 06:00 PM |
| New Vaccine May Give Long-term Defense Against Deadly Bird Flu And Its Variant Forms |
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A new vaccine under development may provide protection against highly pathogenic bird flu and its evolving forms, according to researchers at Purdue University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who discovered the new preventative drug and have tested it in mice.
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