Are You Prepared For an Influenza Pandemic? · 9:35am Apr 4th, 2015
Given the news in regards to the current avian flu outbreak in Egypt, I would like to take a moment to address something I find very serious. Over the past few months, Egypt has been experiencing the worst outbreak of H5N1 ever witnessed in such a short period of time. As of March, 2015 became the year with the highest number of avian flu infections on record, even surpassing 2006, the year bird flu swept the media. To put this into perspective, in only three months H5N1 has infected more people than all of the other previous years, when bird flu was at it's peak. This should be a clear wake up call that what is happening in Egypt is very serious.
Another issue is that in 2012 an experiment was conducted to see which mutations would be needed for human-to-human transmission capable of starting a pandemic. They were able to narrow it down to only five. Some of the strains currently circulating in Egypt already have 2/5 of those mutations. It was also discovered that these remaining mutations could all occur at once in a single host. This means all it could take is one more infection, and suddenly H5N1 has the ability to cause a global pandemic.
There is however some good news; the strain in Egypt has a mortality rate around 35% compared to the typical 60%. That being said, a pandemic with a mortality rate of 35% has the potential to kill 10% of the world population or more, assuming roughly 30% of the world population is infected. That's one in every ten people on Earth.
To put it bluntly, every new infection is like rolling the dice, and eventually we will have a game changer if things don't let up. If this strain does eventually go pandemic, we could see a natural disaster some have equated to a "hurricane Katrina hitting every city at once." The possibility for a pandemic is not a possibility; it's a certainty, but when and how severe the disease will be is unknown. That being said, given H5N1's track record, it is not something we should take lightly.
I have spent years researching these viruses and pandemic influenza; everything from virology to social and government response. I put as much of that knowledge as I could into a condensed powerpoint, which I hope you will take a look at. It may seem farfetched at times, and I hope it is, but all of it is based on facts from both government plans and health official's.
Here's the powerpoint: Pandemic Influenza
Here are a few other sources regarding the current situation in Egypt.
Latest WHO case charts: World Health Organization link
I'm prepared.