Nations of Swine Flu

Remember when news of H1N1 broke, and the news was all swine flu 24/7? How the righties were convinced it was all a scheme by Obama to indocrinate their kids in Hitler Youth Group Work Brigades? And if you listened to the experts (when they could get a word in edgewise), rather than the over-wrought anchors, they were saying this might not be bad, but it might be, and we should prepare for the worst? There's a fascinating, startling, and sobering report in The Guardian, which uses an interview / profile with Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), as a platform to discuss recent developments on the flu front.

...on 11 June 2009, she found herself the first WHO chief in 41 years to stand before the world and announce that a new virus had reached pandemic proportions. Right up until the last minute, scientists were calling her up and warning her to be careful about raising the threat alert so high — but the strict definition of "pandemic" is a new disease spreading uncontrollably through numerous countries, and on that count her decision has been completely borne out. On 11 June, swine flu had been registered in 74 countries; when we meet in Geneva four weeks later, it has just been confirmed in 140 countries.

(...)

Chan's war has arrived with a vengeance. A 2007 WHO report, A Safer Future, estimated that a flu pandemic could affect more than 1.5 bn people, or 25% of the world's population. Could swine flu be that big? "Quite likely. Quite likely. But it probably won't happen in one run. It will probably come back [in two or three waves]."

How does she expect it to compare to other pandemics? "In terms of the number of countries affected and the number of people infected, this has got to be the biggest."

Bigger than 1918? "If you're talking about mortality then it's different. 1918 is the biggest in terms of mortality. I would not like to make any predictions . . . I hope we don't see the 1918 picture. But we should expect to see more people infected, and more severe cases coming up, including deaths."

Swine flu is probably already much bigger than anyone knows. Ten days ago, only six countries in Africa had reported cases, but as Chan readily admits, this is rather misleading: until the WHO started sending out lab kits in early May, many developing countries had no means of testing for it. Furthermore, modelling suggests that swine flu has an attack rate of 30% — once it enters a country, the likelihood is 30% of citizens will catch it at some point.

As is pointed out in the above, the mortality rate with this flu has not been terribly bad... but as is implied, mutations can change that rate quickly. Also, I'm assuming that victims who get a mild case will develop a certain level of immunity to related, descendent, variations, which could hamper transmission if the current, relatively mild version continues to spread like wildfire over the summer. (Does anyone else remember a summer flu explosion like this? I sure don't) My take? This might not be bad, but it might be, and we should be ready for the worst.

But then, I'm no doctor or epidemiolgist. I just play one on teh innernetz. There might be something to the conspiracy theory too. It would certainly be easier to just blame Obama...