One
thing becoming more apparent in this worrisome flu season is the need for a
universal flu vaccine.
The
world must develop a better flu vaccine that gives broader protection against
changing strains, a vaccine that you get only once or twice in your lifetime.
Medicines for many other diseases have those capabilities because governments
have committed the time and money needed to eradicate, or effectively control them.
The
flu is considered more of a seasonal nuisance that kills mainly those near the
end of life or those weakened by other health problems. So it doesn’t rate high
on government research spending priorities.
It
should because the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that influenza
seriously sickens three to five million people worldwide every year. World
deaths are estimated at 290,000 to 650,000 annually.
Current
flu vaccines are based on 1940s research and in terms of effectiveness have not
advanced much since then. Most years the flu vaccine is 40 to 60 per cent
effective; this year the effectiveness is only 10 to 30 per cent.
This
winter’s flu epidemic tells us why we need to take flu more seriously and
commit more money and effort to find a universal vaccine. Hospitalizations this
winter in the U.S. are double those of last year and Canadian confirmed cases
have surpassed 20,000 with 82 reported deaths.
The
main villain this winter is H3N2, a very nasty virus responsible for the
1968-69 Hong Kong flu pandemic that killed one million people around the globe.
More
disturbing is the fact that this year H3N2 is killing children and young
adults. By the end of last week 30 children in the U.S. had died and the numbers
were mounting daily. There have been several news reports of young, healthy and
physically fit adults getting the flu and dying quickly.
That
was the trademark of the most devastating flu outbreak in modern times – the
1918 pandemic. It killed an estimated 50 to 100 million people worldwide, many
young, healthy individuals.
Some
people believe that a pandemic as serious as 1918 cannot happen again. We have
flu vaccine now, even if it is not perfect, other spectacular medical advances
and much better health care systems. However, the world has four times more
people than in 1918, millions of them travelling between continents every day.
Flu
can spread with lightning speed through today’s world and vaccine manufacturing
and distribution are too slow to outrun an 1918-style pandemic.
As
Michael Osterholm, a globally respected infectious disease expert at the
University of Minnesota, wrote in the New York Times earlier this month:
“Deploying them (current vaccines) against a
severe global pandemic would be equivalent to trying to stop an advancing
battle tank with a single rifle.”
Osterholm
and other medical professors have said there will be global pandemics. The only
unknown is how serious they will be.
A
catastrophic flu outbreak could develop from a Chinese poultry flu virus named H7N9.
It has been restricted mainly to birds but has been mutating to allow
transmission to and between humans.
As
of last month the United Nations reported 1,623 cases of H7N9 in humans. Of
those infected, 620 died. That latter number is very scary. More than 38 per
cent of people infected by that flu virus died.
The
U.S. Center for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) says H7N9 is the influenza virus most likely to cause a
pandemic.
So far most human cases of the H7N9 have involved
persons who have touched live or dead poultry, poultry feces or contaminated
food.
Flu viruses are mutating constantly and if this one
changes enough to allow easy human-to-human transmission the world could be in
serious trouble.
That’s why governments need to spend more to
accelerate the quest for a universal vaccine.
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
No comments:
Post a Comment