TREATMENT

Treatment is another option if vaccines fail. An Oxford research team studied the H5N1 virus in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Its study suggests that immediate treatment with antiviral drugs is crucial because the H5N1 virus reproduces so quickly that, if not suppressed within the first 48 hours, it tends to push victims to death. “The paradigm ‘hit hard and hit early’ probably is very true for H5N1”, said Menno de Jong. who leads the research.

However, similar questions with the vaccine issue emerge. Where are the anti-viral drugs? How would they be distributed in a pandemic? WHO warned the world of the possible pandemic three years ago, and urged every country to make emergency plans and stockpile drugs. But most antiviral manufacturers are in western Europe, and international donations may reduce sharply in case of an actual pandemic. It will be the developing countries that will not be able to get sufficient vaccines and antiviral drugs.

LOOKING AHEAD

Fortunately, the global influenza pandemic is still a possibility, instead of a reality. There is no evidence that the H5N1 virus has mutated into a form that could pass easily among humans. In the meantime, alarm bells are again sounding for the developing world. A study published in the renowned British medical journal ‘Lancet’ at the end of 2006 says that an influenza pandemic of the 1918 type would kill 62 million people today, with 96 percent of deaths occurring in developing countries. These findings do not surprise WHO’s key influenza expert Keiji Fukuda: “The countries most likely to be adversely affected are the ones with the least resources. This happened then, and is what is likely to happen now.”

(*Zhu Yan < http://blog.cctv.com/zhuyan> wrote this article under the Imaging Our Mekong media fellowship programme which is coordinated by IPS Asia-Pacific and Probe Media Foundation Inc, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation. This story was published by ‘Nanfengchuang’ magazine in its Feb. 1, 2007 issue. Zhu Yan translated this article from his Chinese version.)

Editor:Du Xiaodan