Epidemics And Pandemics

Fastly emerging as a global threat, Pandemic influenza is defined as a global outbreak of disease. The condition arises with the arousal of influenza A virus for which there is less or no immunity in the human population.

The conditions that favor Influenza Pandemic are emergence of influenza A virus in human population, the way it affects human beings, causing serious illness in people and lastly its disastrous human transmission.

The first case occurred in 1918, which took away the live of 40 million people worldwide out of which around 500,000 were from U.S. alone. It again occurred in 1957 leading to around 2 million deaths world over and the last instance happened in 1968 again taking around 2 million lives.

Once occurred its nearly impossible to stop the global transmission of Influenza Pandemic, its emergence can leave the entire world in a vulnerable position. The arrival of the virus can be delayed through measures such as border closures and travel restrictions but to stop it is something not possible.

The H5N1 strain of influenza has led to 66 deaths in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Cambodia since 2003. All the cases mentioned above got infected through direct exposure to sick or dead poultry the rate at which the virus is evolving can lead to its human transmission very soon.

A recent report reveals that around $ 750 million to $ 1 billion is required to fight the H5N1 virus in poultry alone and in preparing the world for the next human flu pandemic.

All these stats pinpoint to a single threat….are we really prepared for influenza pandemic?