June 11, 2009
Is it time to worry?
The Wall Street Journal just issued this news alert:
The World Health Organization has told its member nations it is declaring an H1N1 flu pandemic -- raising the pandemic alert level from phase 5 to 6 and marking the first global flu epidemic in 41 years. The move came Thursday as infections climbed in the U.S., Europe, Australia, South America and elsewhere.
The linked article notes:
The pandemic declaration will require all countries, including the dozens that haven't yet reported any cases, to launch pandemic-prevention plans.
Peter Cordingley, a spokesman for the WHO based in Manila, noted that the term pandemic was "a measure of the spread of the virus, not the severity of the virus." The virus's effects are moderate at the moment, he noted. "But it's still going to infect an awful lot of people."
Just over half the world's confirmed H1N1 cases, or 13,217, are in the U.S., including 27 deaths, according to the WHO.
The numbers don't seem huge, and the fatalities have been few, leading many to question the need for global hypochondriasis, but here's the thing about viruses: they mutate. And history shows that devastating plagues -- pandemics -- have sometimes been preceded by large outbreaks of more benign versions of the bug, seemingly innocuous head- or chest-colds that cause only minor discomfort.
Until the virus involved mutated for reasons unknown, going from cute-and cuddly rhinovirus knock-off to a microscopic cross between a Polar Bear and a T-Rex.
What, me worry?
Posted by Mike Lief at June 11, 2009 07:37 AM
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