Avian flu: Although only 19 people worldwide have died from bird flu, a pandemic remains a serious threat. So how prepared are we? Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports
The Republic is soon to begin stockpiling drugs to be ready to treat those who fall victim to the the next influenza pandemic, it has emerged.
While nobody knows when the next pandemic will occur, medical experts agree the recent outbreak of bird flu in south east Asia and an outbreak among chickens in Delaware, US, in recent days has heightened awareness around the world of the need to be prepared for - not if, but when - the next pandemic arrives.
A total of 19 people have died from the illness affecting Asian poultry. All confirmed human infections and deaths from the H5N1 bird flu have been registered in Vietnam and Thailand. The virus has so far jumped only from poultry to humans.
Health experts are worried that if the virus mixes with a regular human influenza strain, it might create a mutant form capable of passing between humans, triggering a human flu pandemic.
The co-ordinator of the World Health Organisation's Global Outbreak, Alert and Response network, Dr Mike Ryan, says there is no need for people to panic but there is a need for countries to prepare for the next pandemic. He has advised them to "dust off" their pandemic plans and be prepared.
In the Republic, that plan was prepared in 2001 and is now being reviewed and updated by a Department of Health appointed committee called the the National Influenza Pandemic Expert Group. The chairman of the group, Prof Bill Hall, who is director of the national virus reference laboratory based at UCD, said the review will take into account the fact that certain medicines not available to treat influenza in 2001 were now available.
"We are very well prepared. We are just fine-tuning the plan now. The most serious limitation for us in handling a pandemic would be the lack of a vaccination to counteract it. If a pandemic occurs, it means there is a new virus that has never been seen before so there is no immunity to it in the population.
"We get flu every year and while the virus changes from year to year there is still some residual immunity to it in the population. But with a pandemic, we have no protection and it could take at least 15 months to develop a vaccine," he said.
Another difficulty, Prof Hall said, would be getting a vaccine once it is produced, given the demand which would be on supplies. "It's going to be difficult to get it as we are not a vaccine producing nation, so we might be down the list a bit in terms of priority."
When a pandemic will occur is unpredictable. Prof Hall stresses it could be mild or serious, but is more likely to be serious. "Overall it's safe enough to say that because we have never been exposed to the virus before, it's likely to be quite serious," he said.
According to our influenza pandemic plan: "An influenza pandemic would result in a global health and economic crisis, the scale and impact of which would be greater than either of the two world wars fought in the previous century."
Since the last pandemic, global travel has increased significantly and this means a new virus in China could be in Europe within 36 hours. Not everyone is happy with our level of preparedness, however. Public health specialist Dr Joe Barry stresses that our plans are based on the assumption that the Republic has a structured and well-funded out of hours public health and surveillance system, but it does not.
This has been a bone of contention since the 10-week strike by public health doctors last year. Until this is sorted, the country will not be prepared for a flu pandemic, the IMO president said. However, Dr Barry also said the Department of Health was due to present the IMO with plans for the introduction of a round-the-clock service by tomorrow, in advance of a meeting between the IMO and Department of Health officials on Friday.