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Pandemic Update: Prince Philip's Flu is on the March

Laurence Hecht, Editor-in-chief, 21st Century Science & Technology

June 26, 2009 (LPAC)—The H1N1 (swine flu) virus has stepped up its deadly march, showing no respect for national boundaries, wealth, or power. Not even London has escaped. Sane warnings coming from some locations are mixed with continued inaction or insufficient preparation elsewhere, while large parts of the globe are so economically disabled as to be unable to respond, no matter what their wishes.

The most shocking development of the past 24 hours was the shutdown of the Philippines House of Representatives, following the death from swine flu of a 49-year-old staff member. The woman fell extremely ill on June 18, and died the next day. The Speaker of the House ordered the suspension of office work for three days to allow sanitation of the buildings in the complex.

A World Health Organization medical officer warned that the flu is continuing to spread in Asia, and that the Philippines may become the first country in the region to see a pandemic. Meanwhile, the Malaysian Health Ministry has suspended leave for 100,000 medical officers and staff, in view of the H1N1 emergency.

In the Southern Hemisphere, where the first day of winter just occurred, 11 more people died in Argentina over a 48-hour period, bringing the total deaths from H1N1 to 21. In Chile, death number 8 was just announced—a 22-year-old dental student.

Meanwhile, at a conference in Paris today, the director of France's National Institute for Health Surveillance noted the similarities of this pandemic to the 1918 flu, which killed between 50 and 100 million worldwide. From information available to him, he said that the influenza deaths are tending to appear in the 20- to 30-year age group rather than primarily in the elderly, who are the usual victims of a seasonal flu. The virus causes bronchial irritation, creating the conditions for severe bacterial pneumonia and death through suffocation. In 1918, no antibiotics existed to fight such a bacterial infection, but today the flu's deadliness is unexplained. The French specialist, Prof. Claude Desenclos, also noted that the World Health Organization is not sharing the important information that is needed about severe cases.

Calls for Vaccination

In the way of sane preparations, Sweden is preparing to vaccinate its population twice. Sweden, which no longer has its own vaccine production capabilities, has ordered 18 million doses, enough to cover the entire population twice, to be delivered in two batches from United Kingdom producer GlaxoSmithKline. The hope is to protect the population in the early stages and at a later stage of evolution of the flu virus. (But, would you place your population's survival in the hands of the British?)

France is also preparing universal vaccination of its population against the flu, at the same time that leading experts have escalated calls for a catch-up campaign of vaccination against a number of other deadly infectious diseases.

While every effort should be made to step up flu vaccine production, the ugly reality is, that even a worldwide gear-up for mass vaccination may not be enough to halt this pandemic, should changes in the viral genome cause it to turn more deadly. Under generalized pandemic conditions, vaccinations, which must be prepared months in advance, may prove ineffective against a rapidly mutating and reassorting virus. The reduced conditions of nutrition and general immune levels of the world population have produced a breeding ground for influenza, and all manner of other pandemic diseases. Add to that the fact, that, at best, 20 percent of the world population could be protected by presently existing vaccine manufacturing facilities, and you see that the present virus might better become popularly known as the Greenspan flu. (Not all pigs, but certain ones in particular, should be singled out for blame.)

British Caught

In Great Britain, attempts to minimize or ignore the seriousness of the flu danger were called up short today, as the London Times, newspaper of record, was forced to acknowledge that parts of Britain now have so many cases of swine flu that it cannot be contained. Not surprisingly, Britain had been playing the leading role in the world in stalling and obstructing efforts to fight the flu. A month ago, at the annual conference of the World Health Organization, Britain had demanded that the WHO not declare a Level 6 pandemic alert, stalling mobilization against the pandemic. Next, the British government was caught seriously under-reporting the number of H1N1 cases, and faced serious criticism from France and the WHO Director-General Margaret Chan. British Health Secretary Andy Burnham had also been under fire from the Scottish Health Minister, Nicola Sturgeon. Facing a spreading pandemic in Glasgow, Sturgeon said Scotland would break from the containment-only policy and pursue active measures to halt the spread of the flu.

Today's admission by the Times of London might evoke, for some, images of Edgar Allan Poe's classic treatment of the black plague. Not even blue blood will halt the contagion of which the current rapid and unseasonal spread of the H1N1 virus is a harbinger. Prince Philip has often boasted of his desire to be reincarnated as a deadly virus, in order to solve what he regards as the world population problem. Can anyone say that the flu virus shall not come to visit him, before he goes to it?


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