We Need More Time
The consensus of public health officials is that a pandemic is inevitable. The only question is when.
This is not a new conclusion. They’ve known it for a long time. But now, with the H5N1 virus spreading, and mutations appearing that make it more likely to become a H2H (human to human) transmissible disease, many scientists believe we are dangerously close to a global catastrophe.
In the past six months, governments and big business have started to take notice. After years of neglect, some of it bordering on criminal, they are beginning to face up to the grim reality of what would happen if another pandemic swept the globe.
In the past 30 years, we have all but destroyed our domestic ability to produce vaccines. Nearly all of it is produced overseas. The technology we use is more than 50 years old, and is slow and cumbersome. While in 1976, we had the ability to produce enough vaccine to inoculate the entire country in a little less than 8 months; today we can’t even produce enough to handle the seasonal flu.
Part of this is due to litigation in this country. Vaccines have sometimes caused side effects, and the liability costs make vaccine manufacturing a risky business. That, combined with the low price our government is willing to pay for vaccines, has driven most manufacturers to more lucrative ventures.
We are hearing these past few weeks about advancements in vaccines, and promises of a `magic bullet’ against H5N1. Happy talk, for the most part, as even the most optimistic assessment is a year for clinical trials, and if successful, our capacity for production is about 300 million doses a year. With 6 billion people on this planet, 300 million doses won’t go very far.
And of course, the avian flu virus is mutating constantly. We now know there are at least 4 distinct versions of it, and any one (or all) of them could mutate into a pandemic strain. How much immunity a vaccine made from today’s strain would confer on a mutated virus a year from now is unknown, but it is unlikely to be much.
Our hospitals are slowly admitting that they are simply unprepared to handle a pandemic. Most flu victims, they admit, will simply have to stay home. The number of respirators available is laughably small. Their supplies of anti-viral medication, masks, and gloves would be exhausted within the first few days of a pandemic. After that, hospital staff would have to choose between reporting for work and working without protection, or staying home and probably staying alive.
One estimate recently given was that a hospital with 600 beds would require 1.6 million disposal masks to handle a 6 week epidemic. And that assumes that the rules for infection control were relaxed.
Masks, of course, are not manufactured in this country. And the demand worldwide would preclude anywhere near enough being manufactured for, or shipped to, U.S. hospitals.
A large percentage of hospital staff has already expressed doubts that they would even show up for work during a pandemic. They know the protective measures will not be there for them, and without them, reporting to work would be fluicidal.
Corporate America is no better prepared. Absenteeism could run 50% or more. Some will be stricken by the flu, while others will simply feel going to work is too risky.
Non-essential businesses, such as restaurants, movie theatres, shopping malls, and any place where people can gather and spread the disease, will be closed by government mandate. Schools will close early, and stay closed for the duration.
The hit the economy will take from all of this will be dramatic. A pandemic could last months.
Insurance companies are sweating bullets. Imagine what happens if 1 million healthy young adults in this country die over a course of a couple of months.
And there is real concern over public utilities. Who will run the power plants, water treatment systems, and sewage systems during a pandemic?
It is too much to hope that a pandemic never comes. But we need to pray that it doesn’t happen this year or next. And we’d better seriously start tackling the deficits in our infrastructure now, because time and flu wait for no man.
